“For the past 3+ years, Corey has been a pivotal, behind-the-scenes player in ensuring our fresh, nutritious food reaches our food service teams, students and partners alike safely and smoothly. His contagious positive attitude, resilient spirit, and direct action ensures safe, clean, beautiful food gets picked up from our farms, gets inspected for safety and quality, and ultimately reaches our region's schools and beyond.”
In part 2 of this series, Bill Green discusses The Common Market’s mission to connect communities with good food from sustainable family farms. They strive to improve food security, farm viability and community and ecological health.
When the Common Market Southeast began producing USDA Farmers to Families Food Boxes, they were able to hire 34 additional people to work on their production lines, and as drivers. The Food Boxes provide farm fresh produce to create thousands of meals each week. Currently, the distributor is producing 15,000 boxes a week.
"Through this new mushroom box that he created, he was able to sell mushrooms through The Common Market’s partnership with the USDA on their Farmers to Families Food Box program to distribute 15,000 boxes of food throughout Georgia and Alabama."
"For the farmers, it’s been a win-win – providing support for those in need while also providing an opportunity to keep their farms afloat. 'Seeing our shiitake mushrooms reaching local communities warms our hearts and makes us proud of what we do every day,' shared Howard Berk of Ellijay Mushrooms, a mushroom farm located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. 'The Common Market has given us a lifeline in these uncertain times with the opportunity to supply our mushrooms in the USDA farm boxes.'”
The Bugg Farm works with their partner distributor The Common Market to distribute their products to places that may be nutrient starved. Now, working side-by-side, Addis Bugg and his son Addis Bugg Jr. are caring for their farm and finding new ways to expand their thriving farm business.
"One of those partnerships is a collaboration with The Common Market to provide families with fresh produce boxes weekly until June 24. Made possible through a USDA contract, The Common Market and the Y are connecting vulnerable communities with fresh food from sustainable family farms. YMCA branches are providing 500-900 boxes of fresh produce that are distributed throughout metro Atlanta."
"Farmers, food producers and farmers markets across Georgia are motivated now more than ever to increase public access to nutritious, immune-boosting food, but they will need help to plant, harvest, and shift to new models for selling and distributing their produce."
The Southwest Georgia Project for Community Education Inc. will launch its crop planning workshop in collaboration with The Common Market and Global Growers...The Southwest Georgia Project, The Common Market and Global Growers are all community-based organizations that strive to meet consumer demands for locally grown produce by connecting farmers to consumers. The objective of the crop planning workshop is to train socially disadvantaged farmers on proper record-keeping, crop planning, and succession planting.
"Our partnership with The Common Market allows us to share the harvest on a much larger scale than our students can produce within our early learning gardens. Through Y early learning centers, The Common Market distributes fresh, organic fruits and vegetables to families within our community that might not have access to them otherwise."
"We are the only local food hubs in the country to have SQF certification,” said Lily Rolader, director of The Common Market Southeast. “The reason we explored the SQF certification is that we want to play a role in legitimizing the local food space and making our customers feel comfortable to local food is safe."
"What I most appreciate is the consistency of the produce. I have yet to experience wilted lettuce or incorrect sizing of products and this is something difficult to find with the “big box” companies. I also appreciate Common Market's passion for developing relationships between the farmers and the chefs."
— Mike Bacha, Executive Chef, Emory University Hospital