For college students juggling classes, jobs and social lives, eating healthy often falls behind convenience. Montclair State University’s Farm Box Program aims to change that by making fresh, local produce as easy to access as campus takeout.
Designed last year with busy college students in mind, it offers a weekly box of six to eight seasonal produce items sourced from local farms, along with easy-to-follow recipes to help students make use of ingredients they may be unfamiliar with.
Past boxes have included items such as carrots paired with a recipe for carrot-top pesto, introducing students to
ways of cooking that reduce food waste.
The program operates on a community supported agriculture (CSA) model, which emphasizes shared support between farmers and consumers. Rather than selecting individual items, participants receive a curated assortment of whatever is being harvested in the Mid-Atlantic region that week. In New Jersey alone, there are nearly 10,000 farms.
According to Montclair State’s dining and wellness director, Jennifer Bostedo, the portions are intentionally scaled for campus life.
Students, faculty and staff can purchase a box through Grubhub and pay with dining dollars or a credit card (approximately $22 per box; no commitment required). Produce comes from family farms through the Common Market Mid-Atlantic, a nonprofit food distributor that sources directly from a network of 80 farms.
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