Archive for the ‘Food Processing’ Category
Presentation on Where Our Food Comes From
Dr. Marcy Ostrom, Director, WSU Small Farms Program is presenting at the Regional Food Security Conference.
What is a food system? It encompasses everything from production, to retail, to the consumer. All of us eat so all of us are tied into some type of food system.
Increasingly fewer and fewer firms are controlling how food is grown, processed and distributed. The percent of business controlled by the four largest firms are the following: beef processing is 83.5% , wheat milling is 55% and grocery retail is 48%,. These companies don’t just operate in the US but most are international companies as well. More and more of these companies can control the product from seed to farm to processing to retail. To learn about the largest food conglomerate, Kraft, visit here to see the story. The organic story researched by Phil Howard can be seen here.
The farmer’s share of the food dollar on meats is 32%. For grains it gets down to about 5%. The number of hobby farms and large farms are going up but the middle farms that can support a family are being lost. We are second only to California in the number of different kinds of crops we can produce. Top crops in Washington are apples, milk, wheat, potatoes and cattle. We produce a lot but most of it goes out of state.
Both consumers and farmers are trying to get out of this corporate farm model. Farmers are trying to figure out how to go directly to the consumer so they can make a living wage. Part of this is increasing the amount of farm to institution contracts. 60% of Washington state vegetable producers report some involvement in direct marketing. Washington is also one of the top 10 states in direct market sales. Some of the barriers are convenience and lack of knowledge of how to buy local. There is a fair amount of support for local labeling.
In closing a lot more research is needed to learn how to support mid-level farmers, do more direct marketing and improve profitability for farmers.
Firefly Lights Up Good Food Awards
Firefly Kitchens was excited to learn last week that it was a finalist in the National Good Food Awards in the Pickle Category for their Yin Yang Carrots.
Although this is the first year of the Good Food Awards, 780 products were entered from 41 states, in the categories of beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, pickles, and preserves.
Lucky judges selected 130 finalists that met the criteria of being “tasty, authentic, and socially responsible”. Finalists, including Firefly Kitchens, move on to the winners’ competition. Winners will be announced on January 14, 2011 by Alice Waters in San Francisco.
Experimenting with probiotics and enzymes, as well as making use of a broad assortment of local, organic, produce, Firefly Kitchens has pushed creative boundaries and created a number of distinctive pickles, kimchis, and salsas.
At a recent University District Farmers Market, pickler Julie O’Brien, pictured here, offered me a sample of a colorful cranberry kimchi, still at the experimental stage. It should be ready for production in the next month or so.
In addition to the University District, Firefly sells at Ballard and West Seattle Farmers’ Markets during the winter and several other markets during the warmer months.
In Washington State, value-added products, such as pickles, need to be produced in a commercial kitchen. Firefly Kitchens will soon be locating to a new home in a commercial kitchen in Ballard.
Farmers’ markets have a clear multiplier effect on our local economy. Firefly Kitchens is great example of how. Firefly buys from local farm producers, sells at farmers’ markets, supports a commercial kitchen, employs several part-time workers, and reaches out to both local and national audiences. This is how sustainable, resilient, local economies are built, one “tasty, authentic, and socially responsible” business at a time.
Food Incubators
From the Post Carbon Institute here’s info on Ohio’s bid to rebuild their community kitchens. I know we have such kitchens here but don’t know much about them. Would anyone be interested in doing a post on this?
It may seem strange that Ohio’s most successful food incubators are in the Buckeye State’s economically-depressed Appalachian southeast and in the heart of industrial agriculture in its northwest flatlands.
But the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks’ Food Ventures Program (ACEnet) in Athens and the Center for Innovative Food Technology’s Northwest Ohio Cooperative Kitchen (NOCK) outside of Bowling Green have spawned hundreds of small food businesses, created millions of dollars in food sales, and vastly increased local food options in restaurants and grocery stores in the two regions.
Now, representatives from the incubators are sharing their model with communities in Southwest Ohio concerned about food security and desperate for economic development. In September they met jointly with city officials from Wilmington, Yellow Springs and Xenia.
“We need to re-think where our food comes from, how it gets produced and become more involved with it,” said NOCK’s Rebecca Singer at the two-hour meeting at the Wilmington city building. More…
Stone Fruit Bonanza
It’s Can Jam time! We are on Month #9 Can Jam. Together we have canned Citrus, Carrots, Alliums, Herbs, Rhubarb (or Asparagus), Berries and Cucurbits and the (not)Tomatoes.
Last month’s debacle of no tomatoes led to a sad, woeful, pity party of not-canning-tomatoes-post. But this month I’m in!
September’s star ingredient was chosen by the ever lovely Kate at Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking. She chose stone fruits- to include peaches, apricots, plums, cherries & nectarines. And I, for one, am excited!
Mmm, pretty (& tasty!)
Canning Tomatoes
Tomatoes this side of the Cascades aren’t doing so well this year but they are growing great in Eastern Washington. Right now prices are pretty low so it’s a great time to do some canning. A fellow participant in the Rainier Community Kitchen joined in with a group buying direct from Tonnemaker Farms and was able to get organic canning tomatoes for one dollar a pound. Here’s how we canned them:
Making Applesauce
Fall is coming and thats means ripening apples. Many of the apples grown west of the Cascades have scab or are infected with coddling moth. The result is that apples that aren’t very appetizing to eat out of hand, but still can be used to make great applesauce. You can also buy apples by the box at your local farmers’ market and these can be used straight or mixed with your homegrown apples. I like to talk with the grower and see what breeds they like to make into sauce. One of my favorite growers is Tonnemaker Family Orchard. They have great produce, good prices and often have seconds boxes that are lower priced and great for canning. Last week they suggested Gravenstein apples so I bought a box to mix with my own apples. More…
Brining Grape Leaves
Brining grape leaves is best done in the spring or early summer when the grape leaves are more supple but I just couldn’t resist brining up a few jars now. Brined grape leaves are used to make a Greek dish called dolmades and can also be used as a decorative accent under cheeses. They have an earthy, salty taste that is complementary to savory foods.
Peach Jam with Pomona Pectin
Friends have been telling me about the virtues of Pomona Pectin for quite a while. I recently got some from PCC, and now I’m hooked. Because it doesn’t require sugar to jell, you can easily vary the amount of sugar you use or you can use a different sweetener all together.
Time to Dry Tomatoes
There’s no question that it’s been a cold summer this year, and not the best season for heat-loving crops like tomatoes.
This year I planted Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes, and this cold-tolerant plant is actually producing tomatoes that are beginning to ripen. We’re eating them fresh but there are enough that I have been drying them as well.
To dry tomatoes you either need an oven that goes as low as 100 degrees or you need a food dehydrator. By the time fruit begins to ripen around here, the days are cool enough that it doesn’t really work to do sun-dried fruit.
Here are directions on how to dry tomatoes in the Northwest: More…
Tips on Reducing Food Waste
As mentioned in an earlier post, when food is wasted, so is energy. By making the best use of your foodstuffs, you could be reducing the more than 90 billion pounds of food tossed in the trash every year, which uses up to 4 percent of all U.S. oil and more than 25 percent of our fresh water to produce and transport to consumers.
Sometimes it’s hard to eat a fresh, “mostly plant“-based diet without wasting food along the way because, unlike burgers from fast food joints, real food spoils. So here are some tips to help you prevent perfectly good food from going bad:
- Draft a menu – Plan what your family will eat for the week. Focus first on ingredients you already have in the house that are getting close to their expiration dates, and buy the ingredients you need to turn it into dinner.
- Make a grocery list – Making a list while you’re at home will help ensure you don’t buy what you already have lurking in the back of the pantry. And sticking to a list ensures you won’t spend extra on impulse purchases that may not be on the menu that week. More…
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