EDPRODUCTS WITHLO PARTNER S

Case Study Masa Cooperativa

Masa Coopertiva is a worker-owned cooperative business that shows how collective community efforts can lead to business opportunities that also honor cultural foodways. Masa harvests corn from local farms and members’ backyards to make and sell corn masa to Philadelphia-area restaurants for tortillas. The collective is “designed to give undocumented immigrants a legal way to profit from their labor,”56 while continuing the culinary traditions of their ancestors and native countries.

When it comes to transportation and distribution there are a number of programs and organizations dedicated to connecting communities of farmers with market opportunities in the city. The following are a few examples that serve various types of buyers at a range of scales:

> Reading Terminal Market is one of the oldest public markets in the country and home to more than 80 merchants offering a mix of “locally grown and exotic produce, locally sourced meats and poultry, plus the finest seafood, cheeses, baked goods, and confections” to individual consumers— locals and tourists—as well as larger-scale buyers from area restaurants.57

> The Italian Market on South 9th Street is home to over 200 businesses, many of them owned by immigrant families58 — some who have been in Philadelphia for generations and gave the market its name, others who arrived more recently from Asia and Central America. The market offers a wide range of fresh foods at a wide range of prices, from very affordable to luxury goods, and it serves a diverse clientele reflective of the surrounding neighborhoods and food businesses.

> Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market is a largescale distribution center in Southwest Philadelphia that opened in 2011 as “the largest refrigerated building in the world, housing some 700,000 square feet of the world’s freshest produce.”59 The market offers wholesale prices to bulk purchasers, among them restaurants, grocers, and institutional food producers. In 2014, community organization Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha formed their Food Buying Club, which bought food collectively for member families who were able to save “up to 75 percent on the cost of fresh, high-quality produce.”60

> The Common Market is a nonprofit regional food distributor that operates in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Texas, and Chicago.61 The organization was founded in 2008. It sources food from small family farms for distribution to institutions, hospitals, eldercare facilities, community organizations, workplaces, restaurants, retailers, and more. The Common Market and its vendors support more than 3,100 urban and rural jobs and steward more than 24,000 acres of land. It also helps organizations set up community-led farmers’ markets, and they operate the Philly Good Food Lab, a 70,000-square-foot warehouse space set up for food distribution and located in Northeast Philadelphia, offering co-location opportunities to other mission-driven businesses.

> Share Food Program is a nonprofit fighting food insecurity that distributes food from “government partners, supermarkets, wholesalers, restaurants, farms, and food drives” to community-based organizations and school districts engaged in food distribution and meal provision. Through its network, Share distributes food to over 1 million people in need each month including children, seniors, and people with disabilities.62

> Philabundance started in 1984 as a “small food rescue organization” and is now the “largest hunger relief organization in the Delaware Valley.”63 It accepts donations from grocers, food industry partners, retailers, farmers, and individuals and redirects these goods to food pantries, reducing food waste and connecting neighbors in need with safe, high-quality food.

Potential For Change

Currently, Philadelphia spends roughly $25 million per year on food service for its summer and afterschool recreation, shelter, and prison programs. The City outsources meal production due to scale (tens of thousands of meals daily), and $1.25 million (5 percent) goes to local sources.64 A new City-run food processing and meal preparation facility could provide training for people with a GED or high school diploma; create livingwage jobs in agriculture, food service, and education; source food locally to support area growers; improve food quality and labor practices; and invest tax dollars back into Philadelphia’s economy.

While a centralized food production facility is a costly and long-term project, there are smaller-scale opportunities to cultivate agricultural businesses too. Affordable kitchen processing and storage space can help grow and formalize cottage industry (small-scale enterprises often run out of the home, such as baking and catering) and value-added product manufacturers such as hot sauce, honey, jams, and other items made from agricultural produce. Given Philadelphia’s access to large regional farms producing oats, hemp, corn, and dairy, shared processing infrastructure in the city could seed new local businesses that make high-value products out of raw local produce (e.g., ice cream, oat milk, bread, and tortillas), as in the Masa Cooperativa case study on page 105.