Nonprofits pitch idea of food resource center for Whitefish

Last year when the pandemic challenged the country’s food chain, people across the country and here locally were finding it difficult to buy fresh produce, meat and other needed food sources.

Meat processing plants closed, people cooking at home emptied store shelves of flour, yeast and sugar, and farmers with an abundance of crops had little way to get it into the hands of those who needed it. These issues showed how fragile the current food supply chain is in the country and highlighted the importance of localizing food production and processing, according to two Flathead Valley nonprofits.

“I think this is like a long-term discussion that we’ll keep exploring…” NVFB director Sophie Albert told the Pilot. “I think it would be important for Whitefish. And I think Whitefish would be a great place for a project like this because people are very supportive. It would support local farmers, and be a good community knowledge and education space as well.”

Albert and Farm Hands Director Gretchen Boyer work closely together to address food insecurity in the Flathead Valley. Both organizations saw a stark uptick in people using their services since the start of the pandemic, and especially during the initial stay-at-home order in the spring of 2020. And those increases, as well as the food supply chain issues during Covid, spurred the organizations to more seriously discuss the possibility of a food resource center.

Farm Hands saw a 91% increase in the need for its weekend backpack program for school-aged children and around a 24% increase in the use of its Farmers Market Food for All Program, according to Boyer.

Albert said the number of people utilizing the food bank’s services tripled over the last two years. In 2019 the food bank had around 1,300 clients and in 2020 that number jumped up to nearly 4,500; it now continues to be at an all-time high.

The food bank also distributed “Farmers to Families” boxes, which included fresh produce, dairy products and meat, as part of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. Albert said this was well-received by the food bank’s clients and it is obvious that there is a real need for fresh and nutritious food.

“We really had a long discussion on how to address food supply-chain issues that we are seeing during Covid and also how to get more fresh and healthy food to our community,” Albert said. “There’s a lot of stigma around people coming to the food bank and needing food assistance — people not eating fresh and healthy foods — but that’s not true. Fresh and healthy food is really what people want and also deserve, but often they cannot afford it unfortunately.”

THE FOOD Resource Center is an idea to have a central hub available to the entire community that would provide services such as increased capacity to grow, process, store and distribute local food. It would also have expanded meat processing capacity.

The center also would act as a community education hub in regard to sourcing local food. Some ideas it might include are a demonstration farm, indoor growing space, a community seed library, a nonprofit incubator space, community wild-game processing, equipment to process locally grown produce and a large warehouse with cold storage.

Both Albert and Boyer emphasize that this would not only serve low-income households, but the entire community with its broad range of uses.

“We need to localize our food systems so that we aren’t going to be subject to issues of food-borne pathogens or Covid issues where huge plants have to shut down,” Boyer recently told the Pilot. “Our thought is that if we can have a place that can store, process and help mitigate those issues that we’re going to be a healthier community.”

ALTHOUGH BOYER said she’s been thinking about a local food resource center for years, she and Albert just recently started talking to potential community partners about the idea. They are keeping an eye out for potential properties that would fit the specific needs of this center and gathering interest from the community at this time.

They recently presented their idea to the Whitefish City Council and request funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. The council said while they liked the proposal, the city is prioritizing using some of its $2 million in Covid-relief funds for affordable housing.

The food resource center, for now, is an idea, a concept both nonprofits are committed to exploring. And both believe the entire Flathead Valley community would benefit from localizing food production and processing.

For more information about the NVFB or Farm Hands and the programs they currently offer visit https://www.northvalleyfoodbank.org or https://nourishtheflathead.org.