A statewide pre-paid harvest-to-order online program that helps keep small local farms alive is expanding its northern region while also connecting school nutrition programs with local farms.
FarmDrop, a growing online farmer’s market in Maine, has added a new pick-up location in Presque Isle at the Northeastland Hotel, to grow the northern region’s existing Linneus hub, said CEO Hannah Semler.
At the same time, the initiative is finding ways to help Maine schools access fresh, local food through its FarmDrop Goes to School Program.
The online farmer’s market eliminates uncertainty and waste for farmers because they know what has been ordered versus projecting what they might sell at a farm stand or farmer’s market, said Roxanne Bruce, the Aroostook County market hub manager.
“This is really everybody helping to make sure we get the right food on the table at a price we can afford and support each other,” she said.
Over the past five years, FarmDrop has been expanding local food hubs, and there are now 25 pick-up locations and four regions throughout the state, including Houlton and Linneus and opening next week, Ludlow and Presque Isle.
This provides additional farm income, year-round access to local food and food-related products, prevents food waste and gives consumers one location to buy local farm goods, she said.
The way it works, retail and wholesale buyers order online from a farm catalogue – which details the products and price – created by the participating farms. There is a weekly ordering cut-off day that allows farms to harvest, bake or prepare items before once-a-week pick-up days.
Buyers pay in advance of pick up.
By connecting schools with FarmDrop’s network of local farmers across the state, they help school nutrition directors overcome obstacles in getting locally sourced, fresh foods into school breakfast and lunch programs, said Semler.
Maine schools — especially small ones in rural areas — have a hard time working with large facility wholesalers because they don’t meet minimum order requirements. So, they might order once a month.
“That doesn’t really help with greens and herbs,” said Semler.
The Maine Department of Education contacted Semler earlier this year to help solve this dilemma by getting locally grown foods into the schools, she said.
Along with Bruce, who also works to build food networks for the Department of Education, Semler began growing the FarmDrop northern region.
“We are building the connections to grow the local food movement like spiders building a web,” said Bruce. “Once the connections are in place, we can all work together more smoothly and let our community grow.”
Last month, Semler and Bruce invited farmers and school nutrition directors for a day-long workshop for networking and showing nutrition directors how they could work with FarmDrop and create healthy foods kids will like.
“Schools are allocated money that they can spend with local farms, and get reimbursed a portion of that just for shopping locally,” Bruce said.
And adding schools to FarmDrop also helps local farmers, who get paid right away.
Semler said that for some farms, one FarmDrop week is equal to about four or five farmer’s markets. Additionally, they only have one drop off in the week, keeping farmers on the farm instead of staffing a stand or market several days a week
“Basically, they are only bringing to market what they have already sold,” Semler said. “They are getting a retail price with a wholesale model.”
Some of the other FarmDrop hubs, such as Blue Hill, are well developed with 40 farms online for customer ordering. Others, like the northern region drops in Houlton, Linneus and Presque Isle, are still growing.
Within the next year, with the ongoing expansions, Semler said FarmDrop will be able to reach the number of customers to allow them to build a bigger team.
It’s her dream to eventually take their model to other states and teach them how to do it, she said.
