New York Farm Viability Institute Website Press Releases 

August 31, 2007
Contact: Rebecca Schuelke, public relations specialist
(315) 453-3823 extension 103
(315) 427-2714
rschuelke@nyfvi.org

Farmers, buyers linked through effort to expand NY local food markets

Low-volume sales to dozens of local consumers.

High-volume sales to one or two multi-state wholesale buyers.

For many produce and value-added farmers, marketing opportunities are often presented as a choice between one of the above two scenarios. But, a project spearheaded by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, is asking farmers in the Finger Lakes region to consider that within most communities there are a number of larger-scale buyers, such as colleges and hospitals, that offer farms an opportunity to grow their business – and increase sales -- even if the farm will never be big enough to fill the entire order of large grocery store chain.

``This is an effort to link the farms with the buyers,’’ said Monika Roth, an agriculture educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, who is coordinating an effort to help growers increase profits through sales to institutional and wholesale buyers.

In late 2006, the nonprofit New York Farm Viability Institute awarded the project a $98,000 grant for a two-year effort to work with 25 farms within a 60-miles radius of the Ithaca, NY area to increase sales by 30 percent.

Farm-to-Wholesale

The farm-to-wholesale project is working with Cornell University’s dining and catering services and Ithaca College’s dining service to increase the local food they purchase.

Cornell’s higher-end dining establishments, like the Statler Hotel, serve feta cheese from Lively Run Goat Dairy in Interlaken. The student cafeterias serve local-grown vegetables in season, and are working with Roth and others to bring in meat, cheese and other processed food, such as salad dressings and sauces.

The university publication Cornell Chronicle reported earlier this year that Cornell Dining increased local food purchases from 7 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2006, and aimed to buy 30 percent local food this year.

The farm-to-wholesale project includes non-institutional buyers, including Ithaca Produce, a regional distributor of fruit and vegetables, which this year added nine Finger Lakes area farmers to its vendor list, including Pederson Farm in Seneca Castle and Red Jacket Orchard in Geneva.

Rooted in farming

Red Jacket Orchards has long used a mix of small-volume direct sales and larger wholesale orders as its business model. Red Jacket sells at New York City’s Greenmarket, runs upstate-downstate produce distribution, sells fruit to wholesale buyers including Tops, Wegmans and Fresh Direct, and has a local foods retail store in Geneva.

Linking with Ithaca Produce to distribute fruit around Central New York was the most efficient way to expand Red Jacket’s upstate sales, said Mark Nicholson, who runs Red Jacket with his twin brother Brian and their father Joe.

Red Jacket’s ties to downstate markets are no coincidence. Nicholson’s grandfather used to run a turkey farm on Long Island. He traveled to Cornell University to attend poultry meetings and fell in love with the Finger Lakes region. In 1958, when the turkey farm was displaced by the building of the Long Island Expressway, the family relocated to Geneva and started running a roadside fruit stand.

Red Jacket Orchards today is 600 acres of apples, other tree fruit and berries in production around the Finger Lakes. The farm has 50 fulltime employees and another 50 seasonal workers. The business runs 6-7 tractor trailers of fruit to New York City markets at the height of the season, bottles eight varieties of fruit juice and operates a country store in Geneva that features fresh fruit and vegetables and a variety of locally produced value-added items, including jams, cheese, pickles, syrups, baking mixes, salad dressings and more.

Keeping the farm a vibrant business for the third generation has meant evolving operations.

``It’s an exciting time for us as producers because so many of us started as local food producers and vendors – and it has become popular again. The interest in where my food comes from, how my food tastes, where it was grown, food miles and so on … we have listened to our customers and developed our products and our system around the consumers’ interests,’’ said Mark Nicholson.

Coming home

Connecting with more local growers like Red Jacket has been beneficial for Ithaca Produce, according to buyer Brent Maynard.

Ithaca Produce has attracted its school, hospital and restaurant buyers by offering a variety of produce items on one truck, he said. Finding quality supplies of fresh produce and growers with quality post-harvest storage so they can extend sales beyond peak-harvest time continue to be barriers, Maynard said.

Cornell chefs and food service directors have said working with the farm-to-wholesale project has broadened their understanding of local food. Roth has coordinated farm tours, local food dinners and meetings with farmers to expose the food service personnel to the variety of produce and value-added food locally.

``If we can do it local, I would prefer to keep the money local,’’ said Steve Miller of Cornell Dining. He hoped to offer locally-grown red and yellow cauliflower, as well as a locally-made specialty pickle, such as jalapeno brined, to college students.

``I did not know a lot of this stuff was available and being made locally,’’ Miller said.

For more information or to participate in the farm-to-wholesale project, contact Roth at (607) 272-2292 or mr55@cornell.edu.