Good Food is Everybody's Business
Let’s be honest. No one has ever called Montana a gourmet food destination. It’s far from the trendy world of haute cuisine, black-tie affairs, and fancy culinary techniques. Part of that is because Montana is not easy to get to: it’s far north – up near Canada. And there aren’t a lot of people here – less than a million. And this is a very big state for so few people – which makes it hard to keep a restaurant open.
Behind a cover that resembles so many other “So-You-Want-To-Be-A-Farmer” books, Rebecca Thistlethwaite, has put together a carefully thought out course for entrepreneurs of any age that want to start a business called a “Farm.”
Over the last several years, GoodFood World has ventured into a number of trade events, including a number of special segments: Produce, Natural Products, Food Service, Natural Food Stores, and Farming and Organic Production. It is eye-opening to see who attends, how trends are changing, and how attitudes to food and food production vary from venue to venue, audience to audience.
In 2011 we visited more than 40 good food producers and providers in 30 cities across four states and British Columbia. We petted cows and goats in dairy barns, waded ankle deep in shellfish beds and waist deep in grain fields, trotted down rows of vegetables and fruit, and walked numerous orchards, large and small. We had to brush the flour out of our hair each time we left a grain mill. Here are some of the wonderful folks we met along the way.
At Amaltheia Organic Dairy, Belgrade Montana, Mel and Sue Brown milk between 250 and 280 goats and produce award-winning organic cheeses that are sold across the United States. While the dairy and cheese plant may be small by some standards, size makes no difference when it comes to careful and sanitary handling of food products.
While small operations like Amaltheia Dairy and Crown S Ranch will never approach the size and production of operations like Smithfield Foods, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to see what happy pigs and piglets look like.
Food safety by small processors is an important issue. However, the truth can easily get lost when one starts talking from the unscientific, fuzzy thinking, side. Folklore isn’t going to get us the rules we need to keep small businesses operating in the food sector.
On a busy workday in early September, FDA inspectors made their “routine” visit to Amaltheia Organic Dairy. Garbed in hazmat suits, hair nets, face masks, and disposable gloves and booties, a team of inspectors examined the small cheese processing plant from top to bottom. The result? Mel and Sue Brown and their cheese company passed with flying colors.
