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Boston Globe

Is this the CSA model of the future?

Andrew Rodgers, owner of Clark Farm, delivers endive to Family Dinner's Woburn facility. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff This is the headquarters for Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up Instead, customers sign up online (Family Dinner is primarily subscription-based, although one can also order a la carte), choosing a half, whole, or double share according to dietary preference: omnivore, pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan, paleo, gluten-free. In addition to the local produce, meat, and fish, shares might include eggs, baked goods, or prepared foods; customers can add on dairy, bread, fresh pasta, mezze, and more. Don't like beets? Make a note of it, and you won't get them. Ever. The order will be delivered to your front door on Saturday or Tuesday, your choice. Advertisement "A couple nerds at the helm make a few things easier,' says Family Dinner owner Erin Baumgartner, who uses data science to strengthen the local food system. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff Family Dinner owner Erin Baumgartner, currently at the eye of the delivery storm in black T-shirt and clogs, long brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, pauses between hoisting boxes in the sweltering heat to check spreadsheets and route maps on a laptop. She speaks as passionately about perfect summer tomatoes and the importance of local food as she does about tech stacks and data analytics. Baumgartner and husband Tim Fu founded Family Dinner in 2017. He was at MIT's Sloan School of Management; she helped lead MIT's Senseable City Lab, using data science to understand and find solutions for complex urban issues — everything from waste management to opioid use. They were also passionate about food. Why not use a data lab approach to begin tackling some of the issues around the way we distribute, access, and consume it? 'We started Family Dinner because nothing is more broken and complex than the food system,' Baumgartner says. Small family farms are shutting down across the country, facing challenges from rising costs to changing weather patterns. According to the USDA's most recent Advertisement The way we distribute food, across countries and continents, is bad for the planet: Transportation accounts for nearly 20 percent of the worldwide food system's total carbon emissions, found a And much of the food then goes to waste. The USDA estimates the country wastes more than 30 percent of its food supply annually, approximately 133 billion pounds. Family Dinner uses data science and software to support local farmers and transport food efficiently while minimizing waste. Its reach gives farmers access to a greater geographical range and market share. The refrigerator at Family Dinner's Woburn headquarters contains crops and goods from producers all over Massachusetts, plus a few from the rest of New England. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff 'This is one stop for me, and we have a bunch of produce,' says Rodgers of Clark Farm, a fairly small-scale operation with 10 to 12 acres of crops. 'Just to be able to drop it here — there's no way I'd be able to sell a bunch of turnips and cilantro to someone. It's not happening. This is our biggest wholesale. If you add up all of our other wholesale customers, then they equal Erin.' Family Dinner also showcases its purveyors on social media, which draws new people to visit the farm in person. 'We're all just tiny, small companies, right,' Baumgartner says. 'We can't be competitive on a larger scale without working together. In some ways, people would think us advertising their CSA or their events would look like competition. That's not how we view it.' Advertisement When customers sign up, they input their aversions and allergies, metadata that helps direct Family Dinner's orders each week. If 10 customers don't like mushrooms, the system places 10 fewer orders, replacing the offending fungi with something they find more palatable. Knowing how much is needed of each item means there is no waste on Family Dinner's end: Supply meets demand exactly. Tracking what customers order also allows the company to forecast future demand; farmers can then plan, plant, and harvest knowing there will be a buyer at the other end. Route optimization software allows Family Dinner to maximize each driver's time and minimize their miles. The company now delivers CSA shares for Skylar Howes delivers CSA shares from Red Fire Farm. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff 'A couple nerds at the helm make a few things easier,' Baumgartner says. 'When we can automate things, it becomes so much more efficient. As we automate, it becomes more scalable. How do we scale something like this to work for 2,000 people? It's no more complicated, because all the systems are already there.' Family Dinner started with 10 weekly customers. It now delivers to almost 700, working with more than 80 local producers. The company recently joined forces with 'It's a unique opportunity to be able to partner with somebody with the same mission and same goal to fix the food system and create access for everybody to this food that's good for the environment,' says Farmers to You CEO Andrew Kay. 'How do we become more 21st century in our operational processes? This is what that move does. Being as efficient and tech-forward as we can be and scaling on a sustainable level, and to be able to repeat that and bring in more farmers, that's really the goal here — to build a New England food shed that everybody has access to but that's not cost-prohibitive to run and operate.' Advertisement Most subscription shares at Family Dinner range from $62-$148 each week, delivery included. Farmers to You has a $40 weekly minimum. Scaling up can help make these services more accessible to more people, Kay says: 'To become truly affordable on both sides of things, it's how much volume can you offer people. When you build a strong and deep customer base, you're able to control operating costs better and order more from your vendors, which creates a more sustainable pricing system.' It is a good time for growth. During COVID's peak, when supply chains were threatened and people didn't want to go to the store, there was a surge of interest in food delivery; Family Dinner had a 900-person waitlist. Now we are in another uncertain time, with ICE raids that threaten the immigrants who make the food system run, tariffs potentially raising food prices, government cuts that could affect food safety, and a developing dietary agenda for the country via the Make America Healthy Again movement. Consumer behavior has shifted, too. Red Fire Farm once had waitlists for its CSA, launched in 2001. 'CSA was really a hot, relatively new concept that was just catching on and there was a tremendous amount of demand that allowed our farm to grow quite a bit,' says co-owner Ryan Voiland. 'That lasted during the 2000s, and then I'd say by around 2012 or so things started to get weaker with the market. Especially the last 10 years or so it has gotten harder to find sales.' Advertisement Changing times call for changing models. As Baumgartner says in a For more information, go to . Iron Ox Farm radishes, ready for delivery to Family Dinner subscribers. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff Devra First can be reached at