I believe the food we get from local farms and growers tastes fresher than anything you can find in the supermarket.
Pastor Ardyth Bednarz of New Bedford People’s Christian Church and host of The happy hour of the Bible radio show on WBSM, reminded me of the New Bedford-based nonprofit Coastal Foodshed that simplifies and improves access to locally grown food.
Its goal is simple: to create an alliance that delivers nutritious food to local shoppers. The Cascading Effect helps SouthCoast bargain hunters and food producers by making it easier to buy healthy, local food through a host of simple programs.
Throughout the pandemic, Coastal Foodshed served 19 communities around New Bedford, working with 37 regional farmers.
With sky-high fuel prices, Coastal Foodshed is helping the environment by reducing carbon emissions from transport, passing those savings on to the buyer while supporting our environment and the farmers in the area, rather than supporting the powerful producers of food. industrial foods.
It is not easy to bring a product to market. Small farms have to do all the earthwork themselves, such as persuading grocers to sell their produce and fruit, which takes up the farmer’s limited time and resources. Coastal Foodshed takes care of everything like that, so the farmer can focus on growing more food.
Coastal Foodshed offers helpful options and payment plans that make buying local food super easy, including SNAP/HIP and other stress-free ways to shop.
We often talk about creating innovative solutions for residents of underserved communities. Coastal Foodshed increases customers’ access to fresh food that may be limited to them, while supporting local farms that hire local workers.
Each meat product is raised within a 50 mile radius and products are grown within a 30 mile radius of New Bedford.
From start to finish, Coastal Foodshed is mutually beneficial. For more information, visit CoastalFoodshed.org.
