The Hawaii Food Basket’s latest initiative is only six months old, but for executive director En Young it feels like far longer.
Incorporating locally grown produce into the organization’s distribution system was so in keeping with the Food Basket’s overall goals that, as Young described it Thursday, “it certainly seems like we’ve been doing it forever.”
The Food Basket has a two-part mission statement, director of public relations and events Kristen Frost Albrecht said. The first is to feed Hawaii’s hungry, but the second part is to go after the root causes of hunger itself.
Keeping with that aim, the Food Basket started Hoolaha Ka Hua — also known as Da Box — in September. Since then, more than 1,000 people have signed up for the program, which gives participants a box of locally grown fruits and vegetables every week for 10 weeks.
It’s a version of the community supported agriculture (CSA) model that’s become prevalent in farming communities on the mainland. Because payment happens in advance, farmers know they have a built-in market for their crops and can plan better for the upcoming season.
From its start last fall through the beginning of this month, Da Box has bought more than 52,000 pounds of produce from 32 different farmers around the island, and has generated more than $78,000 for the local economy.
“Stimulating small businesses, local farms,” Frost Albrecht said. “We’re really going after making sure everyone has access to healthy, nutritious local food.”
Access to food is about increasing choices, Young said. “Do people in lower income brackets have the same choices as higher income? Even if people do want to eat healthier … I hate to say it, but it’s expensive to do so.”
“When we’d go up to the drivers’ sites, that’s when we meet a lot of people, and you see what services are wanted,” he said. “You’re soliciting donations … and they would say ‘No, you guys don’t give people healthy food.’ That was a criticism that I definitely took to heart.”
Unlike the Food Basket’s other initiatives, which mainly focus efforts on low-income families, school-age children and the elderly, Da Box is available to anyone, although the costs of the program vary.
Da Box offers its produce to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients for $10 a week.
“We pool everybody’s SNAP funds [at the start of the season] and then pass on the wholesale price with no markup,” Young said.
Retail consumers pay the wholesale price plus the cost of transportation to delivery sites, which includes driver pay and gas. Their boxes are $16 per week. Trial boxes are available for $18.
Frost Albrecht said that so far, an equal number of SNAP recipients and retail customers were participating. She’s gotten calls from an entire neighborhood that wanted to participate, and said that work sites are “anxious to have us come and provide for their employees.”
This past week’s box included bananas, Japanese cucumbers, papaya, kale and Romaine lettuce, Hamakua mushrooms, ginger root and sweet corn. Recipes tailored for the fruits and vegetables are also included.
Da Box is a spin-off of an established Food Basket program targeting needy seniors, which runs for 15 weeks in the summer. Last year, the Food Basket bought about 140,000 pounds of produce directly from local farms, using U.S. Department of Agriculture bulk-purchasing funds to buy at prices comparable to those at farmers markets.
“Because we’ve had such great luck with that … [we thought] why don’t we really go after everybody?” Frost Albrecht said. “Especially because of the second part of our mission … so that’s how this was born.”
Young said Da Box was also a way to better use the Food Basket’s resources: Its delivery trucks, which go to 22 different sites around Hawaii Island, weren’t at capacity when they made produce runs for the senior programs.
“The more full our trucks, the more sense it makes,” Young said.
The program launched with the help of $20,000 from the county and two sizable outside grants. The Food Basket received $170,000 from the USDA, dispersed over two years, and was one of 10 programs selected for a $50,000 grant from the Michigan-based Wallace Center.
Young said grant money is being used for marketing as well as for storage supplies and equipment funding. More refrigeration capacity at delivery sites was needed to keep the program running.
Because CSAs are not as common in Hawaii as on the mainland, more outreach has been needed to encourage people to lean toward local food.
“Over here there’s such a huge disparity in the price of local foods and other foods that people automatically jump to the mainland produce,” Young said. “The difference is so big.”
But Hawaii has a significant advantage when it comes to CSAs because of the year-round growing season. Most programs last only through the summer months. Da Box is about to wrap its second 10-week cycle.
“I think it’s unusual to find a CSA that will operate all year round,” Frost Albrecht said.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.