Farm-to-table
Farm-to-table (or farm-to-fork, and in some cases farm-to-school) is a social movement which promotes serving local food at restaurants and school cafeterias, preferably through direct acquisition from the producer (which might be a winery, brewery, ranch, fishery, or other type of food producer which is not strictly a "farm"). This might be accomplished by a direct sales relationship, a community-supported agriculture arrangement, a farmer's market, a local distributor or by the restaurant or school raising its own food. Farm-to-table often incorporates a form of food traceability (celebrated as "knowing where your food comes from") where the origin of the food is identified to consumers. Often restaurants cannot source all the food they need for dishes locally, so only some dishes or only some ingredients are labelled as local.
The Food Trust
In 1992, The Food Trust – then known as The Farmers’ Market Trust - began directing nutrition education classes for inner-city children at Reading Terminal Market, a Philadelphia farmer's market. The organization proceeded to open its first farmer's market at Tasker Homes, a public housing development in the Grays Ferry neighborhood of Philadelphia. Once a week, with the help of the Tasker Homes Tenant Council, the organization's small staff set up one long table of produce. “People hadn’t seen that kind of quality produce in their neighborhood before,” The Food Trust founder Duane Perry recalls. In the two decades since the opening of the Tasker Homes market, The Food Trust has worked with neighborhoods, schools, grocers, farmers and policymakers in Philadelphia and across the country to change public understanding of healthy food and to increase its availability.