Skip Paul of Wishing Stone Farms in Little Compton unloads fresh produce while Jenn Baumstein marks the checklist. Farm Fresh RI’s Market Mobile program makes it easier for farmers to sell their goods to grocers, restaurants and schools.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

Everybody talks a good game about bringing local food to market, but it’s nothing short of amazing what Farm Fresh Rhode Island is doing to make it happen here.

By pooling the products of some 20-plus local farmers, the nonprofit group helped them sell their meat, produce, cheese and milk to more than 50 food establishments, from restaurants to schools. Called the Market Mobile program, it just passed $100,000 in summer sales. That’s in addition to the $33,000 in sales amassed from January to May.

So it’s not just a culinary success story, but an economic one as well.

Farm Fresh RI embarked on the Market Mobile to make it easy for farmers to sell to restaurants with the click of a computer mouse. They then arranged all the delivery and payment to take pressure off both groups. It was initially funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop grant that was reallocated for the state Department of Environmental Management.

The program works this way: The food establishments go online at Farm Fresh RI every Monday to see what’s available in postings made by the farmers. They place their orders. On Thursday, the farmers and other artisan producers load up their minivans and pickup trucks and bring all the food that’s been ordered to the WJ Canaan warehouse in East Providence, home to RI Royal Potato. Farm Fresh RI staff and volunteers sort it out and put together the orders and pack up two-and-a-half truckloads. They go off to deliver everything fresh to restaurants across the state. The restaurants pay Farm Fresh and Farm Fresh pays the farmers.

Rich Schartner, whose Schartner Farms in Exeter is among the largest producers in the program, called it “innovative.”

“Normally it is difficult for chefs working the hours they do and with all they prep they have to do to come to the farm to see what we have,” he said.

As for the farmers, they, too, have a crazy schedule, and they’re not getting out there to sell what they have, he added, saying “There’s been a real disconnect.”

Using the Internet has made it easy to share all the information of what’s available to sell, Schartner said.

Beyond communication, why all this ground-breaking?

Restaurants need volume. Midsize farms don’t produce that much. If they do amp up production, they fear they can’t sell it. Then there’s the transportation issue: How do the goods get from farm to kitchen?

Before this arrangement, chefs couldn’t even get access to some of these desirable local products including grass-fed meats, said Casey Riley, the Newport Restaurant Group’s director of Culinary Hospitality Operations, overseeing kitchens at 22 Bowens, Castle Hill Inn & Resort and The Mooring, in Newport, Blackstone Caterers in Middletown, the Boat House in Tiverton, Trio in Narragansett, and Hemenway’s and Waterman Grille in Providence. Now, they are buying their ground beef from Aquidneck Farms in Portsmouth. Riley’s restaurants accounted for almost a third of the sales.

They pay a little more, but it’s more than worth it to have the amazing food and the ties that bind farm to restaurant, Riley said.

“Great food is being grown in Rhode Island,” he said.

Indeed, the biggest challenge was overcoming a lack of communication between farmers and chefs before they even got to distribution issues, said Noah Fulmer, Farm Fresh director.

“Once we figured out the chicken and the egg of it, things took off,” he said with a bit of food humor.

It all seemed to start with connections made at Farm Fresh Rhode Island’s Wintertime Farmers’ Market at the Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket. There in one place, restaurants and chefs saw all the amazing local produce and more — and the producers saw a new market. With new motivation in place, Farm Fresh was ready to step in and help make new things happen.

“For chefs to be able to go online and order locally, it’s a win-win,” Riley said.

The top five local products sold this month were cheese, tomatoes, apples, potatoes and milk. But there’s also honey, pork, pumpkins, lots of vegetables and greens, grains, herbs and more.

Now that the farmers see the demand, they know how to plan for the next growing season and increase planting and production, said Fulmer.

Everybody wins, including those who want to eat local products.

Market Mobile cultivating new food products1

Pink ginger from Wishing Stone Farm in Little Compton on its way to local chefs.

The Market Mobile program didn’t just get local food on the table, it created some new opportunities.

In Little Compton, Wishing Stone Farm’s Skip Paul has been experimenting with growing ginger, including a pink variety. The chefs have tried it and love its intensity, and Paul has decided to ramp up his production, said Noah Fulmer, director of Farm Fresh RI.

Then there’s the great story that began at Schartner’s Farm in Exeter. Rich Schartner grows winter rye to use around the farm. He thought he’d list it as an available product on the Market Mobile site. That got people thinking how nice it would be have a unique Rhody rye flour. Kenyon’s Grist Mill, West Kingston, said it would grind the rye into flour, creating what Kenyon’s Paul Drumm III calls “the Rye Project.” Olga’s Cup and Saucer and Seven Stars Bakery, both in Providence, said they wanted to get involved in creating this new blend and to eventually bake bread with it.

It will be available to all, as Farm Fresh RI will sell it at this Wintertime Farmer’s Market, said Drumm.

The Market resumes every Saturday, Nov. 7 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., beginning Nov. 7 at Hope Artiste Village, 1005 Main St., Pawtucket,

—Gail Ciampa

Farm Fresh participants1