“How do we ensure that students are accessing the highest quality food in schools and how can we make it really easy to do that while simultaneously supporting growers that are in the students’ communities?” said Rachel Terry, national partnership director with The Common Market.
Since 2008, The Common Market has distributed local foods from over 300 sustainable family farms and producers to 1,800+ schools, hospitals, eldercare facilities, workplaces, and community organizations. In that time, they estimate 58 million meals have been served with local sourced products. The Common Market has found community drive success across the country individualizing their programs to the communities they are working in, including the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Texas, and now the Great Lakes region. As part of the 2022 #LiveLocal: Local Food and Farmers Market Conference, hear from co-founder Haile Johnston and Great Lakes Director Eliana Pinilla on how they are developing programs in the region to build on the collaborative food economy of Illinois.
In the U.S, for example, the Common Market launched its Farm-Fresh Box initiative, which ultimately tackled two challenges: meeting the immediate food needs of vulnerable families while at the same time strengthening shorter and more local supply chains.
"Meridian School’s Food Services Department has more than doubled local food purchases this year, thanks to a partnership through the Texas Dept. of Agriculture with the Sustainable Food Center and The Common Market. What is local? For Meridian, that means any Texas products."
These businesses come in all shapes and sizes. The Common Market, a local-food aggregator started by Tatiana Garcia-Granados and her husband Haile Johnston in Pennsylvania, now operates in Georgia, Texas, and throughout the Northeast, connecting food purveyors and institutions like Bon Appétit at the University of Pennsylvania and Emory University to a small army of local farmers.
Co-founder Haile Johnston told FarmWeek the Chicago area seemed a great fit as one of the country’s largest urban centers with leadership in food and food aggregation and a vibrant food scene. Yet, the area also struggles to support small- and medium-scale family farms and is home to food-insecure communities where families face significant economic challenges.
Johnston and Eliana Pinilla, director of partnerships for The Common Market Chicago Great Lakes, will share their vision March 23 during the Live Local: Food & Farmers Market Conference in East Peoria’s Embassy Suites.
"The program has helped 25 small, organic farmers preserve and cultivate 355 acres of farmland around Atlanta, launching new generations of growers and a healthy locally produced food scene. Could Philly be next?"
Small and urban farms are flourishing after helping Georgians weather the COVID storm.
“It does feel like this type of work has a mission, a community aspect and a human significance.”
"Garcia-Granados was shocked to see how many people in her Philadelphia Strawberry Mansion neighborhood had health-related diseases. After digging to the root of the problem — lack of access to nutritious food — Garcia-Granados and her husband founded The Common Market, a nonprofit that connects local farms to public schools, hospitals and workplaces. The NGO currently functions in the mid-Atlantic region, Southeast and Texas."
"As part of its mission, The Common Market offers community organizations, schools, and other qualifying nonprofits, like The Caring Center, with a fresh food incentive—a 25% Food Access Fund discount—expanding the value of their healthy food purchases as a means to foster food security in their communities."
"The Common Market enables us to share more local product with our guests than we otherwise would be able to using the rest of our distribution network."
— Daniel Abelson, Supply Chain Analyst, honeygrow