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Photo by Andrew Bibby
KMP
Kootenay mobile fruit and vegetable press allows small farms to produce value added products such as fruit juice by bringing the press to the farm.
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Photo by Warren Bruns
Apples KMP
Bins of apples waiting to be pressed in the Kootenays.
Fields Forward – an initiative launched in 2016 to support agriculture in the Creston Valley-Kootenay Lake area of BC – is helping a growing crop of farmers realize new marketing opportunities through the Kootenay Mobile Fruit and Vegetable Press (KMP).
Creston Valley-Kootenay Lake is an important agricultural region in BC, generating more than $37,050,000 annually for the provincial economy. With only 50 percent of the land available for production in use, the potential to expand the sector is significant. Fields Forward was created as a vehicle to help re-localize the food system in the region while creating meaningful, local jobs and fulfilling the agricultural potential of the valley.
Modelled in part after the State of Vermont’s Farm to Plate program, Fields Forward began with a regional partnership between Creston & District Community Directed Funds, and Kootenay Employment Services (KES.) The Leadership of Fields Forward Society is guided by a Board of Directors, a group of six farmers and community food leaders tasked with directing the organization’s resources in response to community need. “Rather than focus on social development as most non-profits do, the model for Fields Forward focuses on the business development side of agriculture,” says Elizabeth Quinn, Fields Forward Society Strategic Planner. “It is a targeted, enterprise-driven approach to agri-food infrastructure development,” adds Darby Marcellus, Food Venture Collaborative Manager for the Society.
During the development of Fields Forward, a major barrier that local producers identified was the cost of purchasing infrastructure that would allow them to produce value-added agri-food products such as fruit juice. Culled fruit can be used to make juice instead of the fruit going to the landfill, and juice can be sold at a higher margin than fruit itself. This was the inspiration for the first major project for Fields Forward: the Kootenay Mobile Fruit and Vegetable Press, a single unit industrial press that can process, pasteurize and package 1,500 litres of apple, pear, carrot, beet, cherry or berry juice per day. The juice is packaged into bag-in-box packages, similar to wine bags, and is shelf stable for one year.
Fields Forward raised close to $500,000 to purchase a second-hand mobile fruit and vegetable press with support from the Town of Creston, the Regional District of Central Kootenay, Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust (SIDIT) and BC’s Rural Dividend Fund. Sourced from an Okanagan juice producer who needed a larger machine, the press was first brought to the Creston area in 2016 to demonstrate its capabilities. Response from the farm community and industry stakeholders was extremely positive. The project moved from idea generation through comprehensive business planning to market development in five months. The press arrived permanently in late spring, 2017, and six staff were hired and trained to operate it.
Value-Added Benefits
In a single season, the press can convert 526,000 lbs. of fruit from one packing house to juice and animal feed. It can also produce juice/fruit pulp products including vinegar, soups, alcohol, sauces, blended beverages, purees and pellet stove fuels (which use cherry pits) to help farmers realize sales in non-harvest months, even out the sales cycle and improve overall viability of the sector.
The juice servicing cost to farmers and other users can be as low as $ 1.10 cents a litre; the apple juice can be retailed for $15 to $20 for a five-litre box, and cherry juice for $15 to $25 for a three-litre box. The pressing fees pay for staff to operate the press and include bag-in-box packaging.
Waste Stream Reduction
Not only does use of the press provide the environmental benefit of diverting culled fruit from the landfill, the bag-in-box packaging is 100% recyclable and the bulk format cuts back on consumer waste and is eight times more efficient than glass containers.
In its first year, production goals for the mobile press were exceeded with more than 526,000 pounds of fruit processed, 120,000 litres of juice produced and 176,000 pounds of culled fruit diverted from the landfill. Customers range from orchards to craft distilleries and wineries, and the West Kootenay Permaculture Co-op (WKPC.) At the WKPC’s second annual PressFest in the fall of 2017, hundreds of participants pressed and put up more than 14,000 lbs. of apples using the mobile press. “We are already planning our third annual event to be bigger and better than ever,” said WKPC Chair Shauna Fidler. “We can’t wait to host the mobile press again.”
The Kootenay Mobile Fruit and Vegetable Press project is just the first phase of Fields Forward’s innovative approach to agriculture development and has brought new energy to the sector in the Creston Valley. Additional projects over the next two years are aimed at continuing the momentum, including development of an online marketplace for consumers to purchase from local producers and value-added processors. ■
Tracey Fredrickson is Agriculture Specialist with the Basin Business Advisors Program, a program of Columbia Basin Trust administered and managed by Community Futures.
