By Jenny Ryan
Local food systems are more important now than ever. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted lives and livelihoods, revealing some vulnerabilities in our nation’s food supply chain. Numerous meat-packing facilities were forced to close their doors as the virus spread in crowded working conditions. Many industrial farms have had to plow their fields and throw out the harvest, unable to secure laborers to pick their produce.
But as such images and stories of the fragility of the country’s industrial food supply topped headlines, I watched COVID-19’s impact on our local food system in St. Louis, and what I saw was encouraging.
As co-founder of the Tower Grove Farmers Market, the largest farmers’ market in the St. Louis region, I have witnessed the ingenuity and creativity of local food producers and food artisans over the years as they incubate their business each Saturday, growing their sales, with many eventually opening their own brick-and-mortar businesses. I am truly amazed at how the farmers and food artisans have responded to the transformative situation caused by this virus.
After my husband and I made the difficult decision to suspend our weekly winter farmers’ market and postpone the opening of the outdoor market, it became clear that our farmers and food artisans were going to suffer tremendously, as would the thousands of customers who support them each week. Within a week or two, however, the Tower Grove Farmers Market returned, thanks to an online ordering and delivery system. TGFM partnered with Eat Here St. Louis, a local food delivery business that found itself with idle workers as their restaurant clients were forced to close. It was amazing to watch this impromptu food distribution system develop from our home office as we fielded math questions from our daughter and broke up fights between a new puppy and our old dog.
What was also amazing was the response from our vendors, some of whom claim this delivery system kept them from having to permanently close. Urban Buds, a flower grower in South St. Louis, created and sold 92 bouquets on Mother’s Day weekend! This rivals if not outpaces what they would sell at an outdoor Saturday market. Queen’s Cuisine created a special Mother’s Day quiche as part of a breakfast-in-bed box.
The response from our customers has been overwhelming as well. The orders for veggie boxes and meat and cheese sell out within hours, as if they were precious concert tickets. Our customers have shown immense gratitude because they are able to create healthy meals with fresh local produce and meat from sustainable family farms.
Our food colleagues in the restaurant industry have also displayed creative responses to the disruption from the pandemic. They have developed curbside family dinners and have begun adding grocery items, selling their ingredients directly to the customer. This type of creative resiliency is what I love about the food industry, whether it’s a restaurant, grocery store, food artisan, or farmer, these food businesses will figure out how to adapt to changes in the economy.
It’s that type of knowledge that I love sharing with my clients at PGAV: working with municipalities or developers to determine how we breathe new life into an outlet mall or a vacant bowling alley. The answer can often be found in the food industry. Call it what you want -- a restaurant incubator, food hall, farmers market, or makers’ space -- the demand for locally produced food and small-batch food products has skyrocketed in recent years and will only continue, especially as the large-scale industrial food chain continues to be vulnerable.
Food is the common denominator for all of us. No matter how much you earn or where you live, we all need access to healthy, safe food. And by creating food-focused businesses, communities can find innovative ways to provide economic opportunity for their small businesses and residents. Take it from me, what begins as a small-scale operation can lead to transformative economic and physical health for a community.