Local Food Index
ACORN is wrapping up a strategic planning process and a key metric we’ve identified that we’d like to start measuring again is the local food index. (We measured this from 2011-2016). Your names were identified by our summer interns as folks who might be game for this kind of project.
With the development of the ACORN Food Hub and online market, our capacity to do this is pretty thin. We thought it might be a fun project for a Midd econ or environmental/food studies student to work on, if it fits into any of your classes/programming.
We’d be looking to measure how much local food was purchased on annual basis across the county from institutions, schools, stores, restaurants including but not limited to:
- Addison Northeast schools
- Addison Northwest schools
- Addison Central schools
- Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op
- Middlebury College
- Porter Hospital
- ACORN Food Hub
- HOPE (gleaned, donated and purchased)
- Charter House Coalition (donated food)
We could start with 2023 or 2024, depending on the timing of the project start date. We’d also love to figure out how to take inflation into account, to compare with the years we do have data for.
We have the contacts for most of these folks and would happily supervise a student or team of students if there’s interest.
Community Partner Contact: Lindsey Berk
Role: Executive Director
Organization or Program Name: ACORN
Contact Info: lindsey@acornvt.org
https://www.acornvt.org
Desired Timeline: Fall 2024, Winter 2024, Spring 2025
Desired Partnership Length: I am interested in a long-term, sustained collaboration
Desired Location: a mix is fine, or it could all be virtual. it might be helpful for the student to meet some folks in person
