Farm Tour & Kitchen Skills Workshops - Sign up Today!

Farmers, School Nutrition Staff, and Institutional Food Buyers, we have two events coming up and we would love for you to join us!

Register Here - Farm-to-School tour in Snohomish County - Friday, October 14th, 2011

Register Here - Farm-to-School tour on the Olympic Peninsula - Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

These farm tour and kitchen skills workshops allows farmers and school nutrition directors the opportunity to spend a day networking and learning about the environments in which the others work, with the intent to build on-going relationships that will allow farms to access institutional markets and school nutrition directors to feature more Washington-grown produce.

Participants will start by visiting two farms that use diverse production methods to grow a variety of crops, then they'll share an on-farm meal made with farm-fresh produce, and then move to a local School District's central kitchen.  At that point farmers and nutrition staff will divide into two break-out groups:  one for farmers, focused on market access and development; and the other for nutrition staff to prepare 4-6 recipes that comply with USDA standards for school lunch menu planning, and feature farm-fresh Washington-grown produce.

The workshop will close with a shared tasting of the recipes the nutrition staff have prepared.

Participants will gather at a central location to begin the tour, where they will board a small bus which will take the group to each location and return all to the starting point at the end of the day. These tours are all day from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm.

 The Washington State Nutrition Association has certified both these training as eligible for 6 CEUs in the area of "Operations."