Community Toolkit > Land Use > Food

Local Foods Plymouth

Plymouth, NH

Community Profile:
Located between New Hampshire’s White Mountains and the state’s Lakes Region, Plymouth, New Hampshire hosts a population of approximately 6,000 people. Owing largely to the presence of Plymouth State University, Plymouth has a young population, with a median age of 22.          

Project Overview:
Making note of the connection between food production, distribution, and energy issues, staff members at D Acres Organic Farm in Dorchester, New Hampshire joined up with Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative (PAREI) to put create Local Foods Plymouth (LFP), a virtual marketplace where local farmers and consumers connect to exchange locally grown food products. One of the significant aspects of this project is that nearly anyone can be a provider! Whether it’s eggs, honey or berries that one has to sell, all are welcome to participate in the program.  This is helping to change the mindset of who can grow food locally and contribute to the food security in the region.

Consumers can log onto the website during the growing season to browse the offerings of local farmers and pre-purchase seasonal food products even before the produce has been harvested. The products will vary and may include eggs, vegetables, maple syrup, bread, herbs, milk and meats such as chicken, goat and lamb. Using the website the buyer, as desired, will order the food, pay for it on-line and pick it up at the weekly farmer’s market location. For consumers, the benefit comes in the ease of one-stop shopping, fresh local produce, a more robust local economy, and the associated environmental benefits (it has been estimated that American produce travels, on average, 1,500 miles from farm to supermarket). This benefits the farmers in that they are better able to gauge how much produce to harvest on a weekly basis.

In 2006, New Hampshire Public Radio host Amy Quinton's did a story on Local Foods Plymouth.

Process Steps:

1. Through PAREI, Local Foods Plymouth secured a $1,000 mini grant from the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture which covered up the basic start-up costs. A subsequent $3,500 grant from USDA Rural Development provided for technical assistance to farmers and further evaluation and development of the program. Both the NHDOA and USDA grants went toward labor compensation. In addition, D Acres and PAREI volunteers and staff generously donated many hours, helping Local Foods Plymouth to become a reality. Staff dedicated approximately 20 hours per week to the project, with the support of twenty volunteers who worked on the project over the course of the first season, generally four per week
2. With the help of a volunteer, Local Foods Plymouth developed a website to support the marketing and sale of goods on a weekly basis. After this, D Acres staff member Abi Holm solicited grower participation by calling local farmers and letting them know about the opportunity for them to sell their produce locally with almost no effort on their part. She described the project, how it worked and what it required of them. Most farmers were willing to give it a try o the basis of a personal relationship with the solicitor.
   
   At this point, farmers were asked to fill out a basic application form, nearly identical to any farmers' market application, listing contact info, what they planned to sell, and general rule.
   
3. After this, Local Foods Plymouth arranged for the secure purchase of goods online for consumers, as well as a method of distributing payment to the farmers. For this, Local Foods Plymouth used Zen Cart, a software program that creates a generic e-commerce site which can be modified to meetthe needs of any business.The program uses Paypal, the most commonly used service for online financial transactions. An employee of D Acres set up the site, but since that time the heavier technical aspects have been dealt with by GAIA Host Collective, with the lighter technical aspects being carried out by an employee of the PAREI.
   
   Also important was the development of a process for the drop-off/pick-up day covering all the logistics of order sorting, storage, and distribution.
   
4. In order to raise awareness, Local Foods Plymouth then began to market the project through local press outlets. In the first year, staff members found it to be the case that they were contacted by various media outlets rather than vice versa, which made their job easier.
   
5. After Local Foods Plymouth was up and running, staff continued to work directly with local producers and participating consumers so as to better refine and further develop the program. Four part-time employees maintain the program. They are paid through grants, advertising income and a small percentage of sales.

During the first 15-week growing season, Local Foods Plymouth met not only its goal of recruiting 12 farmers, but had 50% greater consumer participation than they had hoped for.

Local Foods Plymouth has recently put out a comprehensive manual which includes all of the information that other communities might need to promote and coordinate a similar project, including the website model and accompanying directions. Along with this comes technical assistance and informational meetings.

Click here to read the manual’s table of contents.

Is the Local Foods Plymouth model right for your community? Find out here.

To learn more, or to purchase the model, contact:

Abby Holm
Regional Outreach Coordinator
abigailholm@gmail.com
Ph. 603.525.9481
Cell 603.831.1972

Sandra Jones, Co-Director
Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative (PAREI)
190 Main Street
Plymouth, NH 03264
info@plymouthenergy.org
603.536.5030

Other Local Food Initiatives for Communities:

Local Foods Plymouth is meant to be an add-on to an existing Farmer’s Market or Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Operations.  It is highly transferable and adaptable to events such as these, but if your community does not currently have a Market or a CSA, establishing one might be an important first step.

Links:

Local Foods Plymouth

Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative

D Acres

Online Directory of Farmer’s Markets by State

Online Directory of CSAs

USDA CSA Information (National Agricultural Library)

USDA Rural Development

Zen Cart

GAIA Host Collective

Downloads to Use as Templates:

Local Foods Plymouth Grower Registration Form

Local Foods Plymouth Brochure

Information:

Local Foods Plymouth 2006 Summary Report

USDA Write-Up on Local Foods Plymouth