SCH to start buying produce from Local Farmers

Stephens County Hospital is working on a new initiative to partner with local farmers for the hospital’s food.

According to Stephens County Hospital Chief Executive Officer Van Loskoski, after bringing the hospital’s dietary department back in-house, he was looking at the monthly invoices and realized that most of the food items the hospital purchases can be bought from local farmers.

“It started with looking at our monthly invoices, we’ve just taken our dietary department back in-house, and started reviewing some our purchasing and realized that there’s a lot of food that we’re purchasing that some of which I knew that we grew locally. The thought occurred to me, can we source this locally, because we’re going through a national distributor, as many organizations do to purchase in bulk, but a lot of this stuff, I mean that’s one of the advantages of being rural is that we’re close to agriculture. I would much rather source from our local growers than from our national distributors. You get fresher ingredients; you get higher quality ingredients. I think there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for us to be a better partner to the community in supporting those local growers. If we’re going to spend the money, we might as well spend it here,” he said.

He says the hospital is looking to buy from farmers in Stephens County and throughout the region.

In terms of saving the hospital money, Loskoski says the main goal is to infuse our local economy with the money that would otherwise be spent through a national distributor.

The hospital is approaching local farmers; but, if you are a farmer and you would like to partner with the hospital, Loskoski says you can call the hospital administration at 706-282-4200.

Another aspect of this initiative will include the revamping of the hospital’s Gift Shop to include some of the items from these local farmers.

He says the initiative will provide locally sourced food to the Clary and Wilkinson Centers, the hospital cafeteria, and the Lobby Grill.

Loskoski says the plan is to start purchasing from local farmers within the next two weeks.

Again, any farmer interested in partnering with the hospital can call 706-282-4200.