New Jersey farm donates thousands of pounds of blueberries to food bank

As food insecurity rises in New Jersey, a blueberry farm owner in Lacey Township is working to bring thousands of pounds of fresh produce to families struggling in her community. 

Tiffany Bohlin, who runs the Blue Forests farm, is donating tens of thousands of pounds of blueberries to Fulfill, a food bank that provides emergency food aid to between 110,000 and 120,000 people in Monmouth and Ocean counties every month. Bohlin, whose farm employs regenerative farming practices centered around soil health, wasn’t planning on harvesting any blueberries this summer because her farm prunes the blueberry plants every nine to 10 years in order to allow them to grow.

However, while farm workers were pruning the plants, they discovered an unexpectedly large crop of blueberries. Bohlin didn’t want the immense amount of fruit to go to waste, so she called Triada Stampas, the president and chief executive officer of Fulfill. 

Fulfill could have the blueberries if they could bring volunteers out to harvest them, Bohlin told Stampas.

“I’m born and raised Monmouth County, so it makes me feel really good that we could be supporting families in need,” Bohlin told the New Jersey Independent. “As you know, there’s a lot of families in need in New Jersey, all throughout the state. But this is a healthy, nutritious food that’s basically farm to table in a day.”

Stampas didn’t hesitate to say yes to Bohlin’s offer. Since the beginning of July, Fulfill’s volunteers — including New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy — have headed to the 11-acre blueberry farm in the early hours of the morning, when it’s still cool enough to pick the fruit, and have harvested as much as 1,000 pounds of blueberries a day. Then, those blueberries are shipped to the hundreds of food pantries, soup kitchens and other emergency food aid sites with which Fulfill partners. 

Ultimately, Bohlin said, the group should harvest between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds of blueberries during the month of July. For those at Fulfill, that fresh produce is especially important and rare. Food banks can’t typically accept donations that require cold storage because they can’t guarantee that the food has consistently been stored in safe conditions, Stampas explained.

With this donation, however, Fulfill is overseeing the entire harvesting and distribution process, making it possible for them to distribute the blueberries throughout the counties that border the Atlantic Ocean and are home to about 1.3 million people. 

“An opportunity like that never comes around, where we basically were told that the entire harvest is yours, provided you can supply the labor,” Stampas said. “It’s an incredible opportunity, especially because fresh produce is rarely donated.” 

For Bohlin, knowing that her blueberries will be going to families who might otherwise be unable to afford them is deeply important. 

“Honestly, it’s hard for words to express,” she said. “It’s really important that you know you’re helping families. Right now, it’s very hard to afford anything.”