Opportunities
Opportunities are projects that the food community has requested in general. Each project is growing, and they all need your help.
Important! Read about our projects page.
Local Markets Find Boost Through CalFresh Benefits
A study by the University of Southern California finds that during the height of the pandemic, one in four Los Angeles County households experienced food insecurity. Food security continues to be a prominent concern even as restrictions lift and re-openings continue. COVID-19 pointed to a lack of resilience within our food system, Dr. Libby Gustin, […]
Expanding Food as Medicine
According to a study by the U.S. Burden of Disease Collaborators, diet is the leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in half a million deaths a year. At a recent event, “Healthy Food as Preventative Medicine: California and Beyond,” hosted by SPUR, leaders using food as medicine share what policy, health care, […]
Healthier Meals, Happier Kids and a Better Planet
A recent webinar series, “Healthy, Climate-Friendly School Food: Strategies for Success,” hosted by Friends of the Earth highlights experiences of food staff and stakeholders in creating healthy meals for students. The final panel last Thursday, focused on a new report, “The State of School Meals in California”, that finds a significant disparity between California’s climate […]
How Supporting Home Kitchens Can Help Communities
The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on many, especially those in the food industry. A report by the Independent Restaurant Coalition finds that 5.9 million restaurant jobs were lost between February and April of last year. And according to the National Restaurant Association, 17 percent of restaurants in the United States have closed permanently due […]
Long Beach Could Permit Home Kitchens to sell Meals
Long Beach has the opportunity to enact California’s new Homemade Food Act (AB 626) this year, which creates a permit process for the previously illegal occupation of selling homemade meals. The bill, signed into law by Gov Jerry Brown, took effect in January 2019, but requires a local ordinance to establish permits here in Long […]
Community Crop Swaps
Capture Falling Fruit
Long Beach is a city of neighborhoods, and many of those neighborhoods have fruit trees! Some residents are happy to share their fruit, and others yet have fruit trees that spill over into alleyways and other public properties. Meanwhile, many Long Beach residents go without food. What if there were a way to better account for […]
Urban Farming in Vacant Lots
Can we grow food, community, and the local economy all at once? Of course! Using space more creatively for food production is a big piece of the puzzle of changing our food system for the better – and it’s just what the newly approved Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones program, launched in November 2017, aims to encourage. On […]
Call for Submissions to Our “Little Things” Page!
If you have ideas about the little things that people can do to engage in healthier behaviors and become better connected with their food, we encourage you to write a guest post for us (click here for the interest form)! There are a lot of perceived barriers to buying local food and eating well; time, cost, and convenience […]
Grow & Sell Neighborhood Produce
Did you know that it’s perfectly legal in Long Beach to grow and sell home-grown produce directly to neighbors, chefs, and friends? In this post, we describe some of the background, and how to get started. In 2015, The Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services began accepting applications for the Community Food Producers license […]
Local School Snacks
We’re working to help get better snacks for sale at Long Beach school student stores. At many high and middle school in Long Beach are “stores” or “cafes” which are outside the federal lunch program’s rigorous standards and complex inter-level bureaucracy. The student store is highly independent, typically selling small bags of nuts, chips, fruit […]
Commercial Kitchens for Rent
Growing a food business is a lot easier when you have affordable access to a commercial kitchen! Here are some tips and best practices, as well as the shared commercial kitchens that we are of aware of. Stay Small: Produce at home (support passage of Microenterprise Home Kitchen Act, or use the Cottage Food program. […]
Good Food Purchasing Policy
One of the best ways to change the food system on a large scale is to change the way the government spends its food dollars. On October 24, 2012, the City of Los Angeles adopted a Good Food Purchasing Policy. Soon after, Los Angeles Unified School District followed… Two years later, they have tested the […]
Food Stories
The relationship between food and our culture, lives and history are so intricate and inexplicable — these stories need to be told. There are places in Long Beach preparing and sharing traditional time-honored ancestors, growing cultural and medicinal herbs, reveling in farm-to-table delights, supporting fair trade and local workers with their purchasing power and more. […]