Good Food Box Program
Since 1996 the Good Food Box is a simple way of improving access to fresh, nutritious food while building community and social supports.
In Owen Sound, individuals and families pay $12 a month for a large, varied box of fresh fruit and vegetables purchased from wholesalers and local growers.
Volunteers pack the boxes on the fourth Tuesday of every month at Central Westside Church, and then enjoy lunch together.
Customers pick up their boxes in the afternoon, and those with transportation difficulties can have their boxes delivered for $3 per box. Each box contains a newsletter with nutrition information, recipes and community news.
Access to appropriate, affordable, nutritious, safe food is called “food security”. That would seem like a given in our community, but there are lots of reasons why people don’t get the food they need. Some are financial, but there are others. For some, transportation is a challenge – produce is heavy and the stores are far from their homes. For some, mental or physical health is a challenge – making appropriate choices, being in big open stores, carrying the weight, cutting the vegetables. And for some, the only challenge is knowing how to choose, store and cook appropriate choices.
The Good Food Box has a great core of customers and volunteers, but we’d like to offer more to the community. We’d like to bring together some community partners – Public Health, seniors, churches, Community Living, mental health and low-income advocates, politicians, the disabled – to talk about ways we can better meet the food security needs of Bruce/Grey.
What are the possibilities? That will be for the group to imagine, but they might include
· Community Kitchens
· Specialized Good Food Boxes - “Reach for 5” including pre-cut veggies for seniors and the disabled; School Lunch Box, Cancer Recovery box
· Community Gardens
· Communal Meals
· Incubator kitchen for other food-based community projects
The Good Food Box is a model that works. We would love to be the catalyst for positive growth in our community. We receive generous gifts of time, space and photo-copying from Central Westside United Church, but everything else is paid for out of the $12 customers pay for their food each month, and $250 – 300 per year from Public Health.
Where is the Good Food Box Available in Grey-Bruce? The Good Food Box program is currently available in Cape Croker, Hanover, Kincardine, Lucknow, Markdale, Meaford , Owen Sound, Port Elgin, Saugeen First Nation, Tara, Teeswater, Thornbury,Walkerton and Wiarton.
For more info or to participate in the Owen Sound Good Food Box contact Anne Finlay-Stewart at 519.371.6642 or rhymeswithorange@sympatico.ca .
For a local contact in other towns contact kforsyth@publichealthgreybruce.on.ca .
Anne Finlay-Stewart , Coordinator, Owen Sound Good Food Box
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On a somewhat related subject, this just in from the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario.
The CFFO Commentary
Title: Local Food Claims a Victory
By John Clement
September 22, 2006
The Local Food Movement has been slowly growing and developing for several years. In general, it’s built on the premise that local food offers one of the best ways of ensuring the sustainable development of local economies and for promoting seasonal produce grown in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.
A good deal of the discussion in Ontario on local food has been spearheaded by groups like the Toronto Food Policy Council. Attracting a plucky bunch of individuals, the Council and others have championed the idea that the way food is produced and marketed has a great effect on the health of individuals, ecosystems and local economies. These groups have even been involved in “on the ground” projects aimed at fleshing out and demonstrating why a local food system is a better fit.
This past week, another important chapter was added to the story of local food in Ontario. It came about through an announcement that the University of Toronto’s campus food services had signed a supply agreement with Local Flavour Plus. The not-for-profit organization certifies local farmers and processors who produce local food in environmentally and socially responsible ways and links them with purchasers. The move makes the U of T the first university in Canada to require that local food be on part of the menu, with a number of residences and cafeterias at the University soon serving seasonably available, fresh items and dishes made with certified local ingredients.
Local Flavour Plus is the brainchild of Lori Stahlbrand. It’s based on a successful U.S. program called the Food Alliance. A speaker at last year’s CFFO Convention, Stahlbrand is passionate about local food and brings an entrepreneur’s drive and flair to the task. She points out that her idea is new to Canada, but has caught on well in the United States. According to Stahlbrand the U.S. has more than 200 universities, colleges and schools in 16 states which have implemented farm-to-school programs that emphasize local food purchasing.
The Local Flavour Plus initiative is particularly important because it creates a structured demand for local food and an infrastructure for its delivery. And while only time will tell about the profits farmers can make from these kinds of arrangements, projects like those from Stahlbrand could go a long way towards starting to positively change the market share for local food products. It’s a pebble thrown into a big pond, but hopefully its ripples will continue to spread out and help to build new opportunities for Ontario farm families.
Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario
web: www.christianfarmers.org
Great stuff! This is precisely the kind of action we need here if local agriculture is to survive and thrive. Now we just need a group of people to take it on. I may throw this at the OS Economic Development Committee as well as the Bruce/Grey Food Sector Plan folks.
I could go on at length but others have a much better handle on it, here are two recent opinions on more about local food supply.
From the Farm & Countryside Commentary by Elbert van Donkersgoed
September 25, 2006
“…………..Food retailers are also changing. Meeting consumer needs is spawning a renewed emphasis on local food and social responsibility. Back in July, a poll in the UK found that “More than three-quarters (85%) of adults in the UK believe that restaurants and pubs should use locally sourced food….” In June, the retailer, Food Lion, with 490 outlets in North Carolina, launched a campaign, “got to be NC products.” That same month Japan's largest retailer created dedicated shelf space for local produce. Much earlier, a study by the Leopold Centre, a sustainable agriculture institute in Iowa, found that more than 75 percent of consumers chose products labelled “grown locally by family farmers” as their first choice.
Even Wal-Mart is changing. I suppose the transnational’s May announcement of dedicated shelf space for organic food was just part of dominating another market segment. But it means more. That Leopold Centre study also found that consumers would choose products “grown locally by family farmers” over organic options. Wal-Mart is missing out on the bigger market — shelf space for local food.”
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From the The CFFO Commentary by John Clement
September 29, 2006
“………….But while organic still has a very bright future, some small storm clouds are beginning to show up on the horizon. Big manufacturers and retailers are now jumping into the market, with downward pressure on prices a very real threat.
One of those storm clouds showed up earlier this year when the retail giant Wal-Mart announced that it is planning to soon add 1,000 new organic products to its stores. And to add increased fuel to the fire, it is proclaiming that it will offer these organic food products at a price only 10 per cent higher than comparable conventional foods.
Critics have been quick to point out their concerns that big retailers could also start watering down standards for organics. Some have said that the ratcheting down of organic standards will inevitably allow countries with less strict environmental and labour standards to start putting food products on store shelves…………………
From where I sit, it seems to me that organic farmers need to move quickly to create a strong link in the consumer’s mind between “organic” and “local food.” A number of farmers and consumers have already made that link, and it’s probably the default position of most, but the arrival of big companies in the market shows that the concepts “organic” and “local food” don’t have to fit together. In fact, it’s to the advantage of larger companies to cut the link between “organic” and “local” as quickly as possible so that outsourcing of products to low-cost countries can create more options for them. “
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