Next Draft

CONNELL SANDERS

How to trick kids into eating bok choy

Sarah Connell Sanders

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

I’ve been a teacher for more than a decade, eight years at the middle school level, and three of the longest years of my life in elementary. Big kids make jokes and let their curiosities soar. Little kids throw up and cry a lot.

It wasn’t all bodily fluids all the time. My principal was a profound mentor for me while I muddled my way through teaching technology to third-, fourth- and fifth-graders.

“They’re so little,” I would tell her.

“And so capable,” she would say.

Even though my students usually weren’t deliberately trying to make me laugh, we rarely made it through class without cracking up. Then, there was the realization that our access to devices didn’t mean we had to stay buried in our screens all day. Our lessons could be mobile. We took the show on the road.

My elementary students brought an intense sense of wonder and nurturing to our outdoor classroom. Come winter, one of the parents who had been particularly supportive of this existential awakening suggested we get into hydroponic farming. The boss gave us her blessing and we set up our first tower garden. Pretty soon, I was reforming picky eaters in the cafeteria left and right.

I was shocked by the swarm of 9-year-olds begging me for a taste of the leafy green every day. Then, the pregnant music teacher showed them an app on her phone comparing her baby to the size of a bok choy and all hell broke loose.

“Give us the bok choy!” they demanded. I wore gloves and wielded a pair of kitchen shears, snipping away until our bok choy supply ran dry.

Students who wanted to take veggies home were welcome to do so. They couldn’t wait to convince younger siblings to sample fresh herbs like basil and parsley for the first time. I might have been a technology teacher, but I felt like a farmer — adhering to strict schedules, tracking growth and weighing produce.

When I left elementary school behind, my green thumb went with it. I hadn’t thought about the tower garden in years until my interest was reignited last week by the eclectic crowd that gathered at Worcester’s Boys & Girls Club for the launch of 2Gether We Eat, a youth hydroponic farming program. The organization, led by Charles Luster, goes beyond the mission of alleviating hunger in food deserts by emphasizing job training for adolescents in the hydroponic field.

Congressman Jim McGovern, a longtime champion for food justice, encouraged attendees to join forces. “This is an initiative worth getting behind because we know that it will work. Hunger is a political condition,” he said. “We have the money, the know-how, the infrastructure — we have everything but the political will and I would like to think that we could all come together.”

Feeding the community is not only a noble goal, it’s a necessary one. The folks behind 2Gether We Eat are stepping up and reminding everyone that eradicating hunger is an achievable goal.

“I’ve seen a lot of heartache in my job over the years, but if you’ve ever seen a hungry child, it literally does break your heart,” closed McGovern, “As a United States Congressman, I’m ashamed of that because we can fix this.”

Want to get involved? Email info@2getherweeat.org and find out how you can feed Worcester, as their motto goes, “from the land, not the can.”

THE NEXT DRAFT

Wachusett Brewing Co. strengthens bond with Long Island brewer

Matthew Tota

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

A black-and-white sketch of a barn on Ned LaFortune’s family farm has long served as the logo for Wachusett Brewing Co., the brewery he and two college mates founded in 1993.

Some days as a kid, LaFortune toiled for hours in the barn haying with his father. Later, he brewed some of Wachusett’s first batches of beer at the Westminster farm.

The barn and LaFortune family farm came to symbolize everything Wachusett the brand stood for: A bucolic, local brewery, passionate, humble, focused on smart growth through sheer mettle and hard work.

But these days, Wachusett’s identity and future seem more tied to a hamlet on the easternmost end of Long Island than that farm in the shadow of Wachusett Mountain.

Since 2013, Wachusett has had a co-packing, or contract brewing, agreement with Montauk Brewing Co., one of New York’s fastest-growing breweries. That relationship has come to define Wachusett’s recent growth, even as it has led to leadership changes around the brewery.

The deal is simple. Wachusett brews beer for Montauk, which is a registered corporation in Massachusetts, at its Westminster brewery. Montauk pays the taxes on the beer brewed by Wachusett and ships it out of the state via a third-party trucking company for sale on Long Island and New York City.

Quietly, with the help of Wachusett and its other co-packer, Two Roads Brewing Co. in Connecticut, Montauk has become Long Island’s second-largest brewery behind Blue Point Brewing Co. in Patchogue.

Wachusett, in turn, has placed more emphasis on the co-packing side of the brewery, fueling Montauk’s rise in New York. But just how much of Wachusett’s recent success has been tied to Montauk’s?

Two years ago, Wachusett climbed to the 43rd largest brewery in the country, producing more than 73,000 barrels of beer, according to the U.S. Brewers Association. The brewery at the time credited its strength in selling to local accounts around Central Massachusetts.

In fact, more than half of Wachusett’s production — well over 40,000 barrels — was for Montauk. Not a drop of that beer was sold anywhere in the Bay State.

For 2019, Wachusett reported steady, but modest growth, with production up 5% from 2018; Montauk, though, was one of a handful of breweries to show double-digit growth, with its production up 23%.

Of course, most of that beer came out of tanks in Westminster, not Montauk. And Wachusett’s production for Montauk has not slowed: Today, Wachusett brews roughly 50,000 barrels for Montauk.

“It’s been a very important relationship,” said John May, who is part of an investment group that in September acquired a stake in Wachusett. “Wachusett has been able to take the money from co-packing and reinvest it in its systems and people. We bought a brand-new pasteurizer for producing seltzers. We rented a brand-new warehouse, and we continue to expand.”

May and the other new investors have a clear path forward for Wachusett to recover after the pandemic, including expanding its co-packing business. Wachusett’s brewery, one of the most efficient in the state, is no doubt positioned to brew and package more beer for other breweries. It’s packing team runs like a well-oiled machine. Its canning line can fill 450 cans a minute.

“We fully expect to take on some additional co-packers in the area, and we potentially are looking to acquire other brands,” May said.

May works for Brett Williams, who used to run the Ver-