Workers at the Field to Family and Table to Table warehouses gathered over a meal of fresh apples Wednesday, partaking in the national Great Apple Crunch.
The Great Apple Crunch encourages people to bite into ripe, locally grown apples. This celebration of local produce purchasing is an annual occurrence in schools, hospitals, and government organizations across the country, and it has taken over Johnson County and Iowa for the last two years.
Michelle Kenyon, executive director of Field to Family, took the first bite at this year’s Great Apple Crunch outside the warehouses on Wednesday. For several years, they’ve been doing work with schools, now sourcing to over 40 districts.
“This is farm-to-school month in the state of Iowa, and we, as a food hub, work very closely with school districts to source locally,” Kenyon said. “Apples are one of the most popular items on the menu at school lunches.”
Madeline McCabe, local food assistant for Johnson County, described the event as a lighthearted way to enjoy and promote local food.
“When you purchase locally, that impact is amplified,” McCabe said. “I think that people who eat apples everyday don’t think about where they’re coming from. But events like the Great Apple Crunch help put a face to where your food is coming from.”
Local food, typically defined as food within 100 miles of the location it is sold and consumed, is crucial to the environment and economy, McCabe said. This year, the apples featured in Johnson County’s Great Apple Crunch celebration are from Buffalo Ridge Orchard in Central City, Iowa — about 40 miles from Iowa City.
“Eating locally is really important for keeping communities strong,” McCabe said. “Whether you’re purchasing locally, it’s a really great way to not only know where your food is coming from, but there’s something special about connecting over food and strengthening human connections.”
Emma Johnson, co-owner and manager of Buffalo Ridge Orchard, is excited to have been included in an event like the Great Apple Crunch.
“The benefit is it lets people know that there’s local fruit production,” Johnson said. “Local apples taste better. It’s just a great way to remind people that they should go to their local apple orchard. It tastes better than what you’re going to get from a thousand miles away at the store.”
RELATED: Farming community on full display at the annual Johnson County Fair
Buffalo Ridge Orchard is a small family farm founded by Johnson’s parents, planting its first apple tree in 2003. The orchard, now 80 acres, has expanded to include over 7,000 apple trees with more than 50 varieties.
“We provide apples to lots of schools in the area, as well as other institutions like Mercy Hospital and Cornell College,” Johnson said. “We also provide apples to locally owned grocery stores. We distribute directly to customers all the way to food hubs like Field to Family that distribute for us.”
Besides apples, Buffalo Ridge Orchard grows over 300 pear trees, over a dozen different types of vegetables, and 40 varieties of herb plants.
Teresa Wiemerslage, local foods field specialist at Iowa State University’s Extension and Outreach Office, focuses on the farm-to-school movement across Iowa.
“In the farm-to-school movement, we talk about how local food is good for communities, good for schools, good for farmers,” Wiemerslage said. “It impacts the health of the children in those areas and also provides an additional market for farmers as they’re looking to sell their products.”
Most apples distributed by Buffalo Ridge Orchard go to school districts in Johnson, Linn, and other surrounding counties. Getting those apples onto cafeteria trays is an ongoing mission for ensuring Iowa’s students’ health and well-being.
“Many times, the local food is as fresh as it can get,” Wiemerslage said. “For many of the products that are moving through to the schools, that food was picked that week or that day. The nutrition has stayed in that food and maximizes the amount of nutrition students are getting.”
Iowa City Community School District and Johnson County Offices also participated in the Great Apple Crunch this year, marking the second year of their participation in the event. Iowa as a state has been a part of nationwide crunches since 2014.
By participating in the Great Apple Crunch and other events in the U.S. in the month of October, Iowans are supporting local farmers and healthier eating across the state and throughout the nation.
“Interest around local food has definitely gone up since COVID when there were a lot of supply chain issues and people were starting to think about where their food was coming from,” McCabe said. “There is definitely an increased demand for local food, and events like the Great Apple Crunch encourage that.”