Bringing local food education to workplaces: Assessing needs for a health and wellness program

Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Extension educators have a long history of providing educa­tion to help individuals, families, and communities. Since the 1980s, however, FCS has been described as at a crossroads, lacking a unified vision of how to maintain relevance in a changing society. FCS programs have had reduced enrollment and attend­ance, leaving FCS educators seeking new audi­ences. Many workplaces now have employee well­ness and education programs that are an emerging opportunity for FCS educators. FCS is inherently interdisciplinary, bringing together many food-related topics such as cooking, nutrition education, and food preservation. This interdisciplinary focus makes local food systems an important opportunity for new FCS educational programs. Workplace community supported agriculture (CSA) programs, which connect local farmers and employees via employer-sponsored cost-offsets, are an emerging model increasingly adopted by employers to sup­port employee health and wellness. Where they have been implemented, however, they have often been complemented by only limited education, in part due to lack of a formal local food–focused health and wellness curriculum. The purpose of this study was to gain information to guide the development of a local food health and wellness education program that would complement a workplace CSA program. The study assessed potential workplace wellness program participants’ perceived knowledge, attitudes, and barriers to pur­chasing and cooking local food, and the types of information that would be most useful in the edu­cation program and participants’ preferred program format. Respondents had positive attitudes about local food, but limited knowledge about how to purchase and prepare it. Respondents indicated that an education program that provided infor­mation on those topics, as well as information about unusual fruits and vegetables grown locally and how to reduce food waste would be most use­ful to them. Respondents preferred online program offerings during weekday lunchtimes. These find­ings provide guidance for designing a local food health and wellness education program tailored to this audience. We conclude by sharing some rec­ommendations for developing or delivering programs.