Our tagline is also our mission: “Connecting Pennsylvania Farmers with Pennsylvania Eaters”. We serve as the connection between people at home and the people who grow the food we eat at home.
Traditional CSA programs are run by a single farm, sometimes in partnership with other farms that raise or grow different products. They are sustained by a large up-front investment from each member, or share-holder. This ensures that the farmers have the income when they need it, and members reap the benefit, so to speak, throughout the harvest season on a regular basis. In areas where there are few local farmers, this method is particularly good for all parties. Everyone gets what they need, when they need it.
Since we live in a very fertile and bio diverse area, we have many Pittsburgh CSA farms that raise and grow many different products, and they do it extremely well. We fill our boxes with a mix of whatever comes out of the ground, or off the butcher block, or out of the oven, or off the trees, or from the dairy that week, from whomever has raised it.
This benefits both the farmers and the customers.
The farmer has a reliable place to sell large quantities of what they need to sell at the time they need to sell it. Since we aren’t investing our income into the ground at one time, like the farmers must, we are able to offer pay-as-you-go membership.
This flexible payment schedule allows more people access to our locally produced food. In an underserved area that is also a food desert (strangely, surrounded by such agriculture), this is very important to us.
We also enjoy a large variety of produce, meats, and more- like a local grocery might, but delivered. This demand increases production from our sustainable farms, which also increases their opportunity for income.
While both the single-farm and multi-grower Pittsburgh CSA have benefits, we are happy to offer the variety and flexibility allowed by our setup! Why don’t you try it out– we’ve got our every-other-week spring subscription going now, and summer will start in June. As always, our meat and other products are available as subscriptions and individually.