Getting Local Food into Arizona Hospitals
Institutional food procurement, or sourcing the food for institutional market channels like schools, holds more power to benefit farmers than any other local food market. Another institutional market channel that can radically change the way local food can be integrated into the healthcare system is hospitals. Bringing local, fresh food into hospitals can support local farmers while also providing access to fresh fruits and vegetables as part of a “food as medicine” approach to addressing chronic diseases and prescription for a healthy lifestyle.
Desert Mission Food Bank
HonorHealth Desert Mission Food Bank is doing revolutionary work by involving healthcare institutions as a way to get more local, nutritious food into hospitals. The HonorHealth system consists of six hospitals, over 100 medical groups, health centers, outpatient facilities, early childhood development centers, and cancer care centers across Metro Phoenix.
Anne Costa, the community resource manager at HonorHealth Desert Mission, has dedicated over ten years to empowering marginalized communities through sustainable food systems, nutrition education, and public health. And a large part of that work has also included supporting local farmers.
At HonorHealth Desert Mission, Anne started educating families on how to cook healthy meals using the fresh produce provided by the food bank and emphasized the nutritional benefit of purchasing from local farms or using programs that benefit local farmers.
“HonorHealth Desert Mission is unique in that we are a food bank integrated within a healthcare system. We take a community lens approach and apply it to the healthcare setting. We have looked at ways to bring fresh, local food into the food bank and hospital setting to address chronic disease and nutrition insecurity within our community,” explains Anne.
After identifying a need for resources to enable the community to access healthy, fresh food, Anne developed several innovative ways to bring local food into hospital institutions. She partnered with hospital staff to create a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and Farm Stand within the HonorHealth system and collaborated with the food service department to source local produce for cafeteria salad bars.
Hospital CSAs and Farm Stands
In 2015, after researching best practices and case studies on ways that hospitals can support local food and farmers, Anne decided that the most feasible avenue was to begin a CSA program.
“We weren’t quite ready to start a full farm stand program, so we went the CSA route. The CSA program was integrated as part of HonorHealth’s mission to improve community health and well-being, and so we partnered with a hospital wellness coordinator who was interested in the program from an employee well-being perspective. We joined forces and launched a CSA at the HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center campus,” recounts Anne.
In partnership with Crooked Sky Farms, the CSA ran successfully and Anne then expanded it to the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center by connecting nutrition and cancer treatment. The CSA program helped to grow a farm to institution model and soon six different hospitals in the HonorHealth network participated in an onsite CSA program for employees and staff.
After running the CSA program for several years, Anne decided it was time to develop a farm stand program. She formed a partnership with Sun Produce Cooperative– who sources locally grown food from smaller-acreage farmers practicing safe, sustainable production methods including Certified Naturally Grown, Certified Organic, Aquaponic/ hydroponic, organic (not certified), wild-harvested, conventional, and pesticide-free– and started managing a weekly farm stand program.
The Desert Mission Farm Stand operates during lunchtime on Wednesdays in hospital cafeterias and rotates every week between the six medical centers. The farm stand works like an onsite farmers market where farm-fresh produce is offered, as well as other local treats like fresh baked items from Coldwater Coffeehouse & Bakery and local honey. Items are available at an affordable price for members of the community, patients, and employee members. Hospital staff can conveniently use their badge to pay.
The locally grown vegetables and fruits at the farm stand are provided in partnership with Sun Produce Cooperative and include items like beets, radishes, carrots, nopales, spaghetti squash, salad greens, potatoes, leeks, onions, starter herb plants, tomatoes, and peppers. Anything that doesn’t sell goes into the cafeteria and is used in the kitchen.
Anne attributes the ability to successfully launch the CSA and Farm Stand programs to being able to find champions within the system that understood the importance of supporting local farmers. Whether it was by partnering with a dietician or a wellness coordinator, or by having an HonorHealth Sustainability Committee team member who advocated for her innovative approaches, collaboration on a shared vision was key.
Serving Local in Salad Bars
In the Spring of 2023, Anne expanded the farm-to-hospital institution model by collaborating with John Jones, the food service director at the HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea Medical Center, to bring a pilot project to the hospital’s cafeteria that involved sourcing greens from Litchfield-based Blue Sky Organic Farms to serve on the salad bar. Staff, patients, and visitors enjoyed trying locally grown greens and the costs were comparable as if the kitchen had sourced from a larger vendor. Through the salad bar project, the hospital was able to support a local farm and incorporate fresh, nutritious items into their menu offerings.
“Putting salad greens from Blue Sky Organic Farms might not seem like a big deal, but it's something. Start small and celebrate the small wins. The kitchen went through a lot of salad greens and that helps support a local farm. It’s also that relationship building that is needed to start sourcing more locally,” says Anne. “The buying power and number of people served in hospital cafeterias has such a big impact on supporting local farms.”
Anne stresses that a key to being able to source local, seasonal food is that HonorHealth has their own internal food service department. By not using a large third-party food services company, the ability to source from smaller vendors or a local farm is easier to do.
The Future of Desert Mission & Healthcare Treatment
Recently, HonorHealth became a signatory member of the Health Sector Climate Pledge. Anne is working on evolving her farm-to-institute work to align with this commitment as well as other initiatives that the HonorHealth system is rolling out.
One area, specifically, of importance to her is to create more community access points for fresh food in order to reduce barriers that people face in obtaining and being able to afford nutrient-dense foods.
“Having local and healthy food available at hospitals is important, but I also want to make it accessible for more people at places like community centers or nearby sites where this is an apartment complex for seniors. We would like to create something similar to a Farm Express model where the farm stand is mobile and accepts SNAP, Double Up Food Bucks, and Farmers Market Nutrition Program coupons as forms of payment,” describes Anne.
Anne emphasizes the need to pay attention to the work being done around the social determinants of health and the concept of food as medicine.
Increasingly, states and institutions are sponsoring healthcare providers to prescribe fresh foods to patients as a part of their medical treatment for diet-related diseases. Referred to as “Produce Rx,” prescribing farm bags or boxes with fresh fruits and vegetables is part of a food as medicine approach to improve health. Anne sees this as another opportunity from an institutional perspective to get local food into healthcare institutions, especially if getting local food into cafeterias or through food service is not an easy avenue.
“For the produce prescription programs that are being developed, I’d like to see those produce boxes made with local items,” Anne says. “And a way to obtain data to show the impact on health to continue to fund the purchase of local produce.”
Anne notes that some new initiatives and ideas HonorHealth is partnering on will launch in 2024, and she is working to ensure that local food and farmers will be a part of that partnership.
To Learn More & Get Involved:
Learn more about the Farm to Food Bank Market Distribution Channel
Watch: You Know They Care: Banner Family Medicine Food Pantry
Read: Can Produce Prescription Programs Turn the Tide on Diet-Related Disease?
Listen: Save $750K by Providing Nutrient-Dense Fruit and Vegetables to 50 People with Severe Diabetes for 12 months