Pen Bay Medical Center is one of at least 10 Maine hospitals trying to purchase ingredients from Maine farms and fishermen, according to an article on the Portland Press Herald website.
For the past few years, Pen Bay has served as much local food as possible. Instead of frozen fish sticks, patients and staff are served picked crab, haddock, redfish, monkfish and even shark that the hospital buys weekly from local fishermen.
The Maine hospitals are part of a national movement aimed at improving sustainability, nutrition and community engagement by changing the way hospitals and other institutions source their food, the article said.
But they face two big obstacles: the higher price of local food and the lack of infrastructure to get it to hospitals in a convenient form.
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