2/26
This week I unfortunately didn’t make it to my first day of delivery because I woke up feeling sick 🙁 I let my field supervisor know and he assured me it was okay, I am going in next monday to do delivery anyways. Instead, I spent the day catching up on academic work and reading hoptopia to prepare for next week.
2/19
3 WEEKS AND I’M GRADUATED!!!
Anyways, today at Farm to Fit was the same old same old. I peeled carrots for what it seemed like eternity (aka 4 hours) and went into chopping them diagonally (diagonal rondelle cut to us the fancy term) for an hour. I believe the carrots were going into a beef stew.
We breaked for lunch where Juan made us grilled cheese with leftover tomato soup on the side. Feeding employees at lunch is a good way to reduce food waste and make your employees happy!
Today was a pretty lax day as it is the last day of my food prep section. It was a nice perspective to see the transition of food go from from whole to diced/cubed/chopped to cooked down. Farm to Fit doesn’t buy prepackaged or ready to heat up food, they quite literally make everything from scratch to commit to their promise of delicious food. They use a specific math to make sure their yields for packaged meals is not too much or far too little. In my time working food prep, I came across a lot of organic products, while maybe not local as in Oregon local, a lot of the food comes from this coast. It’s funny because when I was hired on, my supervisor thought maybe this wouldn’t be the best fit in terms of my academic interests in local and sustainable food. Working here thus far has made me realize how underrated their sustainable practices are and their commitment to 6% or less food waste. Everything they do is in consideration to being sustainable whether they realize it or not.
I also noticed how hard the employees work considering they are preparing food from 7 am to 3-5 pm, doing hand motions and lifting things that is repetitive. After 5 hours of it my limbs get tired enough. On top of that almost every employee I met enjoyed their job and eachothers company.
Next week I switch to delivery, which should be interesting. Stay tuned!
2/12
ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!
But I still had to wake up at 6 am 🙂 Another week of food preparation of course. So I’ve decided I’ll finish with 4 weeks of food prep (this being my third), 1 week of delivery and 2 of nutrition. I originally was going to only do 3 weeks of food prep but my field supervisor doesn’t feel I’ll get much out of delivery so I’d rather spend more time learning about the facility, although the delivery part is important as well.
This week was pretty simple. I started off with organic potatoes, my favorite vegetable of all time. I believe that they were being used in several different hashes, so I spent 4 hours peeling lb after lb after lb. Then I moved onto chopping them, thank god I do this at home on a regular basis so it went quickly. The next 2 hours was spent dicing herbs such as basil, parsley and chives. Of course we were spoiled with a lunch breakfast scramble from Juan, a mix of eggs, sausage and potatoes. He never fails to impress!
I got to see where the compost goes, just outside in a large bin that gets taken out weekly I believe. Still not sure where they take it, I always forget to ask! I wonder if there are any organizations that accept compost? I don’t compost but wish I did, I just have nowhere to put it because my house isn’t suitable for planting. And even if there were compost accepting organizations, I can imagine the health codes behind it.
Anyways, another fun, simple week working with my favorite thing of all time, food! I left my phone at home so I got no photos but I’ll improvise with something I’ve taken before.
2/5
Today was one of those days where I woke up and went straight back to bed.
BUT
I managed to get my butt out of bed and get to Farm to Fit by 7 am to begin the lovely process of peeling and cutting 50 lbs of carrots 🙂 Peeling quite literally took 4 hours, the cutting I did about half way for another hour until I could not feel my hands or my feet. I have said this before but I really do give appreciation to the workers who do this almost everyday from 7 am to 2 or 3 pm!
On the bright side, the carrots were beautiful and organic, delivered that day, and I was happy to help make someone’s life easier by doing it. The employees there are very supportive and helpful, we got fed another lunch by Chef Juan which seemed to be birria quesadillas with a very spicy verde. It hit the spot for my crazy spicy pregnancy cravings. All in all it was a relaxed week of food packaging and I am now an expert at peeling and cutting carrots!
1/28
This week finalizes my last day doing the packaging portion of Farm to fit. This week was very similar to last week in terms of process. We sanitize tables, lay out trays, place food bowls, measure everything, lid, nutrition sticker, put in the fridge and do it all over again. It was nice to feel comfortable and know what I was doing, some new people started today and they came to me with questions I could actually answer on my own!
There was quite a bit of food left over today so what we didn’t spread out in the bowls was put aside for the workers to take home which was awesome they were getting fed. One conversation that sparked my interest was when a new employee asked, “these plastic bowls seem wasteful because I asked and customers are not allowed to return them”. I agreed, but to be fair they were nice plastic bowls that were microwave safe. If I was subscribing to meals I would keep every bowl as tubberware, but you can only hope that is what customers are doing if they are environmentally conscious. I wish there was a way to return the bowls for reuse but that intersects with health code violations. I wonder if there are biodegradable bowls and how those would withstand not only holding food but travelling, and cost?
The food we dished up today included:
Next week I move onto food prep for the meals so it will be an interesting step backwards to see how these meals are created.
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:
To pack these meals the process went as so (about 6-10 people working on it together):
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.
1/14/18
To finish off my first week, I spent my day at Farm to Fit to do the packaging component of the products (my 10 weeks will be split doing several packaging weekings, several delivery, some in the kitchen and ending on nutrition data). Getting there at 7 am, I was put to work doing data entries for the first four hours. These entries included every customers delivery information and whether or not they returned their last orders bag. From what I understood from asking questions, each order is placed in a bag, when Farm to Fit delivers a new meal, the customer is supposed to have their previous order’s bag sitting out. This way Farm to Fit can re-use rather than waste. The data I was inputting recorded if they returned the bag, and if they did not, how many bags have they kept since they began ordering, these entries are done for every week. I recorded one entry that had up to 17 bags they have not returned! I was not able to ask, but what type of bags are these? What does Farm to Fit do if somebody never returns their bags?
What I found interesting from doing these entries is Farm to Fit delivers as far as Hillsboro, considering they are in NorthEast Portland it can be up to an hour drive depending on traffic. They deliver in their Hybrid Electric Pruis’s.
My final hour today was helping package the actual food in little plastic bowls, similar to tupperware. Meals were organized by type, so paleo, vegetarian, 1200 cal diet, 1600 cal diet, 2000 cal diet, dairy free and gluten free. Each component that went into the bowl (we were making a breakfast scramble) was weighed out to an exact number, these numbers ranged depending on diet restriction. This way, chefs know how to make the perfect amount of food without waste. I am curious if customers re-use these tupperware, recycle them, return them, or just throw them away?
Side note: Another common theme I’m noticing is Farm to Fit as well markets very sustainable forward but in reality it has become a lot harder to stick with, especially considering the winter season and lack of producing farms. A parallel to keep in mind between Celebrate and Farm to Fit
