For every dollar American consumers spent on produce, dairy, and meat products in 2022, the farmers who raised them reaped 15 cents, the USDA reports. Ryan Poe is working to change that equation — for both consumers and farmers. “I want to help local farmers succeed while offering the best organic foods to my community,” he says.
In September, the former manager of Tantré Farm’s Immune Booster program launched his own version of the multi-vendor farm share the Hungry Locavore (a locavore is someone who seeks out locally grown and produced foods). It offers weekly packages of produce and prepared foods, on themes ranging from “Asian Fusion” to “Holiday Harvest.” Entertaining newsletters introduce the local organic farmers, bakers, and chefs involved and provide recipes.
Poe’s path to the business took “many twists and turns,” he says. He spent his boyhood summers on his grandparents’ Michigan farm, and as an adult worked on West Coast farms. But he says his “turn-on-the-light moment” came in 2018, when he was hired to manage farm properties near Dixboro.
He started by raising salad greens year-round, then expanded to organic eggs and meats. A year later, a chef saw thousands of tomatoes dangling on vines in Poe’s hoop houses, and Poe joked, “I’m going to sell them to you.” The chef left with boxes of tomatoes and returned with jars of marinara and dehydrated cherry tomatoes. “They were outstanding, so I added them to my weekly menus. And the dream kept expanding.”
When Covid hit, Poe’s landowner let him go—but then Tantré organic farm hired him for a new year-round food share they called the Immune Booster for its antioxidant properties. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!” he says. “My dream was alive and well after all.”
During the Covid years, the project gained “spectacular momentum,” Poe says, but it didn’t last: In August, Tantré suspended the weekly menus. But Poe had read the writing on the wall, and the Hungry Locavore was in business by September. Customers place orders online at thehungrylocavore.com, and pick them up at Moon Winks Café in Dixboro or Dozer Café & Roaster in Scio Twp.
While planning and promoting the weekly packages, Poe continues to work on local farms. “It’s a great way for me to see new methods, growing techniques, and cover crops,” he says. “I tell those stories in my newsletters.
“My mission is to create a sustainable model for hyperlocal food systems that our community can support.”
