Local Foods: Sasse’s Apiary

Sasse’s Apiary Sasse’s Apiary

Nathan and Beth Sasse with their children Chester, Fiona, and Rachel.

“O wning our own business gives us the creativity to explore what interests us,” says Beth Sasse. “If we see an opportunity to make our operation better, we have the freedom to go for it and make our business what we want it to be.”

In 1990, Nathan Sasse received his first hive of bees from a neighbor to use for his 4-H project that year. With the help of his dad, David Sasse, Nathan took care of the bees and learned how to harvest and market their honey through 4-H workshops. By the time he was 11 years old, he was able to sell honey to his first store, Dave’s Food Basket in Clinton, Illinois.

From there, his business grew as he earned his American FFA degree in his honey operation and chose to take on his business venture fulltime after college with the help of his mentor, Charie Ott. Today, Sasse’s Apiary is located in Chestnut, Illinois where Nathan and his wife, Beth, run the operation with the help of three full-time employees.

Getting honey from the bees to the grocery store is a unique process, but honey is one of the most natural products you will find there. The process begins in April when the Sasses get a semi-truck load of bees from Georgia delivered to the integrity of the honey. From their farm. They sell some to other there, the Sasses bottle each jar of beekeepers and install the rest. honey by hand on their farm and The bees’ first job is to build up their other products, letting little go to numbers before they get to work. waste. They start out at 10,000 to 20,000 worker bees per queen bee, but can Sasse’s Honey can be found in nearly reach up to 90,000 by the end of 100 grocery stores around Central the season. Each hive is installed Illinois today. They sell various sizes with a honey super which gives of honey along with creamed honey, the bees extra room to work and a beeswax, honeycomb, pollen, and honeycomb pattern to follow. lip balm. One of their employees is a They begin to excrete wax into a to keep the shelves stocked. comb shape and fill up the super, beat their wings to dry down the It is important to the Sasse family, as wax, and then begin producing well as to their customers, that they honey to fill the comb. As long as do business locally. “When you buy bees are given space to work, they our products from a local grocery will keep making honey. Nathan store, you are supporting two local says that a worker bee only lives businesses, which is important to up to 3 weeks, as they eventually us,” says Beth. Many customers are bat their wings off from working so drawn to local honey due to the hard. regional allergy benefits as well as Extracting the honey is a sensitive used to. process in order to keep the honey from sugaring and hardening. “Each time you choose to buy Therefore, after honey is extracted local, you are helping your local from the comb in July and then once economy and keeping jobs within again in the fall, it goes into a tank, the community,” says Beth. “It has which gently warms and mixes it to been great working in local foods keep it in liquid form for the best and we love the community we have quality. Additionally, the honey is created between our business and filtered to remove any wax, but no our customers.” other processing is done to harm use nearly every part of the hive for full-time salesman whose priority is the familiar local flavor that they are www.centralilag.com · Volume 7 Issue 2 38

CATCH Program: CATCH Program:

Local Foods Making a Lasting Impact

Childhood obesity is a growing concern around the country and has become a local issue here in central Illinois. In 2014, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital (ALMH) Community Health Collaborative in Lincoln, Illinois recognized the need to address childhood obesity and provide children with resources to make healthier choices. With the help of the Logan County Department of Public Health, the community was able to adopt and implement the nationally recognized Coordinated Approach to Child Health program (CATCH) in local schools, daycares, and after school programs.

The CATCH program has made an impact on children by encouraging increased activity and creating a healthier school environment. The program promotes the understanding of nutrition in the classroom by incorporating examples such as calculating heart rate, measuring grams of fat in foods, weighing fruits, and more into daily lessons. Additionally, it helps to supply schools with improved physical education equipment.

As CATCH began to reach more schools around Logan County, Angela Stoltzenburg, director of the ALMH Community Health Collaborative, and Angie Whiteman, community health specialist, hoped to have an even greater impact on students’ health in school by incorporating made-from-scratch meals made with locally grown ingredients to promote healthier school cafeterias. Kent Froebe and Connie Crawley

39 · Central Illinois Ag · www.centralilag.com

Until this point, the schools had been primarily serving highly processed, “heat and eat” foods out of convenience. “CATCH had done an excellent job promoting the activity aspect, but one thing that was missing was healthy food being served in the cafeteria,” says Whiteman.

They knew that in order to truly help these students become healthier, they needed to tackle the obstacle of serving healthier lunch and breakfast options, so they approached District 27 Superintendent Kent Froebe and District 27 Food Service Director Connie Crawley about making this important change. They were immediately on board and knew that by serving nutritional foods, they would have the students’ best interest at heart.

The 2019-2020 school year was the first year that this local food program has been implemented, and by the end of February, 39.7% of the menu was sourced locally. They are proud that almost all of their locally sourced food has been from producers within Logan County. Connie Crawley has worked directly with each farmer to purchase food for the district, and they have been more than willing to be a part of this program. “The producers were pleased that an institution that cooks over 360,000 meals a year is helping to support their local farms,” says Stoltzenburg.

As part of the program, these farmers not only supply meat, fruit, and vegetables for school lunches, but are also are invited to come into classrooms to teach students about where their food comes from and have agreed to welcome classes to their farms for tours. “A big part of the program and getting kids to eat healthy is by connecting them to their food source,” says Stoltzenburg.

“It is amazing to see how much these farmers have taught the students about the local job opportunities in agriculture as well,” says Whiteman. “That has been one of the positive ripple effects of how this has impacted our community in a way that we did not originally think about.”

“It is really important for us to support the local economy by spending our food budget locally, because we know that has community health benefits down the road” -Angela Stoltzenburg

Students voting on school menu options.

Since they started working with local producers, District 27 schools have done a wonderful job getting their students involved in the entire process. The cooks have allowed the students to assist in creating the menu to introduce them to new and healthier foods.

Throughout the year, students got to participate in nearly 1,300 taste tests and then voted on what they liked and didn’t like. “The cooks’ motivation comes from the students liking the food they make,” says Stoltzenberg. “At the end of the day, it is important that we are feeding them healthier foods that they enjoy eating.”

Students working on a CATCH creative writing assignment about fresh produce.

By the end of February, 69% of school lunches were made from scratch, many of which used raw ingredients purchased from local producers. From tacos made with locally raised beef to lasagna made with locally grown tomatoes, the students have been able to not only taste the difference, but become more educated on how their food is grown and prepared along with the importance of healthy food choices.

With the support from the ALMH Foundation, District 27 has worked hard to make this program a success and are excited to see how implementing healthy food into these kids’ lives now will have an impact on their overall well being in the future. “We were motivated to create a healthy school environment so that these kids can hopefully live longer, healthier, higher quality lives,” says Stoltzenburg. “If we can create a school environment with positive reinforcement about healthy choices, I think we are doing the right thing.” www.centralilag.com · Volume 7 Issue 2 40 Local producer, Vicki Huelskoetter, delivering pork.