Food Systems Program Report

Gary Huber

An important area of work for PFI’s Food Systems Program involves helping find food for all-Iowa meals. PFI’s role is to serve as an informal broker, with our primary buying partner being the ISU Scheman Building in Ames, which hosts over 900 groups each year for meetings.

PFI’s brokering work began with a Leopold Center request for local foods for a 1997 conference at Scheman. Because of our work with Magic Beanstalk CSA growers, we were asked to help find the food. Then later that year after we helped with a similar meal for a local food systems conference, we asked Scheman’s food service director about their using local foods on a regular basis. The response was an enthusiastic yes for three reasons: 1) the high quality of local foods; 2) the marketing advantage for Scheman; and 3) the link between local foods and ISU’s mission.

From these simple beginnings we helped Scheman find food for six conferences during 1998. ISU paid farmers directly for their foods.

These experiences were positive, but outside normal ISU procedures. So in late 1998 we met with ISU staff to discuss a system for making these meals a regular feature for conferences at Scheman. Although they were willing to pay farmers individually and take multiple deliveries, they needed one contact for placing orders. At this point we needed to 1) create a menu with set prices, 2) secure support from Scheman event planners, and 3) develop a network of farmers supplying local foods.

We undertook three sets of activities to meet these needs. The first involved several meetings with a group of vegetable farmers. These farmers identified when fruits and vegetables would likely be available and what they needed to be paid for these products. This information helped to develop a seasonal menu for Scheman and set prices for these meals. The policy was set to spread orders among the growers. We also established an email system for placing orders.

A second set of activities involved locating other products, such as meats, poultry, milk, and cheese. Because there were no local farmers with meats and poultry available for sale to institutions, we recruited farmers with connections to PFI from other locations in Iowa. Additionally, we looked for sources of other products, such as cheeses and fish, to help round out options for these meals.

A third set of activities involved working with Scheman staff on critical topics. Using data they supplied, we estimated how much of the various foods we could anticipate using to help farmers balance supply with demand. We helped develop the seasonal menu as a marketing tool to sell the meals to Scheman clients. We helped set menu prices that kept everyone in the black. And we worked with Scheman on procedures that included: 1) a “heads up” call so we had ample time to fill the orders; 2) email orders from a purchasing agent (see sample above), which we then forwarded to the farmers; 3) direct deliveries /billings by the farmers; 4) direct payments to farmers by ISU. The schematic on this page was developed initially to help understand this more formal system.

This system increased the number of events from six in 1998 to thirty-seven in 1999, with the total number of people served growing from 360 to 6,690. Nineteen of the 1999 events were at the ISU Scheman and Memorial Union facilities. The others were at other central Iowa locations, and these happened because of the awareness generated by the ISU meals. We used forty-three farmers and nine processors to supply the 1999 meals. These processors are small Iowa businesses like meat lockers and cheese manufacturers. Farmers and processors were paid a total of $13,655, in addition to the $2,886 paid to Niman Ranch for a Christmas ham sale we helped promote. PFI’s brokering efforts paid a total of $16,541 to local Iowa producers/processors.

After the 1999 season we evaluated our efforts and made adjustments for 2000. The overriding change was a fee system that helped to pay for the brokering service. This system had three income sources – the farmers, the conference center, and the clients. We asked the farmers to join PFI, to pay a $10 annual supply network fee, and to remit to PFI 5% of total sales made through PFI at the end of the year. From Scheman we requested a $100 annual fee. And for clients, 60¢ was added to the cost of each meal to be paid to PFI by Scheman at the end of the season. An explanation for the extra per meal cost to clients was noted at the bottom of the Scheman menu.

The result was that we had a growers’ network of 23 farmer involved during the 2000 season (see photo below). Four of these farmers had pork, beef and chicken for sale and another 16 sold fruits and vegetables. There was also one egg producer, one goat cheese processor, and one tofu processor. These farmers accounted for 70% of the sales we helped facilitate in 2000, with the remainder coming from outside the network when members of the network were unable to supply the product.

The adjacent table compares the results from 1999 and 2000. It shows that the number of meals went up, as did the number of events and number of locations serving these meals. Although the data show that the number of people served these meals went down, the 1999 figures included 2,000 people who were served local foods by Scheman during a week-long National Motorcoach Association event. Without this 1999 event, the number of people served would have increased by 14% in 2000.

We are currently in the process of planning for the 2001 season. The work done so far on this brokering service has had many benefits. Although these efforts involve a modest amount of commerce, the larger benefits have been educational. People attending these events have experiences so tangible they immediately recognize the importance of knowing who produced the food on their plate. In addition, farmers are learning what it takes to sell their produce to food service establishments.

As we look to the future there are several key issues. A critical one is supply - we simply do not have an abundance of farmers raising fruits and vegetables in the quantities necessary to become a regular, steady supplier for food service establishments. Even with our all-Iowa meals the supply is not sufficient, especially with fresh fruits and vegetables, to handle increased growth.

A second issue is structural in nature. This project is not a typical activity for a non-profit, educational group. Significant growth of this effort would require managing the food brokerage as a business.

A third issue is the labor-intensity of these all-Iowa meals relative to the amount of product moved. The challenge is to create an adequate income flow to make the effort sustainable. Increasing fees and/or increasing the number of meals or people served would make this possible. However, under the current system one weekly meal, perhaps two, is the most we can serve.