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Auburn School Department update: USDA grant-backed food hub expands local sourcing and readies summer processing
Summary
At the Feb. 5 Auburn School Committee meeting, the School Food Systems Innovation Grant coordinator reported purchases from 23 farms, six direct farm relationships within 30 miles, new processing equipment at Auburn Middle School and summer plans to scale school-based processing and forward contracting with local farms.
Lily, who also serves as project coordinator for the USDA School Food Systems Innovation Grant (the "School Based Food Hub" project), updated the Auburn School Committee on Feb. 5 about progress integrating locally sourced foods into school meals.
The nut graf: the project aims to strengthen the local food system while improving school meals; staff reported increasing direct farm procurement, taste-testing results with students, newly installed processing equipment, and summer processing plans to scale distribution across the school year.
Lily said the district has indirectly ordered from 23 farms within a 50-mile radius this school year through aggregators and has formed about six direct farm relationships within 30 miles: Blackies Farm, Willow Pond Farm, Spring Works Aquaponics Farm, Fairwind Farms, Liberation Farms and Greenwood Orchards. "We have about 6 direct relationships," she said, and…
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