One thousand cardboard boxes sit on a conveyor belt at Eric Morrow’s Ponchatoula farm, ready to be filled with fresh produce harvested from his nearby fields. Throughout the day, Morrow’s employees will pack each box with about a dozen different fruits and vegetables, which vary with the seasons. This time of year, that means items like cantaloupe, cucumbers, tomatoes and blueberries.
As Business Report details in a feature from its latest issue, once the boxes are filled, they’re loaded into Morrow’s truck for delivery to customers across south Louisiana who have signed up for a workplace “farm-to-work” program, a sales model established in Austin, Texas, a decade ago. The name is a play on the farm-to-table theme.
The Baton Rouge-based program was launched in 2014 by Healthy Lives, a wellness initiative of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, and has since tripled in size. The health care system oversees five statewide hospitals, including Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center in Lafayette and St. Elizabeth Hospital in Gonzales.
“The sisters really wanted to do something to impact our team members in a positive and healthful way,” Healthy Lives Director Jeff Soileau says. “And in all our markets, they saw that employees were not eating enough fruits and vegetables. I think a lot of times, there’s a lack of ease of access that involves everyone in our community.”
The program is a new spin on community supported agriculture, or CSA, models, in which consumers become shareholders in a farm’s seasonal bounty. Typically, patrons pay a fee at the beginning of the season to help the farmer offset expenses. This entitles them to a set number of weeks of boxed produce from the farm, which they pick up from designated drop sites or from the farm itself.
Having fresh, local produce delivered direct to the workplace brings a new kind of convenience to the experience, says Copper Alvarez, executive director of the Baton Rouge Economic and Agricultural Development Alliance.
“With both parents working today, people don’t have a lot of time to shop,” says Alvarez. “It doesn’t get much more convenient than picking up your produce at the office.”
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