The Rural Voice, 2001-11, Page 16packing day on October 25.
For farmers, the interesting part of the project is the
attempt to buy products from local growers for inclusion.
This was part of the original mandate for the Good Food
Box program when it was started in Toronto back in 1991.
The germ of the idea for the program began with a
group called the Toronto Food Policy Group, an
organization that includes everything from farmers to anti -
hunger activists to representatives of the food industry. The
group believed there were flaws in the local food system
that could create a situation where farmers had to leave
food in the field to rot because there was no market while
at the same time inner city
poor people went hungry.
The group - also wanted
to bridge the huge gap
in understanding
between the farmer and the
city -dweller. They realized
that the average citizen of
Toronto had little idea what
foods were in season or
whether or not there had been
a flood or a drought.
Consumers were unaware of
the type of economic
pressures being exerted on
Canadian farmers.
A concept called Field to
Table was conceived by Jeff
Wilson and Terry Daynard,
farm representatives on the
council and community
worker Nan Hudson to bring
farmers and urban consumers
together.
The Food Policy Goup
hired Mary Lou Morgan and
Ursula Lipski to carry out a
feasibility study to see if the
idea worked. The two
researchers talked to
community agencies,
potential customers and
Ontario farm organizations.
The study showed the idea
had potential and FoodShare
Toronto took the Field to
Table project under its wing,
providing the day-to-day
operation along with the
necessary infrastructure of
office and accounting
resources and two staff
members.
The initial idea was a
travelling community market
with the two women taking a
truck filled with produce to 20 different neighbourhoods
each week. They also supplied a buying club under which
people could preorder fruits and vegetables. The buying
clubs allowed people to have individual orders, a fact that
caused an incredible amount of work for volunteers.
Finally an idea was borrowed from an organization
based in California and adapted for the local situation and
the Good Food Box was born. It was decided the focus
would be on local, fresh and unprocessed foods for both
nutritious and environmental reasons.
In February 1994 the first 40 Good Food Boxes were
packed by staff in the board room at FoodShare. It took an
entire day to assemble the boxes.
Now, says van der Meer who toured the FoodShare
warehouse in August as part of her research, the Toronto
operation regularly packs 4,000 boxes a month and
recently switched to a weekly operation. At the same
warehouse location,
4
Walkerton
volunteers pack
bags of fruit
and vegetables
for inclusion in
the Good Food
Boxes this past
summer.
Below, filled
boxes await
pick-up at the
Walkerton
project.
14,
14 THE RURAL VOICE
FoodShare operates a large,
well-equipped, government -
inspected incubator kitchen
that's rented out to food
entrepreneurs for testing
recipes or manufacturing
foods. In the same location is
sprouting operation where
sprouts are grown and sold to
health food stores.
The organization has also
helped create 100 community
gardens around Toronto
(adding 10 new ones a year)
and even added beehives on
the roof of the warehouse this
year in an effort to, earn
income to help support a staff
salary.
The success of the
Toronto operation has
inspired others to adopt
the concept (FoodShare has
even created a manual for
others to follow). A similar
situation in the Niagara
Peninsula eventually led to the
creation of the Niagara
Presents incubator kitchen
operation that has enabled
many small food companies to
spring up there.
Tammy Price, with the Bruce
County Family Resource
Network, is in her fourth year
of involvement with the Good
Food Box project in
Walkerton. The first month
there were only 18 boxes
packed but now there are an
average of about 90 boxes a
month, though a high of 140
was reached.
Other outlets have sprung up
around the two counties.
The Grey and Bruce projects have simplified their
approach by getting all their produce from one supplier
who visits the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto and fills
the requirements of the whole area. The emphasis on the
local connection is not so strong.