Highfields Composting Home Page

Emeril Green: Vermont's Finest Organic Food
Highfields director Tom Gilbert is interviewed in this video by Chef Emeril,
as he explores Vermont to cook with their fresh local products.
Go to video >>

Emeril was also interviewed by WCAX during his visit here:
Emeril Goes Green in Vermont

"Dan Rather Reports"
A segment featuring Hardwick's local food systems.

BFA Scraps Become Compost
Sparked by a students composting club, Bellows Free Academy enlists Highfields Composting to assist in the conversion to composting.

Read the Story >>>

Lisa McCormack at The Stowe Reporter takes at look at how area businesses are teaming up with the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District to form an effective food scrap composting program.

Read The Story >>> (.PDF)

Local Businesses Recycle Food Scraps

Food Scraps Revisited

Highfields' June Van Houten explains the benefits of the "Close the Loop" food scrap composting program:

"This closed loop system is the model for our programs at the Highfields Center for Composting in Hardwick. In partnership with solid waste districts, we work with communities to collect food scraps from schools and businesses and haul them to a local farm for composting. The compost produced is used to fertilize fields and grow more food to be sold back to the community, thereby closing the loop on the food system."

Read the full story at the Times Argus


Read the entire article at EatingWell	Green & Sustainable Building a Healthy Food System in Rural America How a handful of organic farmers, world-class cheesemakers and a locavore restaurant transformed Hardwick, Vermont—a poor, rural town—into a foodie mecca. Read the article By David Goodman, for EatingWell Magazine,July/August 2009


Pay Dirt Seven Days' Sally West Johnson explores the rise of the compost industry in Vermont, and the growing pains that accompanied it. Featured In:
... In a small town in upstate Vermont, meet four men who have combined farming and business efforts to create a sustainable food infrastructure based on cooperation, not competition. Go to Video >>>	"The Collective"

	Featured in Gourmet Magazine


	In the spring issue of "Edible Green Mountains": "From the Good Earth - The Dish on Dirt Highfields Center for Composting Helps Build Healthy Soils" (Print version now available, soon to appear online. Free copies of EGM can be picked up at selected restaurants, grocers, farmer’s markets, and retailers. Subscriptions also avaliable.)

Burlington Free Press	"Turning food scraps into energy" Composters and waste districts take a new look at the use of food waste for creating power.

	"Revenge of the Hippies!" A short history of Hardwick and the "Hippie Invasion" that's kicking the local food economy into high gear.

Vermont Life "Ideal Settings" The story of Hardwick's modern agricultural movement and where it might be headed. (.pdf) By Leslie Wright Photographed by Jim Westphalen
	"Art, Agriculture and Alchemy"(.pdf)

	"Nurturing an Agricultural Economy in Hardwick" Andrew Meyer, Founder of the Center for an Agricultural Economy, appeared on Vermont Public Radio's Vermont Edition.
	"Completing the Cycle" Ron Krupp on natural cycles and Hardwick's emerging businesses.

	"Hungry Hardwick"

	"The Town That Food Saved" Local writer Ben Hewitt on Hardwick's food-based transformation and revival.

"Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town"
The focus of the article is on the inspiring food based entrepreneurial businesses in the Hardwick area and our work to build a healthy food system model. Highfields works intimately with every business mentioned in the article from taking food scraps and soy mash from Claire's Restaurant and VT Soy, to helping Pete with his compost system, to building the soil at the Highmowing Seed gardens.

"The Collective"