Charlottesville Food by Casey Ireland

Author:Casey Ireland
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2014-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

OUTSIDE THE BIG BOX: CSAS AND ONLINE RETAILERS

The success of the gourmet grocer in Charlottesville reflects one side of its unique culinary tastes: the taste for the fancy, the unique, the highbrow. Yet the down-home, get-your-hands-dirty and meet-your-farmer appeal of community-supported agriculture connects with an overlapping yet distinct interest of the area. Community-supported agriculture programs, or CSAs, abound in the area, subscribed to by a variety of customers. College students, young mothers and die-hard hippies can all go to the farm or to a pickup site to grab their “subscription”: a basket of the freshest fruits and vegetables the farm can produce. A CSA’s most basic purpose is to link the producer and consumer directly, allowing for a greater understanding of food origins and a deeper appreciation of local food sourcing.

CSA subscriptions can vary in subscription length, size and frequency of pickups. One of the constants of CSA-style grocery buying is the consistency of beautiful, just-picked vegetables, fruit, flowers and herbs. The relationship between farmer and consumer in this case is a symbiotic one: the CSA subscriber gets direct access to the freshest local produce, and farmers get funding upfront at the beginning of growing season. If bad weather, machinery problems or unforeseen issues disrupt the growing season or the farm’s ability to produce, both farmer and subscriber shoulder the burden of costs. This alternative to more conventional, industrialized methods of food distribution gives the customer a more active role in food production and allows the farmer to keep his or her products locally purchased.

But what happens if a consumer wants to try different offerings from different farms? What if a long drive to the farm isn’t part of one’s getting-off-work schedule? Though the economic and agricultural model of community-supported agriculture is a thriving business in Charlottesville, others have figured out a way to promote the CSA culture with less time and more options. Brett Wilson of Horse & Buggy Produce has figured out a way to offer grocery subscriptions with a flexibility that fits a variety of lifestyles. Horse & Buggy allows customers to purchase weekly or biweekly shares of products such as produce, dairy, bread, dry goods and various meats. Shares are available for pickup or home delivery, a boon for those too busy to schedule time for meet-up sites.

With a well-tailored website and an easy personality, Brett Wilson has a Yale education and a love of heirloom tomatoes. Horse & Buggy began officially in 2006, unofficially in 2004, when Wilson was growing produce for restaurants and peddling cider. One day, a group of local women saw the produce in the back of Wilson’s pickup truck and inquired about his foodstuffs. The demand for his product exceeded its supply, so Wilson partnered with Mennonite farmers in the valley. Due to such “mom requests,” Wilson made his produce available in 2006 via Horse & Buggy subscriptions.

Wilson’s partnership with the Mennonite farmers, born from the realization that his own farming capacity was not suitable for keeping up with the demand for heirloom products, is crucial to his business.

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