The ability to process and sell products year-round would allow local farmers to plant more crops and expand production. Fresh produce and other farm products sell well in local grocery stores and farmers' markets, but production is limited to the short summer season.

Keven Windall of Three Bears Farms in Wasilla holds up a jar of pumpkin butter made locally and sold at the Farmer's Market at the corner of Cordova and 15th Avenue in Anchorage May 30. Growers from the Valley come to the market to sell everything from potted plants to fresh fruits and vegetables. Photo/Rob Stapleton/AJOC

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough is about to issue a request for proposals for design and engineering of the processing facility, said Elizabeth Gray, assistant Mat-Su Borough manager.

About $240,000 is available for the design work, she said. The search is still underway for the money to actually build the plant, however.

The facility would be located adjacent to the Mat-Su school district's existing school nutrition center, which could use more local products in the 9,000 to 11,000 school lunches made daily during the school year.

Unfortunately, not much of the produce grown by local farmers winds up in local school lunches now because of the mismatch of the start of school and the end of Alaska's growing season, said Chris Johnson, manager of the school district's nutrition center.

The new agricultural processing facility could change that because products made there would be available year-around.

Like other school officials, Johnson wants more local fruits and vegetables in school lunches and is particularly interested in one product the new processing plant could produce. "FreshFries" is a potato product made with local potatoes that has a taste children are familiar with, but only half the fat per serving compared with ordinary fries.

The plant would be owned by the borough but would be operated by a private firm through a lease.

Ultimately, the plan is to have the capacity to process and produce frozen, fresh-cooked and juiced vegetables and berries grown in Alaska. The borough may develop the project in stages, Gray said.

Freeze processing, when the facilities are installed, would provide the first opportunity for Alaska farmers to enter the year-round market with vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, peas and rhubarb, according to a feasibility study prepared for the project.

An important part of the project, when it is fully developed, is a shared-use kitchen certified by the state Department of Environmental Conservation that would be available for lease by individuals or small local firms, Gray said

However, if only part of the $12 million to $15 million can be raised initially, the facility can be built in increments, Gray said. "We want to build it to scale and not overbuild," she said.

The first stage would be a 1,300-square-foot juice and bottle facility expected to cost about $3.2 million, she said. It could chop and extract juice, pasteurize and bottle a variety of vegetable, fruit and berry juices. The juicing line would have the versatility to process more viscous products, such as salsa and syrup, according to the feasibility study.

The shared-use concept would be embodied even at the first stage, with the equipment made available so local entrepreneurs can bottle their own creations in a fee-for-service arrangement. The equipment can also bottle emergency water supplies for schools.

One of the first products likely to be made is a fresh, preservative-free rhubarb juice developed locally. Test batches of Matanuska Red have gotten a good market response from tests in Anchorage grocery stores, including Safeway.

A freezing and blanching line for vegetables would be added in phase two. The blanch line would be for cleaning, peeling and uniform cutting, followed by steam or water blanching, and preparing the vegetables for packaging.

A freezing line to be installed with the blanching line would create quick-frozen foods for wholesale distribution.

The third and final phase is the full development of the shared-use kitchen to be available for use by outside parties. Having access to a kitchen certified by the state DEC would facilitate the launch of new products and would be a testing ground for new food businesses.

Like other Alaska school districts, Mat-Su is moving to make school lunches healthier, Johnson said, but has found children turning their noses up at a baked potato product made available through the school lunch program as a substitute for fat-heavy fresh fries.

The new FreshFries product will be more appealing. FreshFries was developed by a Lower 48 company, and the process has been tested with Matanuska Valley potatoes. The company would license the process for local production.

Baby carrots purchased locally from farmers are available most of the year and go over well with young consumers, Johnson said. But having a processing facility for more local fruits and vegetables next door would be a win-win for everyone, Johnson said.