How Small Farms Can Market to Local Collegiate Food Service Operations

Food service operations at a growing number of colleges, universities, hospitals and other institutions are developing “locally grown,” “sustainable” and organic food procurement programs. We conducted research regarding the opportunities for small farms to market produce to collegiate food service operations and the obstacles that need to be overcome. in 2007, we interviewed 99 food service managers at California colleges, universities, and teaching hospitals. the data indicated that: *28% of colleges have local produce buying program *22% of colleges are developing local produce buying program *the proportion of produce purchases that were locally grown averaged 28%, and ranged from 3-70% *the food service operations sourced their locally grown produce primarily from two sources: produce distributors (42%) and growers Collaborative (39%). however, there are considerable obstacles that small farmers encounter when trying to market their locally grown produce to collegiate food service operations: *low prices and convenience can be more important than “values” of supporting local food buying *Small growers often lack the liability insurance required by the college *Small growers face challenges in the delivery system, such as logistics, timeliness, and consistency of deliveries *the colleges want to deal with only a single delivery of a broad range of produce items and one invoice, rather than receiving deliveries and handling invoices from multiple growers in order to overcome these constraints, there needs to be an increase in the number and viability of distributors that work with local, small to mid-scale family farmers—non-profit allied distributors. alternatively, organizations supporting small farms need to work with regional produce distributors to increase the number of local/ small growers they buy from. additionally, these organizations should bring chefs/food service buyers, distributors and farmers together for networking, partnerships, negotiations, business deals, relationship building. Tools to Enhance the Success of Farmers’ Markets