Op-ed: Let’s Preserve Our Communities Through Canning Food
“Anything you want cooked, I can cook. I can cook dirt,” jokes David, who has operated this community cannery for the last 30 years, guiding his neighbors through the steps of preserving their own food—from cooking the raw ingredients to sealing them into jars. Known as the “Moonshine Capital of the World” for its distilled […]
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Set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, surrounded by rolling farmlands and hardwood forests, Glade Hill Cannery often opens before the sun has risen. On one such early morning, expert canner Ronald David supervises the pots of apple butter that bubble on the stoves, fogging the windows with steam.
“Anything you want cooked, I can cook. I can cook dirt,” jokes David, who has operated this community cannery for the last 30 years, guiding his neighbors through the steps of preserving their own food—from cooking the raw ingredients to sealing them into jars.
Known as the “Moonshine Capital of the World” for its distilled alcohol production during Prohibition, Franklin County, Virginia, has a robust agriculture economy as well. Glade Hill stands as one of the oldest surviving canneries in the country, with more than 80 years of preserving, jarring, and steaming under its belt. The cannery operates in a 1940s-era masonry building behind Glade Hill Elementary School, and allows locals to can just about anything they want—though so far no one has taken David up on his dirt offer.
Master canner Ronald David has worked at Glade Hill Cannery since the 1990s. (Photo credit: Rinne Allen)
A community cannery is essentially a shared, public-access kitchen with commercial-grade equipment where anyone can process raw produce into shelf-stable goods. Commonly canned items include tomatoes, green beans, peaches, jams, pickles, and sauces. Across the U.S., the scale of community canneries ranges widely, from those operating out of small school kitchens to those that are industrial-size, like Glade Hill.
Growing up in California’s Napa Valley, I was surrounded by examples of people enjoying fresh, homegrown food. One of my earliest memories is of learning to weed my dad’s backyard garden and helping him relocate snails. (I recall being more interested in befriending the creatures than moving them.) In addition to having a green thumb, my dad is an avid canner, meaning I have a year-round supply of jams, sauces, and stocks labeled with names like “Summer Lovin” and “Magic Mineral Broth” in his blocky uppercase handwriting.
In an era when we often purchase food grown halfway across the world, community canneries are hanging on, allowing people to eat from sources closer to home. Canneries reduce reliance on industrial agriculture, help mitigate climate change, support small-scale farmers, build food sovereignty, and foster a sense of community where knowledge, recipes, and harvests can be shared. We need more of them.
How Community Canneries Work
Community canneries emerged alongside World War II victory gardens as a way for amateur gardeners to grow and preserve their own produce. A nationwide campaign sponsored by the U.S. government, the canneries were part of an effort to prevent food shortages and send more food overseas to American soldiers stationed there.
The response was overwhelmingly positive: Canning peaked in 1943, with individuals producing over 4.1 billion jars of food in their homes and at community canning centers. As food processing industrialized, however, the number of community canneries dwindled from more than 3,800 facilities across the United States to fewer than a couple hundred.
Steamed spinach, ready for canning at Glade Hill. (Photo credit: Rinne Allen)
Canning centers have always been vital spaces for strengthening social bonds, reducing food waste, and increasing food security for rural farmers. David recalls whole church congregations coming together to make apple butter and neighbors canning food to raise money for buildings or first responders—an inseparable blend of love, community, and food.
Every cannery functions differently, but at Glade Hill, work sometimes starts at 5 a.m. Hustling between pressure canners, 50-gallon kettles, and tin cans stacked on worktables, David says he helps up to 30 people each day cook down produce and seal jars, doling out advice along the way—and always leaving time for neighborly conversation. At any given time, the room may smell like sweet apples and cinnamon or savory, smoky slow-cooked pork with paprika.
Putting Excess Produce to Good Use
Skeptics may argue that community canneries don’t address the most pressing issues associated with local food movements, particularly access to fresh produce in low-income communities. But even so, canning has a number of environmental and social benefits that make it well worth the effort.
First, it enables people to more easily preserve food from their own gardens and the farmers in their communities, making them less reliant on industrial agriculture—a major contributor to environmental destruction, responsible for approximately 80 percent of global deforestation and over 70 percent of terrestrial biodiversity loss.
Additionally, preserving food offers a practical way to reduce the 30 to 40 percent of the U.S. food supply that is wasted each year, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Beyond the carbon dioxide released during its production, transport, and processing, food is the single largest category of material found in most landfills, where it breaks down and releases methane, another potent greenhouse gas. Diverting food from the landfill through canning helps mitigate this.
Canneries can help improve food access in their communities as well. They can partner with local farms, community gardens, food banks, and other organizations to preserve excess produce and distribute it. The Baxter Community Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for example, provides fresh produce, garden space, and canning workshops to community members at no cost to promote both local food production and preservation.
At Glade Hill Cannery, cans of beans with chunks of hog jowl await their turn in the water bath. (Photo credit: Rinne Allen)
Canneries can also play a role in increasing self-reliance for small farmers. They can help farmers convert unsold produce into value-added products such as jams, sauces, or pickles, reducing waste and generating alternate streams of income. Some community canneries, like Glade Hill, allow farmers to drop off produce for processing and pick it up later.
By enabling individuals and communities to assume greater control over what they eat, community canning also weakens relationships of dependency and helps increase food sovereignty, a concept that Monica M. White, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explores in her research on D-Town Farm in Detroit. This can be especially important for marginalized communities.
The Oneida Community Cannery in Oneida County, Wisconsin, for example, was established in the ’70s to help tribal and local community members reconnect with and learn to preserve traditional foods. The cannery’s success eventually led to the creation of a program to encourage self-reliance within the community, demonstrating that canning can be a tool for cultural preservation and community resilience.
Lastly, canning builds community. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of being in the kitchen with my dad, learning to create his famous meatballs. Those moments weren’t just about the meal; they were about love, patience, and care. Community canneries provide the same opportunity: spaces to share recipes, preserve culinary traditions, and learn from other generations.
Be a Community Canneries Advocate
Community canning creates all kinds of benefits. It builds relationships, encourages people to grow and preserve their own food, and gives us healthy options to the processed foods so prevalent today. So how can you support it?
Most community canneries operate as nonprofit organizations or are funded by local governments, supporting themselves through a combination of usage fees or public funding. Each one is unique, but they typically charge small fees based on hourly use of equipment, per batch or pounds processed, or through annual memberships.
Prepping late-season tomatoes for canning at Glade Hill Cannery. (Photo credit: Rinne Allen)
If possible, support a cannery near you. Virginia, Florida, and Georgia remain strongholds for community canneries, offering myriad models. Virginia alone has up to 11 seasonally operating community canneries, including Glade Hill. The Carroll County Cannery, for example, is open June through December, offering equipment and an on-site cannery specialist to help select recipes, acquire ingredients, and guide day-of canning.
If you don’t have a cannery nearby, advocate for one. Most canneries are funded by local governments. Public investment increases their accessibility, keeping usage fees low. If you are interested in getting a cannery established in your area, attend city council meetings and make the case for these establishments.
You might also consider working to establish a cannery within your local school district, to educate children on the importance of local food. The Eastanollee Cannery in Eastanollee, Georgia, for example, is owned by the Stephens County school system and focuses on both how to safely can food and increase engagement with local farmers.
There’s something truly powerful about preparing food together. David tells me he’s formed friendships with many of the people who visit Glade Hill, often receiving a jar of apple butter as a thank-you gift. He and his regulars take care of each other. And that’s the essence of community canneries.
Regardless of whether you have two cans to fill or 100, David says, “Come on in. I’ll make room for ya.”
Jillian Fischer wrote this opinion as an undergraduate student in Liz Carlisle’s course, “Food, Agriculture, and the Environment,” offered this spring at the University of California Santa Barbara. Civil Eats partnered with Carlisle on writing and editing guidance for this story.
The post Op-ed: Let’s Preserve Our Communities Through Canning Food appeared first on Civil Eats.
