Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee]: Your name and where you're from for the record, then we'll get going. I think this is on our website too, and the public can pull it up as well.

[Kelly Dolan]: Great. So my name is Kelly Dolan. I'm the executive director of Salvation Farms based in Morrisville, Vermont. I live in Waterbury.

[Rep. David Durfee]: So let's hear what you've to say.

[Kelly Dolan]: Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit today. So as I mentioned, I lead the organization Salvation Farms. We're based in Morrisville, Vermont. I'm joined today by Tony Rizotano, our program director Martha Masia, our processing program manager and Kyle Moore, the food service supervisor at the Department of Corrections. We're thankful for the opportunity to be here today and share where Salvation Farms has been, where we're headed and why this moment matters. This presentation reflects years of partnership, learning and listening across Vermont's food system, and a clear opportunity to build infrastructure that better serves farms, communities and the state as a whole. Today, I'm hoping to provide an overview of the organization, a bit of history, a status update on our processing program and the facility project, and then also to share a funding request to school operations of our processing program that I'm hoping the committee will consider. And so just to share, to get us started off, part of what we're hoping to do today is to outline the need that the organization has identified. We're incredibly appreciative of the support that the state has provided to Salvation Farms to establish a food processing facility, and we're hoping that that support will continue and requesting that the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency and Forestry considers including an ongoing request for $100,000 to support the operations of our processing program. So we'll share more about the why behind that today. So just to share a little bit about Salvation Farms, who we are and where we've been. So we work statewide at the intersection of farm viability and food access. Our role is to solve systemic challenges that individual farms or food programs can't solve alone, specifically what happens when good food has no market and communities struggle to access healthy local food at the same time. At the heart of our work is the belief that a strong food system isn't just about food. It's about relationships that build towards thriving communities and farms. Our mission is rooted in connection, connecting farms to markets, surplus to need and people to meaningful work. At its core, Salvation Farms exists to ensure that all of our farm honors, regardless of income or personal background or individual circumstances, can access nutritious local food while farms are supported through a diversity of income streams. Just to start us off, what is surplus food? We've done some internal research and found that about 14,300,000 pounds of vegetables and berries from Vermont farms end up as food loss each year. Food loss isn't waste. It's highly high quality food grown for people that is not reaching market markets due to forces outside farmers' control. It could be weather events, it could be labor shortages, shifts in contracts or cosmetic standards. Without the right infrastructure, this food is lost. With the right systems, it becomes an asset that can contribute to Vermont's agricultural economy. We know that one in four Vermonters are accessing food from an institution on a regular basis, and the vast majority of that food is coming from out of state. According to a twenty twenty two UVM study, we also know that two in five Vermont residents had experienced food insecurity that year. Salvation Farms works to bridge the gap between an existing resource on farms and eaters.

[Rep. David Durfee]: Do you mind if we interrupt for Brian?

[Kelly Dolan]: Please do,

[Rep. Brian Cina]: yeah. And for Brian? To give us some context, how much poundage is produced in Rotamori, or what percentage is that?

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure the total amount of pounds produced across the state. That 14,300,000 pounds of food loss includes vegetables and berries, so it's not inclusive of, for example, orchard vegetables that would be coming from representative Burtt's farm. So it would be much larger if we were exceeding that number as well. But I can certainly find out overall in terms of production in the state what that represents as a percentage. You

[Rep. Brian Cina]: also know, it's probably a industry standard of how much food, once it leaves the farm, turns into waste, like it's bought by consumers but never used.

[Kelly Dolan]: I've heard So Refed is an organization that studies food loss nationwide. I think it's 40%, I want to say, that ends up as food loss. So it's fairly significant in terms of food that even is, in theory, reaching markets, but then also ending up as food waste. And there are certainly other organizations that work on that end of the food spectrum, trying to ensure that food, once it actually reaches those markets, can be able to reach individuals that are actually going to be consuming it.

[Kyle Moore]: You. Absolutely. Just before

[Rep. David Durfee]: we leave the slide again, making a distinction that we should be clear on between surplus food and food waste? I'm just reading off the slides here.

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah, so it's the same. I think oftentimes for those working in this sector, they refer to it as food loss versus waste. But essentially, it's food from farms that isn't reaching traditional markets for a variety of different reasons. So that would be the surplus food. Thank you. So in 2025, Salvation Farms celebrated twenty years of work in the food system. So our organization was founded in 2004 by Theresa Snow. She established a gleaning program within NOFA, Vermont. Since 2012, there's been various different iterations of our processing program, including collaborations with Department of Fractions, which we'll be speaking more about, and work training programs through the Vermont Department of Labor at our own food processing hub that was cited in Winooski. In 2023, we were fortunate to receive a generous appropriation from the state of Vermont to grow our food processing program through establishing a food processing facility focused on surplus. Last year, we received an additional award from the Northern Borders Regional Commission Catalysts program, and we're planning to launch operations this year at the Vermont Food Venture Center, and that will be done in collaboration with the Center for an Agricultural Economy. In terms of the organization's program areas, we have three different program areas within Salvation Farms. Collectively, over the history of the organization, we've been able to connect over 1,250,000 pounds of surplus food from farms to Vermonters. Much of this work has been done in partnership with food shelves, meal programs, institutions and others. So we have our gleaning program, the Vermont Gleaning Collective and our processing program. So in terms of our gleaning program, we work in collaboration with volunteers. They help to harvest over the course of the year over 70,000 pounds of food. This ends up translating to about 200,000 servings of food that is feeding about 10,000 people. Our focus in terms of geographic region for that program is in the Northeast Kingdom and the Loyal Valley. This work is done in collaboration with 34 farms and 65 food distribution sites. We also serve as a backbone organization for the Vermont Weaning Collective. We help to establish this as a network of organizations in Vermont that are doing weaning efforts around the state. When we pull all of our data together, the impact of gleaning food is pretty remarkable and ends up being about 400,000 pounds of food that's recovered from over 200 partner farms and distributed to over two twenty five food distribution sites. And again, the distinction here is this is donated food. This is food that is donated to these food distribution sites, charitable food programs and others, whereas our processing program is focused on developing paid markets for farm surplus.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Brian? Just quickly, Representative Burtt, so I know

[Rep. Brian Cina]: you talked about this earlier. Was that a gleaning group that came to Burtt's Orchard?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Yep. Yeah. We had Central Vermont Hearts came. And Emilie S. Bartholomew Farms has come to our probably the best. I'm on the edge of the jurisdictions.

[Kelly Dolan]: That's right. And they're part of the Vermont pleading collective as well. So we're able to work with them closely, which is great.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: That's why you're in tier three.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Yes. So how does

[Rep. Brian Cina]: that work after like, pick your own or you've picked what you want, are apples left entries?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Yeah, this year especially, we had quite a few left. A lot of them were drops, I made all the cider I could make and use, butylized all I could have done. So they harvested a fair number drops, actually.

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah, wonderful. It's really great to have, I love to use. The

[Rep. David Durfee]: food distribution sites here that have been underserved, are they the same types of sites that the food bank would be supplying serving? Or do you have other? I know we've got the Department of Corrections, for example, in the room, and maybe we're going hear more about them and a different program. Can you just say a little bit more about who these states are?

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah, absolutely. So it's a number of different programs. We work with Head Start programs, WIC programs, food shelves that are oftentimes served by the Vermont Food Bank, after school programs. It's very wide range elder care programs from around state homeless shelters. So those are all just examples of some of the long history with the Vermont Food Bank, but they're very interested in purchasing some of the produce from our processing program, which is exciting. Yeah. Thank you. When you go to a farm for gleaning, whether

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: it be sweet corn or birch orchards, is all that that's gleamed donated to Salvation Farms, or do you buy it at a reduced rate?

[Rep. David Durfee]: How does this

[Kelly Dolan]: work? Yeah, that's exactly We're trying to actually do both. And so our gleaning program is volunteer labor, individuals from the community that go out and harvest that food, and then it's in turn donated. That ends up as a tax deduction for that farmer, which can be Our processing program, on the other hand, would be a farmer's already harvested the product, their market, a buyer falls through, they end up having a bumper crop, they've got too much to sell, whatever the case may be. And so we're able to essentially purchase that surplus from that farmer, process it in some sort of way. Antonio will be talking more about this, and then sell it to institutions and charitable food programs at a reduced cost, essentially, because otherwise it would have been a loss for the farmer. So that's kind of the distinction there. It's volunteer versus the farm labour that's doing the harvest days.

[Kyle Moore]: Just a follow-up. So are you a sort of partner vendor with Vermonters being Vermonters or farm to school?

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah. So we are excited. We were at Browns River Elementary School this past week. We had sold to them some corn on the cob, which is incredibly well received and very popular, as you can imagine. So yeah, we do work very closely with farm to school programs. We have in the past, I believe, worked with Vermonters feeding Vermonters, or that might have predated my time.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: Different program.

[Kelly Dolan]: Okay, got it. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Great. Awesome. I'm going to actually hand it off to Tony because he will be able to speak much more about our processing program.

[Tony Rizzitano]: Okay. Thanks, Kelly. And for the record, once again, Tony Burttano. I can help you. You need help on that later on. Get to that. Thanks. So, yeah, to tie this in a little bit with the processing program, we started off with a with a gleaning program as an organization, and that's great. You're capturing product in its fresh format. You're able to distribute it right away. But when we're talking about 14,300,000, it's very hard to distribute that product in a fresh format with the perishability of it. So what we began doing back in back in 2012 was trying to figure out ways that we could add some shelf life to the product. And so we've started working with a minimal process, developing a minimal processing program. And really what we've been doing is trying to target institutional markets, trying to find places within the state where local purchasing just isn't happening and trying to bridge that gap. We always want to be really sensitive that we're not undercutting a farm in a primary market with their own surplus. So we've found that in institutional markets, there's also there's often tremendous price pressure and logistical challenges to getting local produce into these places. And so that would be schools, Meals on Wheels locations, Department of Corrections, who are often trying to serve their populations on incredibly tight budgets, which is also a challenge. So as we've scaled this program up over the years, we really tried to focus on a few key items. Affordability, making sure that this product is affordable, can meet the same price point as broadliner such as Cisco or Performance Food Group or something like that. Accessibility, so making that connection from small farm to the institution, making the purchasing process easy for the buyer, making the transportation seamless, as seamless as you can make it. Focusing on the ease of use of that product. So many of our products, I'll take zucchini as an example, so for someone in a kitchen to take a 20 pound box of zucchini and turn it into 20 pounds of diced something that's going to go into something, it takes time, it takes labor. And a lot of lot of the folks we work with are really tight on on labor. And so if we have a product that's just ready to go, it's already chopped, blanched, frozen, they can just cut that open, put it into whatever they're whatever they're trying to make. So we've really done a lot of market research with these different market channels to see what are those price points that you can absorb, what products are useful to you, and what's the easiest way to get it to you. What distributors are you working with? How can we develop relationships with those distributors so that those products are right in the catalogs that you're already buying out of? So yeah, what that's also done, I just want to touch briefly on is, you know, we like to leverage the infrastructure that's in the state and a lot of the food hubs that have been coming up over the years in different parts of the states are potentially be really great partners. Food hubs have almost access to the entire state at this point. And so if we can develop relationships regionally with these food hubs, we're able to access all parts of the state with this product. There we go. And I think this is where I turn it over to Mr. Kyle Moore. So Kyle's with the Vermont Department of Corrections. Tell you about it.

[Kyle Moore]: Hi everybody, Kyle Moore and I'm actually not a food service supervisor. I'm actually the nutritional manager for the Department of Corrections, is a newly created position. I've only been in this role for a few months now, but I work for the health and wellness division within the state of Vermont Department of Corrections. Our goal is to try to improve the health and wellness of our incarcerated population. A lot of these guys, we see for over and over again throughout the years. We, of course, pay for their medical expenses and their housing and everything else. What we're noticing nationwide is the better, nutritionally supportive these folks are throughout the years, the lower our medical expenses are further down the road. We also have an obligation to provide good health and nutrition to these folks. As you see, we got over 1,600 incarcerated individuals at any given time. We also had 600 plus staff members. The staff members are now working twelve hour shifts. Not a lot of turnaround at home, not a lot of time to prepare meals and stuff like that. So our staff as well are eating these meals at the correctional facility. So we're supporting the help of Save Amount employees through these meals that we serve every day. Salvation Farms and Department of Corrections, we've been working together for probably about twelve years, Tony.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: Maybe a little more. Back

[Kyle Moore]: when the Windsor State Farm was opened, they had a processing plant there where they were actually guiding incarcerated individuals through the processing of both vegetables at that site. But of course, that facility is now long since closed. Outside of that, they have been brokering for us. So they would go if they had a proper secondary crop that was going to go to waste, they would contact us. And we have the ability to either process it on our end, or they have the ability to process it on their end as a bulk crop so that it won't go to waste and we can use it at a later date from time. We're using these vegetables to eliminate frozen and canned goods that we have been serving. We're also using it to make supplement meals that we have in existence. Like when we serve like a spaghetti, we'll actually put like squash or zucchini that we've gotten from somewhere in the state and put it into it to bolster it and put more added nutrition into it. Represent nothing.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: All right, sorry, Chairman, but you did find a way to cancel a flourish zucchini so people would eat it.

[Kyle Moore]: We actually, we have several successful ways that we serve it in the facility and it is actually well liked. We have a grilled and baked version of it that we serve down at the Marble Valley Correction Facility and it's very well received. I can tell you versus a canned or frozen vegetable, it is very much preferred. So it's also being consumed. I mean, having something on the menu is one thing, but actually having it consumed is another thing, which is what we saw when we switched back over to grilled milk in the state of Vermont. We had 80% waste with our powdered milk, nobody was drinking it. We switched back over to Vermont based milk, and now there's less than 20% waste in the milk that we're serving out. So you serve a fresh local product, it's generally much better received. Answer.

[Rep. David Durfee]: Representative Nelson works his aversion to vegetables into as many.

[Rep. Brian Cina]: Representative O'Brien, do the incarcerated and staff eat the same meals?

[Kyle Moore]: Yes, do. Seeing exact same meal, to put it out any differently, you know, would be an issue. Sure. Yeah. So what are the six prisons again?

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: I I

[Kyle Moore]: What's that? What are the six prisons? We have a Newport facility. We have the St. Johnsbury facility. We have the Norman State facility in Newport. We got the St. Johnsbury facility. We got the Chittenden Regional facility, the Mardi Valley Correctional facility in Rutland, and we have the Southern State facility in Springfield. So we're pretty spread out. If it's in this case, as we said with the brokering, if it's something that Salvation Farms can't get to their facilities, they have been contacting us, seeing if this is something that we can take and we can process. They've also been coming and training us at our facilities, our food service supervisors in minimal process training, so that we can work with our incarcerated workforce. And that's another skill that we can train our incarcerated workforce when they leave. It's just another thing that they can put on their resume.

[Rep. Brian Cina]: So it's all about in house, you don't have Cisco or Sodexo or

[Kyle Moore]: No, have a training service group, it's a food service contractor. They come in, they do our health assessments. They do our screenings of our services. They also provide our menus and a dietitian. That's somebody who in my new role I'm working with directly to help improve on the nutrition that we're already serving and get more of our broth products in there. This is the sabermoths third. Going into the next portion, we're going into a grant with Salvation Farm through the agency of agriculture, where we're going to be working together trying to get more vegetables, produce into our facilities locally. The previous grant we had as well in this area, and it was through Farmed Institution New England. And a lot of what they did was actually tracking our expenditure as we tried to improve upon our spending in state. So we went from, I think it was about 4% in 2024 to we were up around 13.5% or something in 2025. It was almost a 10% leap in our local spending with farms, orchards, any kind of food based organizations in Vermont. So we're just looking in this next two year grant that we have with Salvation Farms, we're looking to grow upon what we've already established and try to keep more of our state dollars within our borders, as well as trying to make healthier meals with local produce that we got from local farmers. So it's almost the equivalent of a school food authority, like each prison. Does that make sense? What's that, sir? You know school food authorities? I'm not familiar with them now, sir.

[Rep. Brian Cina]: I was just trying to find out a parallel, because it's not like UVM, say, and the way they feed their students. It sounds more like our sort of supervisory districts in unions where there's a school food authority Yes, for each

[Kyle Moore]: it's like a separate entity within each facility, but we're all striving for the same goals. Like this morning, we met at 09:00, all the food service supervisors, myself and the individual that has oversight for our food service supervisors. We work together, we discuss common goals, we discuss what we're each doing, so that others might have successes where others might be failing at that current time. So, I mean, in all the data and the organizations, would they work with each institution to the best of their ability and, know, paying that, they can always reach out to me or their supervision to seek further help. Representative Bos-Lun.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Thank you. I just wanted to say I'm a second year member of this committee, but I was a four year member of the corrections and institutions committee. And one of my sort of pet projects was trying to get more fresh produce into the correctional facilities. And I actually spent one summer a few years ago building a garden with one of the individuals there. And then we found out later they were told that they weren't allowed to use it in the kitchen. And that was really discouraging because I wanted to try and increase interest in local fresh food and how fresh could it be other than in your, you know, growing literally in your yard. But this program just sounds like a completely sensible and effective partnership to, you know, to utilize food resources and also bring better fresh local food into the facility. So I just say kudos to DOC and Salvation Farms for working on this. Really am very pleased to hear about it. I remember hearing some things about the work of Salvation Farms last year, but I don't remember all the details about the DOC project, and this is really encouraging. So thank you. I'm glad to hear about it.

[Rep. David Durfee]: Nelson. Are

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: you able to, like, the food shelf is able to tap into the commodity credit, you know, the commodities out there from United States, you know, excuse me, grains and dairy, you know, cheap milk, not milk, but butter, cheese, things that the commodities purchase up. Are you able to utilize those same programs?

[Kyle Moore]: Not To offset cost? No. Not not really. As far as I know, we're not really able to to do that. We have to purchase through our primary vendors with contracts. We do have some ability with the blanket delegations of authorities that are in existence, which cover produce. And actually dairy is, I think it's BDA one or 111, something like that, allows us to purchase dairy products as we see fit. Everything else is very strictly covered by contracts we have to purchase through our primary vendors currently. But as far as the probius goes, it's up to the individual food service supervisor to purchase it as they see fit, which was not really very understood until recent years. And that's something that we're really pushing now, which is where suddenly we're working a lot more closely with Salvation Farms, the Institution of New England, and directly with our local farmers. Some of the facilities have very close relationships with orchards or farm stands near their facilities, and they're acquiring quite a bit of produce at this point.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: Well, I I can understand you. I I applaud growing at 10% purchase from Mid State, and I would like to think we could grow that by another 25% with time and and learning the system. And, you know, we're not gonna be able to get the bananas and the citrus from Vermont, but, you know, there's so much more here that we can supply from local and in state. A couple of our facilities do actually purchase our our apples year round from sites that have cold storage, you know.

[Kyle Moore]: Is it, we sell ours to the correctional facility up until we run out? Yes, have Browns Orchard down at Myrtle Valley, which they supplement from some other farms down that way they start to run out. If the other orchards have some in their gold storage, they'll get them in and supply us year round. It's a great aspect to all of a sudden start being able to focus more and more on that. And once we get a chain established, it's like, is that the only facility? Can we open up other facilities to those locations as well? So that's a lot what we're looking at. Yeah, it was mentioned, Michelle, there was an issue with the gardening. That's something that we've, over the last couple of years, we've been focusing on as well, is trying to open up our gardens. We got a little bit push out of where we were heading because of COVID and then the staffing crisis after COVID, but we're now starting to get at a level where we can start staffing our gardens as well.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: So We think

[Tony Rizzitano]: as a

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: clarity of mind for some of the people that are incarcerated to be out working with their hands and growing food and being productive, it would help heal the soul. The Marble Valley facility, we work directly with mental health. Of course, some

[Kyle Moore]: of these people they meet almost daily with, and that's a point of conversation like, you know, hey, I have this individual that might be able to benefit from going out to the garden and weeding today or watering today, if you could bring them out. So we take that with some of brain, those individuals out. So yes, that is something that we've acknowledged. And I mean, not only just the mental health from working on that portion, but the mental health from being better fed, having a better nutrition, it has a direct effect on mental health. So that's something that we're seeing across our incarcerated setting as well. We are running a little

[Rep. David Durfee]: short of time. Representative Lipsky, go ahead and ask your question, but then

[Rep. Jed Lipsky]: we may want to have you speak through the rest of the deck. Mr. Moore. Rep. Masland has talked and presented bills on food resiliency piece for avoiding highly processed foods. And so there's 20,000 pounds of fresh produce, more nutritious, fresher, if you're able to give to the staff and. What percentage of that, you know, really value added, meaning it's nutritional value? It's a represent of the year round. Well, that's 20,000. 5% is at

[Kyle Moore]: 15%? That's really hard to say, you know, especially with our fluctuating population. I don't have that number. That's something that I could probably rough out. But it's significant? It is significant. Yes. It's very significant.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky]: And how would you roughly refer to significant? I would say

[Kyle Moore]: based on my experience in Marble Valley, that's that's around what we would serve at Marble Valley for produce over a given year. So that's one of the facilities, but you spread that over all the facilities and the amount that that's replacing, it's fairly significant. It's imperative, thank you. Thank you, Chuck. That's very quick. What's the cost per So cost per meal fluctuates right now, we're about 2.8 a meal to about $3.12 a meal, depending on the facility. And a lot of that fluctuations based on total number of headcount. With the larger populations, you can drive that cost down a little bit with bulk purchasing.

[Kelly Dolan]: Sorry about that. Oh, no, this is wonderful. It was great. I'm just going to try and speed up some of this information. So in terms of our goals for the new process in space, we're really trying to grow our impact to a statewide model. We want to build on these existing relationships and partnerships that we've had over the past twenty years. We want to feed more people, especially people that historically really have been marginalized and have not been able to access local food. And we also want to generate additional revenue for farmers using a product that otherwise would end up as a loose product. So the status of the project right now, we had originally identified a site in Morrisville. Things shifted quite a bit with the funding landscape. We also just recognize the value of the relationship that we have with the Center for an Agricultural Economy. They have a processing program. We're excited to be working together with CAE to renovate a shared food processing space at the Vermont Food Venture Center. That space will be utilized by both organizations' processing programs, the Just Vet program, as well as Salvation Farms processing program. So we're currently working on floor plans. We're working on business plans as well, and that's with some support from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. Our hope is to fully launch the facility by late summer twenty twenty six. We're very excited about it. We've been fortunate to receive funding to help support the establishment of the facility, the generous appropriation from the State of Vermont, additional funding to support equipment needs from the Northern Border's Regional Commission and other costs. Kyle had mentioned this wonderful grant that we received from the Agency of Agriculture to really deepen our partnership with the Department of Corrections. We anticipate that in year one, we'll be processing approximately 50,000 to 60,000 pounds of produce, generating about $125,000 in revenue. We had mentioned this funding request to the State of Vermont that we are hoping that you will consider. We definitely understand that it's a very challenging financial year with much that is being asked of the legislature, but we certainly appreciate any consideration there. With our revenue, with that state support, we know that operational costs come in at about $325,000 That leaves the organization with a $100,000 gap, which we do believe that we could fill through fundraising, through other grant sources. So that is our aim, to be able to do so to ensure the long term success and viability of this program. In summary, just hoping to reduce food loss on farms, support farmers, mitigate some of the harmful effects of climate change, recovering surplus crops, being able to support charitable food programs and institutions. We've mentioned the Vermont Food Bank, Meals on Wheels, other growing partnerships that we're excited access to nutritious local food for some of the most vulnerable within our state, knowing that everyone should have access to food that is nourishing and sufficient to meet their needs. These are our goals. And just an overall outline of the funding request, we understand it's definitely a challenging year. We're excited to be part of a coalition that's supporting S60, the Farm and Forest Security Fund. We know that there's a wonderful request from the Vermont Food Bank to support food access needs, crop cash, bridges to health. We definitely understand there's quite a bit on your radar. But at the same time, we definitely feel as though the work that we're doing is providing a meaningful service to Vermonters and to farmers in particular. So we just really want to express sincere thank you to members of the legislature for the past support. It really has truly made a difference. It's allowed us to get as far as we have today, And we're excited to continue, and we hope the Vermont legislature will continue their commitment to Salvation Farms in Northampton. So thank you very much.

[Kyle Moore]: You. Ahead, Representative Nelson. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: We've been honest by the by appropriations and stuff that do deeper dives into policy and and you know, we're requesting money to go and first we can all in this room make an argument that beating people and growing food is worthwhile expense for every everything. And it's not a luxury, it's a necessity. That being said, what does it cost your operation to function over, you know, what you're requesting or what you make through sales? You know, what are your operating costs as a percentage Yeah. Of of your of your business.

[Rep. Brian Cina]: Right.

[Rep. Richard Nelson]: You know, and, you know, and you gotta figure in your donated portions of food that you get as well, because that's an income to offset your operating.

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah, organizationally, annual budget is about $700,000 give or take. The processing program is about 3 and $25,000 of that total expense. So in terms of the operating budget of that program specifically, it's, give or take, dollars 325,000 once it's fully operable, Just to give a sense as to the request and what percentage would be covering a little bit less than a third of the total operating costs for the program.

[Rep. David Durfee]: Representative Bos-Lun had her hand up, and then Representative Burtt. Michelle, you're muted if you're can't tell if you're speaking.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Sorry, I forgot to turn my audio back off back on. On the budget page, it said that you had a $100,000 request for this year's budget, but then there was another line item that said $500,000 State of Vermont. And I was wondering, do you have some kind of guaranteed income coming from the State of Vermont for $500,000 or do you have a total ask of $600,000

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah. So Salvation Farms had received an appropriation in 2023 from the state of Vermont to establish a food processing space for surplus crops. That is meant to establish the facility itself. And the 100,000 is a request to support operations once that space is up and running.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So the 500,000 has already been granted and is guaranteed for you?

[Kelly Dolan]: Correct. Exactly.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: All right. Great. Glad to hear it. Good. Sounds good. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee]: And you've actually received all or most of that funding by this point?

[Kelly Dolan]: We've received $400,000 of it. We expect another 50 in February and the final 50 once the renovation is complete. So yeah, close to all of it at this point.

[Kyle Moore]: I was just wondering what, it sounds like you have, our correction facility purchased the product from you. What do you charge? Do you charge at a fair market price? Do charge a reduced price?

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah. So the way that this program functions is that we spend a lot of time doing market research on price tolerance. We're really trying to fill a gap within the food system, the niche market of institutions, charitable food programs that really have been unable to afford local produce. So the program starts at that point and works backwards from there. Tony and Martha could speak much more about pricing for individual product items, and we have pricing lists that we share out with customers. So I don't know some examples, but we have pricing lists, basically, but it's based on feedback that we've received from school partners and others. Yeah,

[Tony Rizzitano]: and that was part of development, really starting the price tolerance of the market and working it backwards and then taking that to farms and then saying, okay, this is what we can afford to pay for surplus, might be 40¢ on the dollar for your primary market, is that worth it to you be honest with these things that are just not going to make it off the farm and you know with those conversations we find price points that work for the farm and make that count for us.

[Kyle Moore]: Then you mentioned that it sounds like most of your labor in terms of processing is volunteer based.

[Rep. David Durfee]: Is that correct?

[Kelly Dolan]: So actually, we're really excited to be partnering with the Center for Agricultural Economy. They'll be providing co packing services for us. So this is great. It provides more stability to processing program as well. So we are going to be contracting with CAE for production, which is wonderful. We're sort of focusing on what we do well. They have a lot of internal experience with the production end of things. And so that is the plan, versus having two separate production teams trying to crowd the same space.

[Rep. David Durfee]: And so they're being paid for their work? Correct.

[Rep. Brian Cina]: Yeah. So I think

[Rep. David Durfee]: you were making a distinction earlier between the gleaning program, which is volunteer labor, and then you're giving away the product as well. And then the process statement program does involve an exchange of money at both ends.

[Kelly Dolan]: Paid market or surplus. Correct. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee]: I'm sorry that we didn't schedule more time because I think that there are probably other questions, but we can reach out. And if you have other information you'd like to send us, please, of course, feel free to do that. And thank you very much all of you for your testimony. That's been really interesting and helpful.

[Kelly Dolan]: Yeah, well, thank you so much for the time and the consideration. Just, again, we're incredibly appreciative of the support. So happy to talk at future times about other questions. Thank you. You, Samuel. You, Why don't we take

[Rep. David Durfee]: five minutes? We're supposed to be