ADDISON COUNTY — The number of Vermont schoolchildren participating in school breakfast programs is on the rise, but many school administrators and food program directors are finding that federal and state reimbursements for the programs aren’t covering the costs of those initiatives.
On average, almost 15,000 low-income schoolchildren eat a free school breakfast every day in Vermont. That number represents a 15.5 percent increase over last year’s figures, according to the Food Research and Action Center, and marks the largest percent increase in the country.
MIDDLEBURY — Again and again on Tuesday, participants at an Addison County “farm to plate” summit pointed to the biggest roadblock impinging the expansion of a local foods movement in Vermont: the infrastructure for aggregating, processing and distributing locally grown food is all but nonexistent.
It's that time of year already! I spent a few hours last week calling around to local farmers, winemakers, and other food producers for a story in today's paper about celebrating Thanksgiving with locally grown foods. The good news is that it's not difficult to do: Plenty of local vegetables are still in season, and you can supplement those with wine or beer from a nearby vineyard or brewery, as well as cheese from our neighborly cheesemongers.
ADDISON COUNTY — “It’s just a no-brainer to be a localvore on Thanksgiving.”
That’s according to Francie Caccavo, the owner of Olivia’s Crouton Company in New Haven. And it’s not hard to see why Caccavo embraces eating locally this time of year: Though the growing season is giving way to frosty temperatures, many farmers are still selling a bounty of root vegetables, squash and other produce.
