1/21/18
This week was another one spent packing the food. For my 5 hours there, we were able to pack about 5-6 meals. Now, this company emphasizes in making delicious food, the owner even said this when I got hired on, and they definitely deliver. As we packed the food I was able to sample things here and there and every. last. product was so good! Meals were organized by; boost, paleo, 1200 cal, 1600 cal, 2000 cal, and vegetarian. Customers have the ability to substitute parts of their meals such as no nuts, switch seafood for chicken, no mushroom, ect. The meals were:
- Glazed pork, barley, and chard
- Sole with a hazelnut cream sauce, garlic squash , pumpkin seeds and greens
- Chicken with a type of gravy, greens and rice mix (vegetarians subbed eggplant for chicken)
- Chicken stew type mix with oranges and a bacon orange saute salad
- Chicken on salad greens with red peppers, black beans, cheese and carrots
- Omelets with hash potato side
To pack these meals the process went as so (about 6-10 people working on it together):
- Sanitize tables and trays – lay trays out
- Place food bowls on trays by category
- Fill each bowl accordingly by weight
- Lid each bowl and place nutrition sticker on top
- Mark the bowls with differing color sharpies for an easy way to decipher
- Place trays in walk-in
- Sanitize each table and repeat
I got to know the workers a lot better this week so I asked loads of questions. I was very pleased on Farm to Fit’s initiatives to be sustainable. They recently set their goal of food waste to be 6% or below. They have two composting bins for leftover foods (not sure what’s done with it). The food that is extra after we plate the food is either: distributed as extra on the plate if there is a smaller amount, if there is a larger quantity left, they save it for workers to take home, they compost or donate their food. They also just recently switched supervision of their food health to a new organization (ODA) and are super adamant on no cross-contaminating since so much food is being distributed. They sanitize after quite literally everything they do.
Another fun fact is that they have monthly meetings on new menu ideas where chefs can do presentations on a new recipe. If the owners like it they will buy it off their employee!
On another note!
After I finished up my hours at Farm to Fit I decided to make my own little research excursion to a grocery store I drive by everytime I go home called Natural Grocers. It may be a chain but I was unfamiliar with it and because my interest this quarter is in the marketing aspect of “natural” food for a growing business, I stopped in! It reminded me a lot of a co-op with only natural-esc type products. Not per se too local because there were products from South America, Mexico or Ireland, but all were fair-trade or from non-profit organizations. BUT, everything that was local was clearly labeled as you will see in the pictures down below, usually in bright letters saying “from Oregon”. They also carried only organic produce and free nutrition classes.
