Can you eat local year-round? This Paonia business says ‘absolutely’
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PAONIA, Colo. — Sarah Peterson is all about relationships. She may not matchmake couples, but she connects people interested in local, organic food, with producers who are looking to diversify where their cheese, chicken, and kohlrabi end up.
From her house on a small hill looking down on Paonia and the North Fork Valley, Peterson runs Paonia Food Movement with the help of a pickup truck and two pups. It’s a fresh food delivery service, where customers — mostly from the neighboring Roaring Fork Valley — order a box of produce, meat, dairy and pastries from around Paonia at the beginning of the week. Peterson then delivers the boxes over McClure Pass, in a 200 mile loop that connects the two valleys.
She stops at designated pick-up locations, like the library parking lot in Basalt, and hangs out with her dogs Izzy and Lilly while dozens of customers pick up their orders. That’s been her routine almost every Friday since August last year when she started the business.
Video: Joshua Vorse, Rocky Mountain PBS
On Thursdays, she starts a small loop around Paonia, picking up enough food for each order from the farms, many of which are within a few miles of her house. Paonia Food Movement diversifies distribution for the small farms Peterson works with, getting their food into a market that it otherwise may not reach.
“I'll do the driving and I'll bring it to them in a nice little box,” Peterson said. Much of the food available to order through her website is organic. A simple box of meat, eggs, cheese, and greens comes out to $60.
Community supported agriculture (CSA) is common at farmers markets across the state, and many small farms have storefronts on their property. Peterson’s approach is unique in that her target market is a less agriculturally rich area and her business model is more flexible than a set subscription service.
One of those producers, Jacob Gray, raises meat chickens for the wholesale market in Delta County, and a little farther away in mountain towns such as Aspen and Telluride. In recent years he’s gotten into the retail market, which makes up about a quarter of his business.
“That's kind of the mission: raise good, healthy birds, keep them in a smaller footprint, and Paonia Food Movement helps with that,” he said.
Peterson says she has about a 100 customers, and since starting the business last fall has written $40,000 worth of checks to the dozens of farmers she works with.
The North Fork Valley was already covered by a similar business, Paonia Producers Market, and Peterson knew the demand was there in the Roaring Fork Valley because she grew up in Glenwood Springs.
“Delta County is one of the poorest counties in the state, and I'm sure Pitkin is probably one of the wealthiest. My idea was to be able to bring them food and bring some of those resources into this valley,” Peterson said.
The rate of persons below the poverty line in Colorado is 9%. In Delta County it’s 14%. In Pitkin County, home to Aspen and Snowmass, it’s 7%.
Three percent of farms in Delta County farm organically, compared to 1% in neighboring Montrose and Mesa counties, according to the latest federal census of agriculture.
That abundance of organic food was another inspiration. Peterson wanted to source as much of her food from the valley as possible.
“You really can feed yourself almost entirely [with local food]. You're not eating a lot of processed food or tropical fruits, but yeah, you could eat pretty locally, which is incredible,” she said, laughing about the lack of tropical fruit in Colorado.
A decade ago, Gray was an intern at The Living Farm, an organic outfit in Paonia that trains farmers in agriculture and business. He has been farming ever since. The experience led to him starting Mountain Bird.
Trevor Donovan, a more recent product of The Living Farm, provides kale, arugula and salad mixes to Peterson’s customers.
“I love connecting with individuals as much as possible and having the people who buy our food and eat our food be as connected to our farm and our practices as possible,” said Donovan, his glasses fogging up from standing in the warm greenhouse where he grows food all winter.
The greens, and a variety of meat, such as ground bison from Fire Mountain Ranch, are part of Peterson’s strategy for keeping the business sustainable through the winter. So far, so good. Now, she hopes to not be overwhelmed by the fresh fruits — cherries, peaches and apples — available in the summer.
“I think finding a way to take the bounty at the peak of our season and carry it through the winter is important, and that is a focus for me as I move forward,” said Peterson.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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