May 4, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

Multitasking may be popular in some circles, but plenty of folks still prefer to concentrate on one task at a time.

“For the most part, farmers like to farm. They don’t necessarily like to be out there marketing themselves,” Karen Peditto said. “So we really help some of those smaller-scale farmers who don’t really have the capacity to be both.”

Peditto is retail sales manager of Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance, a cooperative of about 30 members with the mission of providing high-quality products directly to customers, including wholesalers, and a sustainable rate of return to farmers. The alliance, headquartered in Lawrenceville, started in 1999.

“It’s been around for a while, but it’s grown and evolved over the years,” general manager Jeralyn Beach said. “It really started with a couple of farmers getting together, knowing they could do a better job of serving the restaurant demand for locally grown food if they worked cooperatively.”

She and Peditto attended an April 26 event at the Porch at Siena in Upper St. Clair, one of the customer restaurants, to provide information about Penn’s Corner and its community-supported agriculture subscription program.

“You sign up in advance and get yourself a weekly or biweekly box of local in-season fruits and vegetables throughout the growing season,” Pedutto explained. Out of season, the program continues throughout the winter with products such as root vegetables, flour, cornmeal and Penn’s Corner’s own salsa and tomato juice.

Customers can pick up boxes packed with the products at about 40 locations in Pittsburgh and some surrounding communities, including Unitarian Universalist Church of the South Hills in Mt. Lebanon.

The Porch at Siena is another pickup site, and executive chef Kevin Hermann said he has been working with Penn’s Corner since Eat’n Park Hospitality Group opened the original Porch at Schenley six years ago in Oakland.

“So when we moved to this location, they were already a partner of ours,” he said. “Really, it’s some of the freshest, nicest quality products that I can get.”

Purchasing through the cooperative helps meet his restaurant’s goal of offering an abundance of locally produced menu items.

“They really have a lot to offer, and I love to showcase their name and what they do, and make sure people are aware that there is a group working super hard to provide everybody with locally sustainable, well-thought-out food,” Hermann said. “The more we can educate people about what good food is and how it’s going and where it comes from really changes the way that you can enjoy your meal and enjoy an occasion.”

Among the alliance’s members is Weatherbury Farm in Independence Township, Washington County, which specializes in grass-fed beef and lamb, along with certified organic grains that are grown and milled on the farm.

“Penn’s Corner distributes our grain products for us, and they’re one of our largest, if not the largest, for our grain products,” Nigel Tudor, whose family owns the farm, said. “It would be logistically impossible for all the farms to market directly to the restaurants, so they act as an aggregator.”

Tudor was among those attending the event at the Porch at Siena, where guests were encouraged to try various dishes prepared using products supplied by the cooperative.

“We like to get out into the community, especially places where people can actually pick up their food,” Beach said. “And a lot of people may have heard of CSA. They don’t really know how it works. So events like this are a good opportunity for us to explain how they’re supporting local farms by signing up for their season of fresh fruits and vegetables.”

For more information about Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance, visit www.pennscorner.com.