FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Erin Hart ehart@american-healthcare.net Phone: 412.657.3028
March 6 – 15, 2020 @ Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show
Pittsburgh, PA, February 20, 2020– The 14th Annual Farm to Table Local Food Expo returns Friday, March 6 – Sunday, March 15 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Downtown Pittsburgh. The Expo is part of the 39th Annual Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show.
Local experts are featured on the Buy Fresh Buy Local stage both weekends. They will present topics such as food preparation, sustainable farming, urban and home gardening as well as food justice and environmental work being done in Western PA. Live bands will play Friday & Saturday night, both weekends. During the week, the Buy Fresh Buy Local stage will feature videos/movies about the same topics. A Farm to Table speaker list can be found here: https://farmtotablepa.com/conference/speakers/
NEW The Farm Bureau’s Mobile Ag Ed Science Lab will be featured with the Buy Fresh Buy Local interactive kids’ activities! AND Liberty Bell, a dairy cow owned by Emerald Valley’s Alisa Fava-Fasnacht, will be at the Expo on Friday, March 13!!
Come and take a “Buy Fresh Buy Local” selfie on our red carpet – win prizes (All-Clad sauté pan!) and help us spread the word about local agriculture.
Over 60 farms, food/beverage businesses and non-profit organizations will be exhibiting at different times throughout the week. They will have locally grown and produced items to stock your pantry. Vendors come from Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Centre, Clearfield, Cumberland, Elk, Erie, Fayette, Jefferson, Lancaster, McKean, Mercer, Somerset, Venango, Washington and Westmoreland counties! We will have chicken races again with Rent the Chicken. A Farm to Table vendor list can be found here: https://farmtotablepa.com/conference/exhibitors/
Tickets to the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show can be purchased to attend the Farm to Table Local Food Expo. Tickets are $10 and can be reused each day of the event. Ticket link: https://www.pghhome.com/
Again this year, FREE tickets are available for all WIC, SNAP and Medicaid beneficiaries. All child care providers or school staff can receive 2 free tickets AND continuing education credits. Information to request tickets: https://farmtotablepa.com/14th-annual-farm-to-table-local-food-expo/
The 2nd Annual Western PA Local Food Guide was published January 1, 2020. This 68-page magazine-style Buy Fresh Buy Local Food Guide lists farms, restaurants, retailers, non-profit organizations, dairies, CSA drop sites, recipes, county fairs, PA Preferred’s seasonal guide and NEW you pick farms and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s Green Grocer Mobile Market schedule. Circulation for the Western PA Local Food Guide increased from 26,000 in 2019 to 60,000 in 2020. Half have been distributed, more are available to order or pick one up at the Farm to Table Local Food Expo. (You can see Liberty Bell, the cow attending the Farm to Table Local Food Expo, on page 17!) Download a copy here: https://farmtotablepa.com/local-food-guide/
About Farm to Table
Our programs connect consumers to farms and local food/beverage producers. Over the past year, we have held or sponsored events in Bedford, Bloomfield, Butler, Carnegie, Champion, Downtown Pittsburgh, Dubois, Erie, Harrisburg, Hazelwood, Latrobe, Ligonier, Meadville, Mt. Lebanon, North Hills, Northside, Robinson, Seven Springs, Slippery Rock, Strip District, Tarentum, Uniontown, Washington and Wilkinsburg.
In 2015, the Southwestern PA Commission studied the Local Food Supply Chain in the 10 counties around Pittsburgh. Its report states that “if economic activity in the supply chain can be increased by 10 percent, the region would add $4 billion in business activity and 33,000 new jobs.”
Farm to Table Western PA is a business-to-business networking entity organized to connect farms to consumers and institutional buyers throughout the region.
Farm to Table Buy Local is a 501c3, non-profit launched in May, 2018. We’re the Western PA chapter of Buy Fresh Buy Local, a national direct-to-consumer marketing campaign. Farm to Table/Buy Fresh Buy Local is the region’s premier farm-to-consumer brand. We promote real, healthy local products through our print publications, on-line blog & local food guide and through the Buy Fresh Buy Local brand campaign. Farm to Table organizes and sponsors educational events at schools, affordable housing communities, farmers markets, county fairs, corporations, social service agencies and for the general public. We promote healthy, local, real food through Food Coordination efforts in communities throughout the region. Eating locally grown food benefits both our physical health and also our local environmental and economic health. We thank the Heinz Endowments for their generous support of the Farm to Table Buy Local program.
