Are you interested in expanding your farm sales to restaurants, local aggregators, or CSA styled box programs but don’t know where to start?
Lauren Cox, Georgia Organics’ Organic Procurement Coordinator, will help you unpack some of the issues and barriers in getting your food from farm to restaurant. Attendees will also hear from Zac Harrison of Fresh Harvest and Neil Ringer of The Common Market Southeast, who will discuss key considerations for becoming wholesale/high-end wholesale ready.
Topics covered during this session may include time/profitability assessment, successive planting techniques, ideal crop varieties, availability lists, post-harvest handling, and packaging strategies, along with a collaborative breakout session.
About the Presenters:
Lauren Cox is Georgia Organics’ Organic Procurement Coordinator and manages the Farm to Restaurant program. When not helping farmers work on their crop rotations or connecting them to chefs and other buyers, she keeps her hands busy in the dirt managing a rooftop garden in downtown Atlanta. She brings with her 10 years of experience growing food and loves Georgia’s diverse farming community.
Georgia Organics’ Farm to Restaurant program works to bring local farmers, chefs, and aggregators together to increase sustainable and organic purchasing by Georgia restaurants. As the effects of Covid are felt on the food industry at large, along with the mechanisms of systemic racism in traditional business growth opportunities, we acknowledge the limits of brick-and-mortar spaces and are working to expand our work to fully represent Georgia’s diverse community of food transformers.
Zac Harrison, co-founded Fresh Harvest back in 2012 after a cross country motorcycle trip landed him on an organic farm and changed his life. His passion for supporting the local farming community and commitment to building relationships with Georgia producers has been a hallmark of Fresh Harvest’s success. Cooking over a fire with his wife Lauren, and kids, Catcher, Ever, and Shepard is his favorite thing ever.
Fresh Harvest is an Atlanta based, produce and value-added home delivery box program focused on supporting local and Certified Organic Georgia farms. Their mission involves supporting the local food community, refugee job creation, food waste alleviation, and restorative farming.
Neil Ringer, new to The Common Market team is the Operations and Procurement Lead, Neil’s focus is on farmer relations and farmer support. Prior to TCM, he spent many years at King of Pops overseeing operations for their diverse business portfolio and helped establish the first ever popsicle farm, King of Crops. Most recently, Neil earned his Master's degree in Gastronomy at the University of Gastronomic Sciences through Slow Food International.
The Common Market is a nonprofit regional food distributor with a mission to connect communities with good food from sustainable family farms. We strive to improve food security, farm viability, and community and ecological health.
Pricing:
Georgia Organics acknowledges the financial constraints the pandemic has caused for many folks, as such, it will offer a tiered pricing scale, donation-based, or free admission to this year's Good Food for Thought workshops.
Tiered Admission Cost:
Georgia Organics Farmer Member: FREE
General Farmer: $5.00
Non- Farmer: $10.00
Please visit the event page for more information: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dish-dive-into-wholesale-and-high-end-wholesale-tickets-136468423729