Flaim Farms

On the Line: farm to school
You Want Fries with That? - 
There’s something new on the menu in West Windsor’s school cafeterias.
by Bonnie Blader

A veteran food critic couldn’t have said it better. “What I really like about it is the inside. It’s different from the outside. It’s sweeter, has more flavor.”

Second grader Lily Zhu had just had her first taste of Vineland farmer Kevin Flaim’s eggplant fries, debuting in her school lunch. And she wasn’t alone in her enthusiasm. Many first and second graders in the noisy, happy lunchroom of Maurice Hawk School in Princeton Junction stopped chewing long enough to offer enthusiastic sound bites. Although some told Principal Denise Mengani they’d very much like to see what an eggplant looks like, second grader Sharon Lam (pictured) knew exactly, had seen one with her own eyes. Sarah Ward ate her fries before anything else on her plate. After proclaiming that the new lunch item looked like a worm, one student dug in and ate it anyway. “All it takes is one,” said assistant principal Trish Buell. “They’re catching on.”

Flaim was looking on that day with Principal Mengani and Doreen Pierson, Sodexo food coordinator for the West Windsor schools, to watch the students react to his product. A fourth-generation New Jersey farmer, he works a 450-acre farm in East Vineland with his father, Bob, Sr., and brother, Bob, Jr. Never a stranger to innovation, Flaim believes his value-added product addresses the future of New Jersey farming. “All the farms in New Jersey are a spot market,” he says. “That’s all we are. We fill in holes.”

His answer to the lack of profitability in wholesale markets, coupled with his awareness of a growing local-foods movement, was to develop a series of products from his own crop, using his wife Sharon’s recipes. Under the Jersey Fresh label, and his own Panther Brand, Flaim and his family are marketing eggplant cutlets, eggplant fries,
and in the spring of 2009, zucchini fries. In addition to his transactions with the West Windsor schools, Flaim has a contract pending with the Hopewell Valley Regional School District and is being considered by The Lawrenceville School and by schools in West New York, New Jersey. His cutlets and fries are also sold in selected food
stores in the area, including Wegmans and Foodtown, which first took a chance on his success. “They gave me an incentive because they said, before I had anything going, they’d definitely buy because of the Jersey Fresh label. They took 240 cases.”

The September 2008 development of Flaim’s eggplant fries coincided with recent changes in the way West Windsor Township schools may contract for food. “Sodexo has made buying of these local products a little easier and a lot less paperwork,” comments Doreen Pierson in regard to the contract change that allows the district more freedom in choosing suppliers.

Sodexo, a worldwide food service company, supplies West Windsor cafeterias. Prior to the 2006 contract change, districts could do business only with approved vendors.
Much of the food supplied came through USDA commodity programs or through distributors. Although New Jersey products may have been included, there was no way to identify individual farms or farmers in the supply chain. Pierson says Sodexo uses local bread, produce and dairy in all accounts. “We buy produce from a supplier that gets what it can from local New Jersey farmers … apples from Terhune Orchards, bakery items from a New Jersey bakery, and dairy from Burlington.” Still, she says after meeting Flaim in the bustling lunchroom of Maurice Hawk School, “It’s nice to meet the farmer. Hopefully, he’ll help bring others who will have items that last through the winter.”
Both Pierson and Sodexo regional manager Ed Kenna recognize the growing interest in local foods and the concern farm market managers and parents express over what is served in school lunches, and both struggle with the issue of availability to meet those concerns.

“The perception is that there is always local produce available,” says Kenna. “The issue is the time of the year—crop seasons and school years do not coincide. But a farmer who turns his eggplant or zucchini into fries, that’s very good.”

“We love to support local vendors,” says Pierson. “It’s ridiculous to buy tomatoes, for example, in September from California when New Jersey has an abundance. The quality of New Jersey produce is much better. The hurdles are getting it delivered. Farmers have the product but no means of getting it to the schools.”

Thanks to Kevin Flaim and his initiative, Pierson imagines a future where value-added products developed by local farmers can fill in for the absence of fresh crops in winter. “Hopefully, farmers will come up with more ways, maybe bagged frozen soup, to sell their product to schools.”

Flaim continues to plan. His farm is currently undergoing a thirdparty audit for food safety. “To sell to schools, you have to have it for fresh produce,” he says. “It’s a big cost to do. Right now, we’re in compliance, but you have to keep records. Daily records. That’s a pain.”

But it’s a pain he knows he needs to endure to expand possibilities for his crop. “If all goes well, we’ll try something different. We’re also thinking about doing zucchini flowers. We bring them to Collingswood Farmers’ Market now and sell about a thousand a week to local restaurants.”

Is he a pioneer? The question makes him blush. “I don’t know, I guess, yeah, from the farmer’s point of it.” More important to Flaim is the excitement he felt when he saw the first packages of his food. “I feel good about it. And you know a certain percentage of that crop is going to go towards that, so you can plan. Value-added is a way for New Jersey farms to survive.”

FROM ediblejersey.com

http://www.ediblejersey.com/content/index.php/spring-2009/on-the-line-fa...