Bronson Methodist Hospital's farmers market in Kalamazoo offers local produce to employees, visitors and community. Photo: Grant Fletcher
By Haley Walker
Dec. 4, 2009
Chef Frank Turner buys local and organic food every Wednesday from a farmer’s market a few feet from where he works.
Turner uses tomatoes, greens, onions, squash and other items from approximately 18 vendors that set up each week on the grounds of Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomfield, Mich.
The meals he creates from the fresh food aren’t served to restaurant patrons. They will most likely be enjoyed by someone in bed as Turner is the executive chef of the hospital and his customers are the patients.
“Fresh is just a lot healthier for you than something that has traveled 1,800 miles,” Turner said. “I design our menus from a chef’s perspective, so what I am serving a patient, I would be proud to serve at a restaurant three miles down the street.”
In June, the hospital farmers market began providing an opportunity for local food to reach the Detroit area community and hospital employees, visitors and patients. It’s the only one of the hospital’s initiatives to provide more sustainable and healthy food.
And its efforts are not unique.
In fact, Henry Ford is one of 260 hospitals that have pledged to support sustainable food. Healthcare Without Harm, an organization promoting ecological practices in healthcare institutions, began the “Health Food in Health Care” pledge three years ago.
It is a commitment to working with local farmers and community-based food suppliers, minimizing food waste and implementing more sustainable and healthy food choices.
Vendors promote eating locally at the farmer's market at Bronson Methodist hospital. Photo Grant Fletcher
“Hospitals should have a vested interest in improving ecological, community and global health because they are all interrelated,” said Jamie Harvie, food coordinator with Healthcare Without Harm. “It’s a way of thinking holistically, at a global level.”
Harvie said the pledge signaled the entire healthcare market to change.
“What we are finding is that facilities are signing the pledge without us even knowing,” he said.
Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo and Chelsea Community Hospital in Chelsea are Michigan hospitals also supporting local and organic food.
Approximately 65 percent of Bronson’s employees buy shares of seasonal produce from a local farmer.
The hospital also hosts a winter farmer’s market every other Friday and is beginning to compost.
“I think it’s about doing anything and everything we can do to promote responsibly raised meat and locally grown produce,” said Grant Fletcher, food service manager for Bronson. “It’s about keeping the money as local as possible and supporting our growers in any way we can.”
Such practices can also improve Michigan’s economic health, according to Michigan State University researchers.
The Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition reported last December that local purchasing could mean an increase of 1,800 jobs and $200 million in income in the state.
“If everyone in Michigan spent only $10 a week on Michigan products, it would put 40 million dollars a week back into the economy,” Turner said.
Buying strictly local has challenges for large institutions.
“We would love to do things like offer grass-fed hamburger year round, but we really to this point have only found one provider who can even come close to meeting the demand,” Fletcher said. “If we only served grass-fed beef, we would require something in the range of 50 cows a year, which is an astounding amount to most farmers.”
Making only seasonal purchases also affects the supply of certain items. “When lettuces are in season, all our mixed greens will be local,” Turner said. “But in December, Michigan is just not going to have organic strawberries.”
Henry Ford supplements its local purchases by buying from organic farms across the country.
It’s a new strategy of food distribution, usually not practiced by public institutions. Schools, prisons and hospitals often employ purchasing organizations to provide food.
Officials at Aramark, a national food provider for health care institutions, the military, schools and businesses have noticed the demand and can distribute sustainable food on a wide scale.
A recent Aramark survey found that 20 percent of its customers believed that offering sustainable products is extremely important; 26 percent said that supporting local providers is important.
Aramark officials see local and sustainable food as an opportunity.
“There isn’t much that a hospital could ask us that we couldn’t provide, whether it is using particular food stuffs or cleaning products,” said Dave Penkala, director of customer insights for the Aramark Healthcare division.
Harvie believes the institution of health food in hospitals will eventually be accomplished without a signature. “I think it’s going to be the norm in the future and so it will be tracked less by pledge facilities,” he said. “It’s going to be more of the status quo.”
Turner said of all the institutions endorsing health food, hospitals are an obvious place.
“As a healthcare institution, nutrition is paramount,” he said. “After all, we are in the business of healthcare, not sick care.”
Editors note: Public institutions that serve sustainable and local food represent a growing trend. Related stories on Great Lakes Echo:
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Wow, healthy foods for health? What a concept! It is great to see local businesses supporting local farmers too. All around a win for locals. If I had to choose a hospital where this was a practice, or one where this was not a practice, you know where I would go!
Great article. It is nice to know that even hospitals are beginning to use local, fresh, sustainable food.