MILLS RIVER - Since 1998, the Flavor 1st Growers and Packers facility has been about helping farmers find direct avenues to local markets.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the effort to keep them working has been even more critical.
The farmer-owned Flavor 1st grows and packs regional produce, then ships it to grocery stores and wholesalers.
Since mid-May, it's also partnered with Baptists on Mission to help fulfill the mission of Farmers to Families, a $3 billion U.S. Department of Agriculture program that buys food from farmers that would otherwise go uneaten. That food is then distributed to people who need it most.
On Aug. 24, President Trump will tour Flavor 1st to watch workers pack boxes and load them onto refrigerated trucks to be delivered to families in need.
"For us, this is not a political event," said Brian Rose, owner and CEO of Flavor 1st.
It is, instead, a way to highlight the work of local farmers, whom he said are often taken for granted, while shining a light on the pressure COVID-19 has put on their livelihoods.
The survival of U.S. farms is critical to the nation's food supply, he said. "We all need to work together to make sure we're doing right thing for the farms and family farms."
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50 million food boxes
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said the Farmers to Families program had distributed more 50 million food boxes by late July.
Flavor 1st, which employs more than 200 people and supports more than 30 local farms, has packed at least 85,000 of them.
Often the boxes — which include produce like cherry tomatoes, table grapes, summer squash and eggplant — are delivered to homes within 24 hours.
That of course benefits the families who receive them. But it also gives immediate support to farmers, who have suffered financially this year.
When the restaurant industry shut down, it had a disproportionate effect on growers and producers, who found a crucial revenue stream turned off with no warning, said Seth Grant, who works in sales for Flavor 1st.
More: Specialty farms, hit 'hard and fast' by coronavirus shutdowns, adjust to massive losses
The USDA program, he said "was a win-win situation, where they come up with this government money and distribute it through different groups, who then buy that product for the food boxes," he explained.
"That way, the farmer is able to move his product instead of leaving it on the ground, packing stuff that would go to restaurants and sending it instead to families who fell upon hard times during this pandemic, who now get to get this good food delivered to them in boxes."
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$1.2 billion in contracts
On May 8, the USDA approved 198 contracts worth more than $1.2 billion to support the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, which delivered more than 35.5 million boxes in the first 45 days
That's important to farmers who invest so much in the crops they plant for the coming year, Rose said.
"If they can't pick and pack, that puts them farms in a hard way," he said. "And if the farms are not profitable, we're going to start losing farmers."
More: Trump to visit Asheville area Monday, White House says
Rose added that growers all the way from Florida and up through the Carolinas will travel to Mills River to meet the president.
"And he'll be here showing his support for the agricultural community," he said.
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Mackensy Lunsford has lived in Asheville for more than 20 years, and has been a staff writer for the Asheville Citizen Times since 2012. Lunsford is a former professional line cook and one-time restaurant owner.
Reach me: mlunsford@citizentimes.com.
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