The nation’s food banks are under a lot of pressure these days. They are caught between food prices going up and levels of government aid that are either flat or falling.
In a couple of weeks, the New Hampshire Food Bank will unveil its latest effort to feed those in need. It is a full service kitchen that will let the Food Bank build on a new stream of donations – fresh food.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Jon Greenberg has more.
For a few months now, a crew of plumbers, electricians and carpenters has been transforming a sizable corner of the New Hampshire food bank warehouse in Manchester. In the middle of the floor where there used to be pallets of canned goods, now, ovens and gas ranges sit ready to be installed. Jayson McCarter , a former Navy cook who once worked at the White House, has been eager to get this industrial scale kitchen up and running.
CUT I came in Monday morning and I couldn’t wait to start rolling the equipment and putting it into place to see what it’s going to look like/laughter
McCarter is the project foreman. He was in charge of buying all the equipment – a pure delight for any chef.
CUT It was great starting from scratch and being able to pick out everything that we wanted to have. So first off, what we have here is a 40 gallon steam jacketed kettle/fade down
We stand in front of a round stainless steel unit that looks like a super-sized washing machine. Next to it is something called a tilt skillet that can sauté 30 pounds of steak at a time. This is a big operation that will not only cook complete meals, but also serve as a school in food service with an eight week training program.
CUT We have enough equipment here that ultimately, with ten students, we could pop out 1,000 meals a day. If we had that flow of food coming in that we needed to get out.
This kitchen is a response to a food supply problem that has only become worse over the years. The current rise in food prices is bad enough but it comes on top of a long term decline in bulk food donations from food distributors and supermarkets. Just a few years ago, food banks could count on truckloads of canned goods and other products – lots of items with a long shelf life. That made it easier to collect and distribute food with plenty of time for families to put it on the kitchen table.
SFX cash register beeps
Modern efficiency at the checkout counter changed that.
CUT We can actually drill down on not only a commodity but a single can of product on a shelf.
Steve Bouchard is Store Director at the Shaw’s Supermarket in Merrimack. Every food store chain has worked hard to trim the fat from their operations. Digital technology has allowed them to target with almost pinpoint accuracy just the right amount of each product to put out for sale. Shoppers benefit because there’s less of a mark-up for spoilage and waste, but gleaners, like food pantries, do not. Bouchard sits on the New Hampshire Food Bank advisory board.
CUT the five or six years I’ve been on the board, I’ve seen product in the food bank go from literally two truckloads, 24 pallets of product per week, to maybe two truckloads a month.
Food banks have been looking for ways to make the most out of a depleted supply chain and they’ve zeroed in on the one type of food that historically, supermarkets largely have been unable to donate -- fresh food. Two years ago, an approach called fresh rescue started in Boston. Now, it is coming to New Hampshire.
CUT Ok, let’s look right here for example.
Bouchard points out three large cardboard boxes full of food sitting in a back room near the store’s trash compactor.
CUT: This is product that is going to be thrown out. We have oranges, mushrooms. We have fresh basil. Now if we add the meat items that we are going to do for fresh rescue too, you can create a steak mushroom dinner. It’s right here sitting for us.
The volume of fresh food won’t nearly make up for the decline in donations from five years ago, but in many cases, it will be healthier than the processed foods that predominated. The food bank’s new kitchen will extend the shelf life of these fresh items, mainly by freezing them after they’ve been cooked. That will give more leeway to the local pantries that rely on the food bank for their supplies.
The kitchen will also make it easier to use food from local farms. 15 miles south of the food bank, the Nesenkeag Coop Farm in Litchfield is ramping up for the growing season
CUT You must be Jon/Yes. Hi dog. / Lydia, easy.
Nesenkeag is an organic farm on about 60 acres along the Merrimack River. The farmer, Eero Ruuttila, walks with me across one of the brown dormant fields.
CUT: // So what are you going to grow in these fields here?// Well, probably a 100 different crops all told. So where you point doesn’t necessarily determine what I’m going to be planting here.
Some farms invite food bank volunteers to glean their fields after the harvest. Nesenkeag is different. Most of its produce goes to high-end restaurants in Boston and southern New Hampshire, but Ruuttila raises money to divert a portion of his crop to the food bank. This year, the farm will provide about 15 thousand dollars worth of vegetables.
CUT We’re in the early stage of things here, but tomatoes are going into the greenhouse right now. Getting ready to put spinach in in a day or two and some of that spinach will end up at the Food Bank.
And in the months to come, there will be peppers, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes and much more.
SFX from kitchen construction
Back at the food bank, Chef and cooking instructor Jayson McCarter says he hopes word about the new kitchen will spread to other farmers.
CUT The kitchen now becomes a vehicle, enabling the food bank to kind of spread its wings. We might have some folks out there that could donate things but didn’t think that we could use them before – what are they going to do with this? – Now, they know we can do something with it and it might inspire some more of those.
We all know the classic image of the cornucopia, a horn-shape basket with vegetables spilling out. The food bank hopes its new kitchen will be right there to catch the bounty. The new space should be open for business in a couple of weeks.
For NHPR News, I’m Jon Greenberg.
