UVM dining to purchase veggies from food hub

The Intervale Food Hub has become an "approved vendor" of University of Vermont dining services, which means the Burlington collector and purchaser of local foods can sell it to UVM's dining operation.

The food hub, based on a community supported agriculture (CSA) model, buys food from local farmers and producers. In turn, the food hub sells it to customers — about 1,200 households a year, according to food hub manager Sona Desai.

UVM is the food hub's first institutional customer, Desai said. The expectation is that the food hub will sell $50,000 worth of local produce to UVM before the end of the year — roughly $3,000 worth per week for the upcoming semester.

The partnership is a further step is an ongoing effort by a number of groups — public, private and nonprofit — to strengthen and expand the local food supply.

Four years ago, UVM was among the first universities in the nation to commit to the "Real Food Challenge," in which 20 percent of food purchases will be for "real food" — local, sustainable, healthy, humanely raised — by 2020. The university's food service is run by Sodexo, a French company that last spring hired a local director to lead its "Vermont First" initiative.

The partnership with UVM means that area farmers and producers have a greater market for their food, one that could conceivably expand to other Sodexo-operated dining services, Desai said.

It is also creates a second revenue stream for the Intervale Food Hub, which until the arrangement with UVM sold food to individual or family subscribers. (Students at UVM and other colleges have purchased Food Hub subscriptions through a plan that fits the academic year.)

The sales to Sodexo/UVM dining service represent five to eight percent of the food hub's business, Desai said.

Farms producing food for UVM include Rockville Market Farm in Starksboro and River Berry Farm in Fairfaix; and Intervale farms Diggers' Mirth and Pitchfork, according to Desai.

UVM serves roughly 10,000 meals a day at 15 dining halls on campus, said Melissa Zelazny, resident district manager for UVM dining.

About 5,300 students subscribe to the UVM meal plan; the dining service also prepares meals for commuters, faculty and staff, she said.