A winter CSA of frozen summer vegetables from New York may be coming to Collingswood

At the Collingswood Farmers Market on Saturday, I spent some time talking to Adam Gordon from Winter Sun Farms. He and his wife Sara had a table set up to gage interest in their CSA, Winter Sun Farms. It’s a 5-month regional frozen vegetable and fruit winter CSA subscription. Summer produce from sustainable and organic farms in the Hudson Valley, New York are picked and frozen within hours. All have been washed, snipped, peeled, cored, chopped and diced before freezing. It’s kind of like someone else doing the preserving for you of fresh summer produce so you can enjoy them throughout the winter.

The primary goal of Winter Sun Farms is to work with small local farms and to distribute our food through membership in a winter CSA (Community Supported Agricultural) program. Members pay in advance for “winter shares” which means they will receive monthly shares of produce throughout the winter. By supporting Winter Sun Farms, members get great tasting food which helps keeps local farm families doing what they love, and what our communities need–preserving farmland and livelihoods for generations.

I’m intrigued. How about you? Sure these foods aren’t from our immediate local region, but I don’t have any summer fruits and vegetables preserved. That means that if I’m going to buy green beans in the winter (and I most likely will), I’m going to have to buy them from far away, even if I buy them organically. With this CSA, I’ll be buying them from small farmers on the East Coast that farm sustainably. It seems like it might be a great way to continue buying some fruits and vegetables throughout the winter in a smarter way than packaged Green Giant.

If Winter Sun Farms gets enough interest and chooses to deliver their CSA to Collingswood (exact location to be determined), here’s the cost.

• Omnivore – $175 with an early bird rate of $155 if registered by 10/15 – 6 frozen items plus one fresh vegetable or fruit item each week. (Works out to $5 an item at the regular rate, $4.43 per item at the early bird rate)
• Herbivore - $315 with an early bird rate of $299 if registered by 10/15 – Double the omnivore amount (Works out to $4.50 per item at the regular rate, $4.27 per item at the early bird rate.

I don’t know if I’m going to sign up yet. I need to talk to my husband, research their website a little more, and figure out if it’s in my budget. But, I like this idea, and I wanted to pass the information along to you so you can check them out, too.

One last thing, an email I received from them earlier today mentioned that they do have a goal of bringing this type of to “set-up an operation and supporting infrastructure that can bring the same concept that was established in the Hudson Valley five years ago to reality right here to the Greater Philadelphia region by next year.”

What are your first thoughts about Winter Sun Farms?