The FSC-GNV met on December 21 2021. The topic of this meeting was Economic Development & Supply Chain Initiatives. Contact information for the attendees below may be provided upon request. Please email foodsystemscoalitionGNV@gmail.com for assistance connecting to FSC-GNV participants. To download and share these meeting notes, access the PDF version HERE.

Check out the About page of our website to learn more about the FSC-GNV. Also, download this one-page outreach flyer to share with others.

Partner News andUpdates for December 21 2021

City of Gainesville Updates for December 21 2021

Solid Waste Ordinance

• The Zero Waste Subcommittee is currently working on a Solid Waste Ordinance that includes a food waste reduction and recover section. The ordinance is in draft form and is likely to be finalized early January. The committee will discuss it on Tuesday, January 4th at 2pm. Join by phone HERE.
• After the policy moves forward with the subcommittee, it will be seen at the full commission meeting in February or March then will follow the traditional City policy adoption process.
• As a reminder, the food waste section requires food-generating businesses to follow the EPA Hierarchy to ensure that food is diverted out of the landfill. The first level is source reduction, then human consumption, followed by animal consumption, then biofuels, and lastly composting.
• The expectation is for the policy to be phased in, starting with grocery stores. Not before 2023 would it phase into restaurants and other food- generating businesses.

Wasted Food Recovery Pilots

• Gator Dining at UF is diverting food from the Arredondo Café on campus. In two weeks, they diverted 120 pounds of food to GRACE Marketplace at the Community Resource Paramedicine Program which both distribute food to those who need it.
• Shoutout to Steven at NFRMC for their recovery efforts and to Dina at Field and Fork with the gleaning efforts.
• Our team is continuing to encourage local business partners and non-profits to sign-up for MEANS – mechanism for getting this work accomplished.
• We have also been in early discussions of a food recovery facility where the repackaging and storage of food could occur. Exciting conversations are happening.
• Question: How do we ensure that diverted food isn’t going to waste after distribution? GRACE is serving meals with diverted food and CRP is delivering to clients as individual meals. The goal with all of this is to avoiding donation dumping, when food recipients are given food that they are not able to distribute with their resources.
  • Grant opportunity shared about reducing consumer food waste
  • Comment: There is more money from the federal government yet to come, specifically allocations for recycling and sustainability. We are awaiting the release of that information to support wasted food recovery effort.

Suggestion

• It would be great to have a program where families come together with the food that they have and eat together.
• The Grace Grows Community Food Plan Project (GG CFP) has demonstrated that individuals are not only interested in food access as a concern, but sovereignty and culture and community around food. COVIC has effected gathering, of course.
• There has been an idea to have a mobile kitchen to have in places like GHA, libraries, community centers where folks could come together to share family recipes, etc. Suggestion that “Stone Soup” the book would be great for library lesson with a mobile kitchen.
• The GG CFP project ideas will inform a lot of great food access work over the next few months. The project hopes to find individuals to champion the work to get these ideas to come to fruition. Findings also show that community members are doing potlucks and individual distributions in their neighborhoods. Those with gardens are excited to share crops with neighbors. The key is resourcing and supporting the work already happening as well. HUGE shout out to GG team for championing that work.

Grocery Store

• The City has heard from the developer following the 90-day pause that they requested to complete more community engagement. The development team indicated interest in moving forward, but it was determined that there was not much engagement done during the 90-day pause.
• The City is currently conducting due diligence; specifically, this includes reference checks, information verification, etc. Based on findings, staff will be making recommendations to the commission at the meeting on 1/6 about next steps. There is also an external consultant involved to conduct due diligence.
• We encourage anyone interested to tune into the meeting to see the discussion.

Joint City County Food System Policy Board

• This is a board that the County is leading. We are waiting to confirm date of next meeting in January and will share out to the group when we are able.

Food Systems Coalition General Announcements

• Please send website updates to Miranda Martin to be included.
• Please submit volunteer opportunities to the website and we will work to get students plugged in. When students return in the spring, they will likely be looking for volunteers so please feel free to share those now!

Field and Fork Farm at UF

• Gleaning – While the gleaning efforts have been done by internal volunteers, there is a chance that Field and Fork will be bringing on a gleaning intern in the spring. This could be a good addition for the FSC website in the call for volunteers.

North Florida Regional Medical Center

• Last week, NFRMC provided turkeys and hams to staff at the holidays. After sharing with staff, they had a number of items remaining that they then took to Bread of the Mighty as donations.

HealthStreet

• Currently, they are working on a project funded by a large CDC grant that focuses on getting health resources to those in rural areas.
• Additionally, they are working with the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at UF and their mobile medical vehicles to get the COVID vaccine and flu shots information to folks.
• The goal of the program is to connect with folks about vaccine and food resources. In particular, they are conducting public health surveillance – connecting with communities who are often left out. Recently they have connected with IFAS to reach farm workers.
• When the mobile unit does out, they are checking blood pressure, doing cholesterol screenings, giving people info about the vaccine and flu shot.
• The health literacy piece just beginning, as they are wanting to include all the educational materials in other languages especially Spanish and Haitian Creole.
• Please keep program in mind in terms of community partners.

Suggestion

• Include SNAP and Fresh Access Bucks education with this.
• Healthstreet would love to distribute the materials. In particular, it would be good to have SNAP/FAB on the cards they are distributing.
• Also, feel free to share the list of community food resources on FSC website.