Tag: certified organic

Buy local? Why local? Time for the REAL story!

Getting our food from the farm to the consumer – the “supply chain” – is certainly not as simple as it was the past. Once upon a time, the consumer, his/her family, and the local community WERE the growers and a supply chain didn’t exist. Transportation from the field and barn to the kitchen was a matter of feet or yards, not miles. What once was a simple connection with one or two stops along the way, has become a spaghetti-like tangle of connections, links, and cross-links to get fresh fruits and vegetables to your plate.

Terry Carkner, Terry’s Berries, on Growing Organic Berries

Terry’s Berries is a 25 acre organic farm located on the edge of Tacoma in the Puyallup valley where Terry and Dick Carkner have been farming for over 25 years. The Carkners are committed to growing high quality, fresh food for healthy people and to bridging the gap between the consumer and the farmer.

Somali Bantu Farmers Put Their Skills to Work in Washington

Starting over can mean different things to different people, depending on the nature of the change. It often entails a journey: physical, emotional or both. For a group of Somali Bantu refugees who have settled in the South King County part of Washington, it has been nothing less than an odyssey.

U.S. Organic Industry Nearly $29 Billion in 2010

The organic industry grew at a rate of nearly eight percent in 2010, bucking the current trend whereby “flat is the new growth” for many other segments of the economy. Further, some sectors of the organic market enjoyed annual growth of well over 30%, according to findings from the 2011 Organic Industry Survey conducted by the Organic Trade Association.

Product Profile: Fresh Asparagus from Inaba Produce Farms

One of the true signs of spring is fresh LOCAL asparagus! We’ve lost touch with the seasonality of food thanks to our ability to buy vegetables like asparagus year ’round in most supermarkets. While not all of us can run out to the garden and snip off a few asparagus shoots as the water is coming to a boil, buying locally grown is as close as we can get.

Hello, Aphrodite, let’s have pie!

Kyle McEachern, manager of Aphrodite’s Pie Shop and Café, deep in the heart of Kitslano in Vancouver, British Columbia, serves pie. Lots of pie. Pie made from local, organic products. GoodFood World spoke to Kyle about the café, how he sources local products, and where the café is headed in the future.

Organic Valley Delivers Bonus Cash Distribution

Organic Valley, one of the largest marketing co-operatives in the world, continues to demonstrate that the co-operative model can be extremely successful. In the face of a challenging economy, the co-op exceeded its annual sales growth goal for 2010 and distributed a bonus payment to the farmer-owners.