SBIR-STTR Award

The current food system poses many challenges to getting healthy nutritious foods into the hands of vulnerable populations such as children low-income and communities of color in Food Deserts. As a result an overabundance of shelf-stable junk foods predominate in these region food systems leading to malnutrition and extreme persistent health disparities. Small farmers producing fruits and vegetables also face obstacles to getting their produce to market in the food system. The increasing cost of agricultural inputs corporate concentration of commodity markets and federal programs that favor subsidies for large monoculture farms have made it increasingly 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 or vegetable unsellable resulting in a loss for the small farmer. Farmers also loose perishable fruit or vegetable due to the short shelf-life to transport their product from farm to customer. It may be difficult for many small farmers to overcome these losses by increase the size of their production making it important to increase the value of their products and decrease product loss to remain profitable. The current Phase I project seeks to focus on the Borderplex Region food system spanning New Mexico and West Texas a Food Desert which suffers from the nation's leading childhood hunger rates extreme poverty and suffers extreme health disparities related to diet (diabetes heart disease and obesity). Backyard Farms will help to empower small fruit and vegetable farmers by using lyophilization (freeze drying) to create a value-added healthy food product that preserves flavor and nutrition of fruits and vegetables at their peak and creates a shelf-stable product for up to 25 years. Removing the need for refrigeration and significantly increasing the amount of time to reach customers will allow schools food banks and disaster relief organizations to get more locally grown fruits and vegetables to reach vulnerable food insecure populations in the Borderplex Region food system. The project will use farmers' "seconds" or produce that is overripe or has ascetic imperfections as the inputs for the freeze dried foods helping to reduce product losses creating a new specialty food market and increase revenue for small farmers. This Phase I application will prove feasibility of an innovative business model to build a sustainable economically viable freeze dried healthy food industry to better serve the needs of the BorderPlex Region food system. Phase I will support research and development of technical marketing and business strategies and supply partnerships that are scalable and in a position to expand during Phase II. The technical objectives of this project are (1) to access the technical and 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 this information. 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 local foods have significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.