Farm Fresh Rhode Island blog

You haven’t tasted ricotta until you’ve tried Narragansett Creamery’s. For a state with dairies as gorgeous as ours, Rhode Island deserves for its first cheeses to taste this good. If only we’d started making cheese years ago! Well, why haven’t RI dairy farms been producing artisan farmstead cheeses all these years like our New England neighbors?

A couple of reasons why RI lacks farmstead cheesemakers:

1. Cost: The startup equipment for a small dairy farm could be upwards of $70K.
2. Legalese: The interpretation of regulations and the process for farmers could be unclear and confusing. It was years since farms were selling cheese and so a new precedent is just now being established.
3. Community inertia: Farmers don’t have a community of other cheesemakers to share knowledge support with in RI.

This unfortunate situation makes you appreciate the mere existence of a RI ricotta all the more. It’s slightly sweet and made without salt, so this delicate cheese needs to be enjoyed quickly, and ideally shared. Its fluffy and creamy texture make it perfect for topping off Olga’s pizza dough, which we’ll have for the first time this week at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market.

And if you can’t make it to the Wintertime Farmers’ Market, you’ll find Narragansett Creamery’s hand-crafted, small-batch cheeses from made with milk from local dairies at Farmstead in Wayland Square and a few other retailers.

We’re thrilled to be among the supported causes now featured at the Blue State Coffee store on Thayer St in Providence. Every customer can vote for one of a rotating mix of local and political charities. And a whopping 10% of Blue State Coffee’s sales are then divied up proportional to these charities’ votes. So, fill up a mug with their custom blend of New Harvest fairly traded coffee and vote for Farm Fresh!

Despite being less than a year old, Blue State already has a long commitment to Rhode Island farmers and producers. The coffeeshop has been a member of the RI Fresh Network since the week we launched the Buy Local RI campaign. During summer months, Blue State Coffee managers could be found buying fruit and veggies for the café every Saturday at the Hope High School Farmers’ Market down the road. Over the next year, we’re also hoping to collaborate with Blue State to increase commercial and consumer composting across the city. Recycling food and other biodegradable waste into quality agricultural soils is a much tastier proposition than sending it to the Johnston landfill. Stay tuned!

This Tuesday morning, Farm Fresh had the privilege of participating in a workshop on greening Rhode Island hotels. Our joint presentation with the RI DEM Division of Agriculture focused on the benefits of locally grown foods in the hospitality industry. Most hotels have some combination of room service, in-house restaurants and breakfast buffets. At their best the menus can offer guests visiting Rhode Island a taste of place, from local oysters to Rhody Fresh to just-picked tomatoes in season. After all, buying from local farms is a detail that can distinguish a guest’s experience in RI and at that particular hotel.

We demonstrated new B2B tools available on FarmFresh.org. We also offered tips like visiting a nearby farmers’ market to meet farmers and get a sense of what’s in season. The goal for us, as always, is connecting farmers and local buyers. And the result will be fresher, quality hospitality offerings and a greener Rhode Island on so many levels.

The workshop aimed to get local businesses on board with a new Green Certification for the Rhode Island hospitality industry. This week’s standing room only session focused on hoteliers, but coming weeks will offer sessions geared to helping restaurateurs, transportation companies and other pieces of the hospitality industry go green. Engaging businesses across RI in a green agenda is important work. Farm Fresh is happy to be a part of it. Kudos to the RI Hospitality and Tourism Association, DEM and the organizers!

We’re happy to announce the evolution of our Fresh Bucks scrip system for using credit cards and EBT at farmers’ markets. The $5 Fresh Bucks coins can now buy any food or farm item from any vendor at the market, and you’ll receive change in cash. So this summer you’ll be able to use your credit or debit card to buy flowers, a cup of coffee or prepared foods.

New $1 Fresh Bucks, a product of our collaboration with the RI Dept of Human Services Food Stamps Program, allow EBT customers to now withdraw money in more flexible amounts. These $1 coins can be used at any Farm Fresh market and carry the same restrictions as EBT (food only; nothing hot or ready-to-eat) and no change can be given.

On a related note, you may have seen Food Stamps outreach workers at some of our outdoor markets in Providence this past summer. From 2001 to 2005, RI ranked last in growth in Food Stamps participation in the country. For numerous reasons, thousands of our state’s working poor are not being reached or not signing up. The result is that RI is missing out on valuable federal food dollars and too many Rhode Islanders are missing out on precious food assistance.

Rhode Island’s largest business-to-business local food gathering was heavily attended this Tuesday in Providence. The Local Food Forum, now in its fourth year, drew a record number of farmers, chefs, grocers, school food service buyers, students and food lovers. Morning discussion centered around the theme, “Local 365: Growing the Year-round Marketplace” and then opened to broader conversations and networking in the afternoon.

The Food Forum is a collaboration between Farm Fresh RI and Brown Dining to spur relationship-building between local food system players in the Ocean State. The Food Forum also facilitates discussions of the challenges and successes of local food in RI, since it is rare to get farmers and chefs under the same roof. In order to strengthen the local food system, all of these folks need to know each other. Having the Food Forum in February and early in the week thereby (mostly) accommodates otherwise busy schedules, and even gives farmers enough lead time to plan their next growing season. We’ll post about some of the announcements and revelations from the 2008 Local Food Forum in this space in the coming days.