Whately Food Shed offers winter alternative to 'megamarts'
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
WHATELY - For those who miss the fresh, local farm stand shopping of summertime, Enterprise Farm in Whately provides a wintry alternative to picking out California produce in the supermarket. This winter marks the farm's third year of offering local and organic food in the aptly named Food Shed farm store.
Housed in a heated barn at the River Road farm, the Food Shed provides shoppers who want to buy local fruits, vegetables, honey, maple syrup, meat and dairy products year-round. It is open on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
David Jackson, who owns the farm with his wife, Ainsley Jackson, said that the Food Shed is a unique farm-based distribution system that allows shoppers to support area farmers, instead of supermarket chains and West Coast operations.
"The resurgence of interest in local agriculture and the local economy in this area has provided a great opportunity to continue to sell year-round," Jackson said.
The Food Shed gets its name from the term "foodshed," which, similar to a watershed, describes the geographic area where your food comes from, and the flow of food through that area. Jackson's farm store draws from a smaller foodshed of local, regional and East Coast farmers, in an attempt to strengthen the local foodshed and economy while also providing fresher food to customers.
"We're all connected as one market. We always say, #Every acre planted in California is an acre paved in the Carolinas,'" Jackson said.
The food in the farm store is from 35 local, regional or East Coast farms from Florida to Canada, and almost all of it is organic. "In the summer our food is 100 percent local, and in the early winter, about 50 percent local and the rest East Coast grown," Jackson said.
Enterprise Farm is a 75-acre organic farm that annually fills between 600 to 800 farm shares, where people pay a one-time fee to receive fresh food each week. In the summer and fall, the farm also sells to local food cooperatives and Whole Foods Market in Hadley.
Jackson said that the Food Shed is ideal for people who do not need the volume of food that a farm share provides each week or simply prefer to pick out their own purchases. "Many people love to support a local farm, but they prefer to shop for themselves," he said.
Jackson said that although the Food Shed is certainly not the most lucrative part of his operation, it helps bring some income to the farm in the winter.
"The big problem for farms is the seasonal nature of farming," Jackson said. "The ability to go year-round lets you maintain a better workforce and management and keep your customers." Jackson said that the store is part of the reason he can to employ seven full-time and three part-time employees in the winter, while workers at most farms are only seasonal, because there is not enough work or assets to pay them.
Since most of Enterprise Farm's harvest is gone at this time of year, Jackson said the Food Shed is the perfect use of the farm's storage facility. "We have the facilities to act as a kind of terminal, sourcing from other local farmers who need the market," Jackson said.
Helping out other small, local farms that may be struggling in the winter is one of Jackson's main motivations for operating the store. "It's a challenge for farmers because it's harder to work in the winter and you have to rebalance your farm's equation," Jackson said. "It's more balanced now because a farm is paying for itself each month, which is hard to do on small farms."
Jackson said the Food Shed usually sees between 30 and 50 shoppers each Saturday, and more seem to discover the store each week. "Every week new people show up and say, #How come I didn't know this was here?'" Jackson said. "We're trying to get customers to realize that there is another option other than megamart."
Linda MacGowan made the drive from Greenfield Saturday to check out the Food Shed after she saw it advertised in a newspaper.
"I love it," MacGowan said of her first visit. "I think it was a good idea to not just stay really local but get stuff from down South, so there's a wider variety even though it's winter."
MacGowan said that finding Jackson's winter farm store was a great discovery. "If it's available, it's nicer to shop at places like this," MacGowan said. "You don't have to deal with the anonymity of the big places, but with real people. It's nice to keep livelihood in the area."
Rebecca Everett can be reached at reverett@gazettenet.com.
Comments
Post new comment