Sourcing from local farms and food businesses is a known priority for IU Dining’s leadership and, over the years, they have made this commitment clear by investing time and dollars to build direct relationships with farmers and food producers and identifying and prioritizing local suppliers within their distribution networks.

When FARMWISE Indiana relaunched as a non-profit in early April, we were blown away by the positive and supportive responses we received from our partners in Indiana and beyond.

After nearly two years housed at Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute (ERI), FARMWISE Indiana is taking the next step to ensure that locally produced food is accessible to more Hoosiers. 

The FARMWISE Team spent over a year interviewing buyers in Indiana and Kentucky to learn more about what motivates them to source locally grown and produced foods. From school food service directors to chefs, dieticians to business owners, we gathered background details on the many motivating factors that lay within each connection made and each meal served.