By Emily Buehler, Weaver Street Market Website Coordinator
Last week, we attended an open house for Seal the Seasons at the Piedmont Food & Agriculture Processing Center (PFAP). Patrick Mateer, CEO and founder of Seal the Seasons, kicked it off with a slide presentation about the company. Then he and Bryan Cohn, the new Director of Operations, took tour groups past the production rooms, where staff were cutting and freezing North Carolina strawberries. Finally, we gathered for questions and smoothies.
Seal the Seasons began with a mission “to make all NC fruits and vegetables available to all North Carolinians all year round.” They planned to partner with small local farmers to freeze, market, and distribute locally grown fruits and vegetables, and to donate 20% of profits to fight food insecurity. Patrick’s slides made it clear that Seal the Seasons is on its way to accomplishing this mission. They started in 2015 by selling at five stores, all co-ops including our three stores. This summer, they’re expanding to 323 stores across North Carolina and into neighboring states. All of their 2015 strawberries sold in eleven months; this year they’re freezing 80,000 pounds of strawberries to have enough for twelve months. They should have profit to donate and are currently studying how to make the most impact: studies show that major issues with food insecurity are the cost of healthy food and the lack of transportation to reach it, so Seal the Seasons hopes to make their products available with mobile grocers, at corner stores, or using a community-based model that delivers food to people.
Seal the Seasons addresses problems faced by some farmers. Without a commercial freezing facility, farmers can only sell in-season, and they have to work on the farm AND market and sell product. Many are glad to have a guaranteed market like Seal the Seasons. At first, Seal the Seasons worked with small farms, but they added medium and large farms to obtain more produce. They continue to prioritize small farms, sending their truck around the state to get the product; the larger farms send their own truck to Hillsborough. It would be more efficient to only buy from large farms, but small farms are part of the company’s mission. Many of the small farms are increasing in size and planting dedicated acres for Seal the Seasons. In addition, Seal the Seasons is able to encourage the farmers to grow using sustainable methods. (Many of the farms are certified organic, and Seal the Seasons will be introducing an organic line in 2017.) In 2015, Seal the Seasons froze about 35,000 pounds of food from 5 acres; in 2016, they’ll freeze 750,000 pounds from 50 acres, and in 2017, over 2 million pounds from 200 acres.
In season, the facility operates 24 hours a day. Workers, however, are limited to shifts of eight to ten hours with regular breaks, unlike shifts in much of the industry. New employees make $10 per hour and can move up the pay scale into leadership positions. Bryan explains that they want to create an environment that employees want to come back to by treating them well and getting them invested in the company. Previously, summer has been the “off season,” with no produce to freeze. Bryan is investigating new products, perhaps frozen NC seafood, to keep the workers in production. As we passed by the production rooms, we saw the staff, wearing special safety gloves, cutting berries. The culls are picked up by farmers for compost. Freezing happens on a conveyor belt that passes through temperatures from 0 to -120 to -75 degrees, cooled with liquid nitrogen; the rock-hard berries are boxed, and will be scaled into smaller bags once the busy harvest season is over.
As we sipped out berry smoothies, Patrick and Bryan spoke about their experiences before Seal the Seasons. During college, where the idea for Seal the Seasons began, Patrick met someone while conducting a food survey who ate “Ragu and noodles” for every meal and thought it was not normal. Bryan worked for a multinational company that owned mini-marts before coming to “do good” at Seal the Seasons. He recalled watching people come into a store to get a bag of Cheetos for dinner. “It’s time to get people reintroduced to food, and to show them that it is accessible,” Bryan said. “It’s extremely important for us to get this type of food, to get quality food back into the communities.”