Hot News

5.06.2008

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor

CHESTERTOWN, Md. — Headed off to the new Washington Nationals stadium to take in a ballgame? Don’t forget to get some popcorn.
It’s hometown popcorn, grown by some of the 18 Maryland farmers, from Cecil to Dorchester counties, who make up the Chesapeake Fields Farmers Cooperative.
The co-op, one of three entities that make up the Chestertown-based Chesapeake Fields triumvirate, obtained a contract for the 2008 WashingtonNationals season when the Nationals’ original popcorn vendor withdrew.
John Hall, long-time Kent County, Md., Extension ag agent, and the man who created Chesapeake Fields, said the co-op is shipping a ton or more of its 2007 popcorn crop to the stadium every week.
Chesapeake Fields Institute (CFI), the mother ship of the triumvirate of which Hall is president, was created in the late 1990s with a single mission — to preserve agriculture on the Eastern Shore of Maryland by making it possible for farmers to make a profit and thus to allow them to continue farming.
Preserve farming, preserve farmland.
Or as Chesapeake Fields broadcasts for all who will listen: “Preservation through Profitability.”
CFI has advanced several products into the marketplace over the past decade. But its soy snacks and artisan bread, Hall admits, while available at outlets across the Upper Shore, have yet to fulfill what Hall believes is their full promise.
However, with popcorn in Nationals Park, CFI may have hit a home run.
Hall, still skittish from a earlier adventure in popcorn when the co-op had corn from 200 acres but no place to sell it, would probably view the Nationals contract as a good solid single.
The earlier popcorn venture was, as Hall put it, “a humbling experience, I assure you.”
But Hall decided to give popcorn another look when he and David Silberstein, a food marketing specialist, visited a food show in New York, and chatted with representatives of a company selling popcorn at Shea Stadium.
“Hey,” Hall and Silberstein agreed, “we can do that.”
Supported by a growing regional effort to encourage merchants and shoppers to “buy local,” Hall and Silberstein visited with management of the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals, in that order.
The Phillies seem receptive, but the call never came. ... Strike 1.
The Orioles said they’d like some local produce, but they were not interested in popcorn. ... Strike 2.
The Nationals said they already had a popcorn vendor.
Three strikes and you’re out? Not quite.
Turns out the call to the Nationals was a foul tip; Hall was still alive.
The telephone rang in early March. A Nationals representative was calling.
“Our popcorn vendor fell through,” the voice was saying. “Do you want to take his place?”
It didn’t take Hall very long to agree to take a swing.
Chesapeake Fields popcorn, sea salt or flavored and promoted on signs throughout the stadium, is being served freshly popped in each of the suites and all of the concession stands, and in bags in the five club levels.
(Chesapeake Fields soy snacks also are offered on stadium menus.)
Silberstein, a veteran food broker headquartered in Crownsville, Md., said he had been working with Hall and Chesapeake Fields since late last year and was “very excited” at the institute’s efforts to find new ways to make farming profitable on the Delmarva Peninsula.
He said that the “buy local” movement in food sales promotions is not new, but has been given new impetus and attention by highly publicized problems with Chinese imports, for example, and now with the increasing costs of freight, which have helped to boost the prices of food.
The ownership of the Washington Nationals, Silberstein noted, is tuned in to these developments, as it is to environmentally sensitive issues.
The stadium itself, is probably “the greenest in the nation,” and sits next to the Anacostia River, whose waters eventually run into the Chesapeake Bay.
“They realize that it takes everyone to make a difference in the world in which we live,” he said, and thus they were acutely aware of “how important those farmers are across the Bay.”
Silberstein said he is very excited to be able to join Hall in the pursuit of the agricultural agent’s vision to find new roads to prosperity for Delmarva farmers ... and, he added, “we have terrific plans for the future.”
And it is not just baseball fans who are getting caught nibbling at the plate.
Pope Benedict XVI, on his recent visit to this country, conducted a mass at the Washington Nationals Stadium.
Hall said that in the course of that day, the Pope was offered a bag of Chesapeake Fields popcorn.
The report is, Hall said, that the Pope thought it was “heavenly.”