Food Hubs
The future of farming has arrived. Geared toward supporting local businesses and community involvement, The Washtenaw Food Hub is the newest trend in agriculture. 

Food Hubs, which are promoted by the USDA, are defined as centrally located facilities with a business management structure that integrate food production and distribution, farmer services, agricultural training and community involvement to help local farming and local food produce thrive in the community.

Housing a Hub in Washtenaw
Organic Tantre Farm owners Richard Andres and Deb Lentz recently purchased a historic farm spanning the 16 acres of land on Ann Arbor’s scenic Whitmore Lake Road. Inspired by Burlington, Vermont’s community agriculture movement and with the farm coming equipped with a handful of farm buildings, electrical and plumbing infrastructure and parking the Chelsea couple saw it as the perfect locale to house their hub. 

The Washtenaw Food Hub, which is comparable to a “farm franchise”, will work closely with local farmers and distributors to provide the community with Michigan grown food. They aim to attract families, retail and wholesale customers—and although it is a lofty goal—school systems, hospitals and universities. The food hub will also offer services to farmers, donations to local food banks and annual summer internships. 

To learn more about this new movement check out Concentrate’s “Cultivating a Fresh Food Hub in Washtenaw County.” 

For more information contact Richard Andres at (734)-475-4323. 

Blog Post By: Don Hart, MOVE President, Pete Ayers, Web and Video Editor, Jade Grammatico, MOVE Winter/Spring Intern and Kim Beson, Associate Writer/Project Coordinator.

As some of you may or may not know Carol, MOVE CEO, and I have been traveling abroad. Carol was in England studying at Oxford and I was in Israel working on a documentary. After exploring historic sites and meeting interesting people during our travels, Carol and I thought,  “Why should this end now that we are back home in Ann Arbor?” So when we heard about a Networking event at the Burnt Toast Inn, sponsored by Think Local First, we jumped at the chance to attend and discover new, local businesses.

Fun Fact: You won’t find any televisions, phones or computers at the Burnt Toast Inn. Why? Because they want guests to feel, "as if they have gotten away from it all for a while."  

The event was held at the Burnt Toast Inn’s Washington Street locale to show off their recently remodeled kitchen.

 

Fun Fact: Upon request Innkeeper, Sarah Okuyama, can arrange for a local chef to either cook for guests or teach them popular dishes—or both.

 

 

We also got to meet fellow world travelers, Barbara Wilson and Jose Messa, owners of Mindo Chocolate Makers. The couples’ plan to build a retirement home in Messa’s native Ecuador resulted in an unexpected turn into the chocolate making business.

For the past two years they have been making chocolate in Ecuador at a nearby cacao processing station and shipping it by air to Michigan—where they call home during the off season. Their chocolate can be found at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Dexter’s Farmer’s Market and Roos Roast to name a few.

 

Fun Fact: As of right now, they are one of 20 companies, who make chocolate from the cacao bean to the bar.  We can also vouch for their unique flavors, one of them being chocolate mixed with sea salt.

 

 

Chocolate aside, we also got to enjoy a wine tasting provided by Sandhill Crane Vineyards.

Fun Fact:  And you can too! Just stop by during their business hours for a free wine tasting.

There ends our tour. We hope to see continued fruitfulness from all of our local businesses!

 

Setting the scene
Walking up the porch stairs toward the Yellow Door, you are greeted by a friendly volunteer who has the American flag hanging behind her as a backdrop. Step through the hallway lined with family pictures, the dining room decorated with antiques, and follow the smell of warm maple syrup and transcend into another time. Sit and enjoy the clatter of dishes and chatter of friends and neighbors catching up before they start their day. 

Who knows you could be sitting next to a local politician or shaking hands with a “celebrity chef.” “It gives people a chance to see friends and meet people in the community they wouldn’t have normally met,” said Jane Pacheco, owner of LUNASA, LLC, who helps gather local food for the event. 

Background
It all started with a visit to Ann Arbor’s Selma Café. After seeing how Selma Café cooks up a delicious breakfast made from local ingredients each week, while also bringing the community together and raising funds to help local farmers, Janice Ortbring was inspired to bring a taste of Selma Café to her town of Chelsea. Together with her husband, Todd Ortbring, they volunteered their house, gathered a team of volunteers, rustled up dishes from garage sales and painted old doors yellow for additional tables. 

Their in-home, occasional café opened in October 2009.  Just like Selma Café, they recruit the best local chefs to create a gourmet breakfast made from locally-grown ingredients—now that’s Pure Michigan! Originally, all breakfast proceeds were donated to the Chelsea Community Kitchen, but now they also raise funds for other community events, businesses and organizations.  That’s not the only difference; they no longer host a breakfast every Thursday morning, but on a more occasional basis. However, it remains just as popular welcoming crowds of 40 to 50 people.

Look for the Yellow Door
Katelynd, MOVE intern, and I must confess that we didn’t know its background before we went to the Yellow Door breakfast.  In fact, we just recently learned that Yellow Door often cooks with Tantre produce, which is the farm that Carol and Don’s, MOVE CEO and President, son, Greg, works on. However, we did know that MOVE* sees local farming as an essential ingredient to our area's future. Staying true to MOVE’s ideals, we drove to Harrison Street last Thursday to support the local economy.

Plus, it didn’t hurt that Chef Craig Common, of The Common Grill, served up:

• Back Forty Acres egg frittata with poached Michigan shrimp, Grassfield Creamery goat milk cheddar, fresh Michigan asparagus and home fries

• Calder Creamery buttermilk apple praline pancakes served with warmed Michigan maple syrup and Calder Creamery butter

• Homemade granola with Calder Creamery milk

It didn’t just taste good, but felt good too. Our $15 per plate donation raised money for the Chelsea Sounds and Sights summer Festival, a weekly free summer entertainment event. 

  *MOVE is affiliated with Think Local First and the Food System Economic Partnership.

Posted on a fence near the entrance to Greenfield Village is this quote from Daniel Webster:

“When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.”

If Webster’s pithy claim was true for an upstart America two centuries ago, could it also resonate in today’s post-industrial post-modern post-information America?  It would seem that more and more people believe so.  On Thursday I found myself enjoying their company at the Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP) Conference for “Building a Better Food System in Southeast Michigan” held in Jackson.  Jeff Bodtke, our new Account Coordinator at MOVE, who grew up on a blueberry farm in west Michigan, joined me for a full day of informative, interactive sessions, with topics ranging from savoring local flavors in Jackson to food and agriculture policy for Michigan.

Jeff and I attended separate sessions and we made some discoveries throughout the day:

Sandhill Crane Winery of Jackson makes a delicious, sweet raspberry wine—a dessert in itselfJ.

A grassroots campaign called Ten Percent Washtenaw affirms the enthusiasm for "locally grown" in our area, but wants us to know that at present only ½ of 1% of the $1 billion in food we consume annually is actually grown in Washtenaw County.  Ten Percent’s goal is to get us to 10% locally grown by 2010.

Ginny Trocchio, Project Director for The Conservation Fund/Ann Arbor Greenbelt, noted that, as Greenbelt land is being acquired, the Advisory Commission is strategically identifying critical areas for farmland preservation.  For a tour of Greenbelt farmland, check out the Greenbelt Bus Tour on July 17^th.

The keynote speaker really brought it all together for me.  Michael Sands, founder of the Farm Business Development Center, described the Prairie Crossing project in north suburban Chicago as "an incubator for beginning organic farmers committed to creating financially rewarding and ecologically healthy farm businesses in the suburban landscape."  The incubator is not just a cool design for a suburban development connected to a local food source.  It makes economic sense.  One acre of intensively farmed organic vegetables can generate up to $20,000 in revenue, in contrast to the same acre of corn or soybeans at $600-$700! This revenue generates local jobs and pumps money into the local economy. 

Could Ten Percent become a reality if Ann Arbor developed an incubator program in the Greenbelt?

As a business committed to helping our local economy go and grow, MOVE sees local farming as an essential ingredient of our area's future.  Hats off to Jennifer Fike and her team at FSEP for organizing a terrific event.  I wish I could have mentioned all of the incredible things Jeff and I heard, saw and tasted on Thursday, but hopefully this post will serve as a reminder that Webster’s fencepost quote rings true today.