Getting Canned
Michelle Martin
Issue date: 8/17/08 Section: TruLife
Last semester Katrina Brink, a 2008 alumna, wanted to provide a way to incorporate local foods on campus.
Brink said the idea for an on-campus cannery arose near the end of the year while she was organizing a local foods dinner.
A cannery involves preserving locally grown foods so that students can consume fresh, local produce all year long, even during the winter months when most fruits or vegetables don't grow, she said.
"The school year doesn't really correspond very well with the growing seasons because a lot of the really good growing seasons are in the summer," Brink said.
"Having a cannery would capitalize on all that produce - so we would be ready to preserve the food and use it all year round."
A cannery also could make students more aware of everything that goes into processing food, Brink said.
"The whole idea is to encourage more food culture on campus and get people to understand where their food comes from because we're really disconnected from our food now and how it's grown," Brink said.
Not only would a campus cannery help students understand where food comes from, it could help Sodexo incorporate more local foods into the cafeteria, Brink said.
"We could maybe even grow some of our own food on the farm," she said. "… We have a very limited range of things that we eat, and this could actually expand that and encourage people to pick [something] new."
Truman students wouldn't be the only ones to benefit from a cannery, Brink said. She said local farmers have shown interest in selling produce to Truman.
"They can keep their dollar in the community instead of having to sell their products to a distributor [where] they might not get as good of a price," she said.
The cannery is in the preliminary stages at this point, Brink said.
She said student involvement would quicken the process.
"It's going to take a few years to develop because we would have to figure out if students would be willing to stay for the summer," she said.
Brink said the idea for an on-campus cannery arose near the end of the year while she was organizing a local foods dinner.
A cannery involves preserving locally grown foods so that students can consume fresh, local produce all year long, even during the winter months when most fruits or vegetables don't grow, she said.
"The school year doesn't really correspond very well with the growing seasons because a lot of the really good growing seasons are in the summer," Brink said.
"Having a cannery would capitalize on all that produce - so we would be ready to preserve the food and use it all year round."
A cannery also could make students more aware of everything that goes into processing food, Brink said.
"The whole idea is to encourage more food culture on campus and get people to understand where their food comes from because we're really disconnected from our food now and how it's grown," Brink said.
Not only would a campus cannery help students understand where food comes from, it could help Sodexo incorporate more local foods into the cafeteria, Brink said.
"We could maybe even grow some of our own food on the farm," she said. "… We have a very limited range of things that we eat, and this could actually expand that and encourage people to pick [something] new."
Truman students wouldn't be the only ones to benefit from a cannery, Brink said. She said local farmers have shown interest in selling produce to Truman.
"They can keep their dollar in the community instead of having to sell their products to a distributor [where] they might not get as good of a price," she said.
The cannery is in the preliminary stages at this point, Brink said.
She said student involvement would quicken the process.
"It's going to take a few years to develop because we would have to figure out if students would be willing to stay for the summer," she said.
Be the first to comment on this story