[Washington Examiner] MIDDLETOWN, Maryland — There is an argument to be made that the coronavirus pandemic could change the food supply chain for the long term. It may disrupt our across-the-board reliance on distant producers, processing plants, and large chain grocery stores.In the process, it would connect many of us to local food in the same way our parents and grandparents were.
For months during this pandemic, consumers who used to drive to the supermarket to buy prepackaged food are instead getting direct delivery literally from a farm to their table. People are getting hooked on direct sourcing for their food and are eating healthier because of it.
Farmers, such as Tony Brusco here at South Mountain Creamery, are growing their family farms in the process.
Brusco's farm provides fresh milk, cream, yogurt, eggs, butter, produce, and butchered select cuts of meat — all from his farm and other local family farms that have tilled the soil, grown the grass that feeds their cows, and milked, churned, and prepared everything their family farms deliver.
Demand has been so strong that Brusco brought along other local farms to share in the profits. While the number of unemployed workers nationwide grows sky-high, Brusco is hiring more people.
"We're a second-generation dairy farm family that started back in 2001," he told me. "There’s four of us total that run the operation. My wife and I run the creamery (or the value-added side of our farm), and my brother-in-law and his wife run the farm side of our operation."