Wednesday, July 8, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Institutions such as hospitals can help local mid-size farms
By eric Mortenson
Capital Press
PORTLAND (AP) — At
Oregon Health & Science
University (OHSU) recently,
the lunch offerings included
sandwiches made with
organic chicken breast —
locally sourced — on focac-
cia bread, baked locally and
delivered daily. Plus salad
made from local greens. Not a
pre-packaged, mass-produced
item in sight.
This is hospital food?
Providing minimally pro-
cessed, nutritious food at a
hospital, where the clientele
includes patients, doctors and
nurses, medical students and
visitors, seems like a solid
idea. And OHSU, the teach-
ing hospital that employs
13,700 people and has one of
Oregon’s biggest economic
footprints, was an early
adopter of the practice.
The greater impact, how-
ever, could be to what a recent
study referred to as “Ag of the
Middle.” That is, the farmers,
ranchers and processors who
are too big to make a living
selling solely at farmers’ mar-
kets and CSAs, but too small
to compete at the commodity
level.
The study by Ecotrust, a
Portland non-profit, identified
institutions as a prime market
opportunity for middle-sized
producers.
Ecotrust estimated
Oregon’s hospitals, schools,
prisons, assisted-living facili-
ties and other institutions
serve 40 million meals a year.
Institutional food service
departments have immense
buying power and purchase
large quantities, the report
pointed out. Even a relatively
small tweak toward buying
more Oregon grown and pro-
cessed products would have
a “significant ripple effect
across the domestic food sys-
tem,” the Ecotrust report said.
It paid off for a pair of
Northeast Oregon cattle
ranches. Carman Ranch in
Wallowa, in partnership
with McClaren Ranch, sells
about 1,000 pounds of beef
and bones a week to OHSU.
The ranches take about five
cows a week to a processor in
Brownsville, 90 miles south
of Portland, and sell the hos-
pital 500 pounds of ground
beef, 200 pounds of rounds,
100 pounds of steaks and 200
pounds of bones for soup and
broth.
Cory Carman, a fourth
generation cattle rancher,
said the relationship has
been “phenomenal.” OHSU
accounts for 20 to 25 percent
of the ranch’s annual sales
and is by far the ranch’s big-
gest account, she said. The
business would be “much
smaller” without OHSU’s
consistent demand for quality
and quantity.
She said producers pursu-
ing such relationships must
understand they require
patience, collaboration and
flexibility on both ends.
“The biggest lesson is hav-
ing that anchor customer,”
Carman said.
Carman said OHSU
approached her out of the blue
when it was looking for grass-
fed beef to serve the thou-
sands who are at “Pill Hill,”
as the campus overlooking
Portland is known, every day.
Fernando Divina, OHSU’s
executive chef, said the com-
plex counts about 10,000 food
transactions a day at nine out-
lets within the facility, includ-
ing cafe and snack kiosk sales
and 1,200 meals delivered
to patients’ rooms. OHSU’s
annual budget for food and
beverages is about $5 mil-
lion, and the hospital made
a conscious decision to walk
its health talk by seeking out
local producers, preferably
organic.
“We want to buy every-
thing regionally, if possible,”
Divina said. “That’s our goal.”
It isn’t a simple process.
Scott Cochrane, OHSU’s
food purchasing agent, said
large institutions such as
schools often have tight bud-
gets. It’s often cheaper for
them to buy the volume they
need from large distributors.
To purchase in bulk locally
at a competitive price point,
institutions may have to ask
multiple growers to aggregate
their production.
“I know they all want to,
but there’s a point where they
can’t cut their own throat,”
Cochrane said. “There’s a lot
of willing participants on the
outside of the circle who can’t
get in.”
Eecole Copen, OHSU’s
sustainable foods program
coordinator, acknowledged it
takes more work to buy food
from smaller producers.
“You have to commit to
being OK with dealing with
multiple vendors,” she said.
“The whole system is based
on willingness.”
She and others refer to
this type of purchasing as a
larger version of Community
Supported Agriculture, or
CSA. It’s ISA in this case:
Institutional Supported
Agriculture.
Copen said the payoff is
a strengthened regional food
system.
“We need more farmers,”
she said. “That’s about food
security, growing the local
economy, jobs, income.
OHSU’s first foray into the
local food scene was estab-
lishing a farmers’ market on
campus. It’s now in its ninth
year and serves as an incuba-
tor for growers who eventu-
ally reach the point where they
can sell wholesale to OHSU’s
food services department.
The idea isn’t just a
Portland foodie thing. Good
Shepherd Medical Center in
Hermiston, about 180 miles
east of Portland, buys veg-
etables from Finley’s Fresh
Produce, berries from another
local grower, and pork and
chicken from suppliers across
the border in Washington. All
of the beef purchased by the
hospital is raised within 50
miles.
Nancy Gummer, Good
Shepherd’s nutrition services
and diabetes education direc-
tor, said she began buying
locally about 10 years ago.
Gummer said she wanted
to quit buying meat from ani-
mals treated with antibiotics
or raised in confined feeding
operations. It took 10 years to
find chicken she felt comfort-
able feeding hospital patients,
staff, and visitors.
In addition to buying local,
Gummer avoids purchasing
products that contain artifi-
cial colors, flavors or other
additives. Her food budget is
about $500,000 annually.
“We feel what you eat has
the biggest impact on your
health,” she said. “Food that’s
really healthy for humans is
going to be grown in healthier
soil, and handled and pro-
cessed in a way that has less
impact on the environment.”
Increased institutional
buying of locally grown and
processed food can reshape
the food system, said Amanda
Oborne, vice president of food
and farms for Ecotrust and the
lead author of the “Ag of the
Middle” report.
Producer and buyer have
to make some adjustments,
however, Oborne said.
Institutions have to be
flexible enough to partner
with farmers and “take what
they’ve got when they’ve got
it” and pay promptly, she said.
They also should increase
their frozen storage space so
they can buy in bulk when
things are in season and use
them over time.
Farmers “have to be able
to think like a bigger opera-
tion,” she said. They need
proper insurance coverage
and must comply with food-
safety regulations.
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