Technical and Market Feasibility of Using Lyophilization to Improve Local Fruit and Vegetable Market Sales.

Field 7.Project Summary/AbstractThe current food system poses many challenges to getting healthy nutritious foods into thehands of vulnerable populations such as children low-income and communities of color in FoodDeserts. As a result an overabundance of shelf-stable junk foods predominate in these regionfood systems leading to malnutrition and extreme persistent health disparities. Small farmersproducing fruits and vegetables also face obstacles to getting their produce to market in the foodsystem. The increasing cost of agricultural inputs corporate concentration of commoditymarkets and federal programs that favor subsidies for large monoculture farms have made itincreasingly difficult for small and mid-size fruit and vegetable farmers to remain profitable.Ascetic imperfections such as scratches blemishes or deformities that renders the fruit orvegetable unsellable resulting in a loss for the small farmer. Farmers also loose perishable fruitor vegetable due to the short shelf-life to transport their product from farm to customer. It may bedifficult for many small farmers to overcome these losses by increase the size of theirproduction making it important to increase the value of their products and decrease product lossto remain profitable.The current Phase I project seeks to focus on the Borderplex Region food system spanningNew Mexico and West Texas a Food Desert which suffers from the nation's leading childhoodhunger rates extreme poverty and suffers extreme health disparities related to diet (diabetesheart disease and obesity). Backyard Farms will help to empower small fruit and vegetablefarmers by using lyophilization (freeze drying) to create a value-added healthy food product thatpreserves flavor and nutrition of fruits and vegetables at their peak and creates a shelf-stableproduct for up to 25 years. Removing the need for refrigeration and significantly increasing theamount of time to reach customers will allow schools food banks and disaster relieforganizations to get more locally grown fruits and vegetables to reach vulnerable food insecurepopulations in the Borderplex Region food system. The project will use farmers' "seconds" orproduce that is overripe or has ascetic imperfections as the inputs for the freeze dried foodshelping to reduce product losses creating a new specialty food market and increase revenue forsmall farmers.This Phase I application will prove feasibility of an innovative business model to build asustainable economically viable freeze dried healthy food industry to better serve the needs ofthe BorderPlex Region food system. Phase I will support research and development of technicalmarketing and business strategies and supply partnerships that are scalable and in a position toexpand during Phase II. The technical objectives of this project are (1) to access the technicaland market feasibility of freeze dried local fruits and vegetables in the Borderplex Region and(2) to conduct a value chain analysis and develop an optimal business model based on thisinformation.Backyard Farms has secured agreements for wholesale purchase of freeze dried foods for the"Farm to School" program for the New Mexico school lunch program and the "Farm Box"subscription home delivery program through Desert Spoon Food Hub who's needed for localfoods have significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.