Growers and Grocers

Ice cream giant Unilever has incorporated a synthesized version of a fish protein into many of their products sold in the US. According to The Independent of London:
It contains an artificial protein copied, through a GM [Genetic Modification] process, from a fish living in the frigid waters of the bottom of the North-west […]

Soy production in the Amazon is gaining attention in the mainstream media lately, in part because of a port built on the Amazon River and also because of studies conducted by Greenpeace.
While previous studies focused on cattle grazing and logging, recent studies are finding that soybean production is now major factor in the […]

I found out about CSAs or community supported agriculture through a local organic farm on Long Island near my home. The idea for CSAs originated in Switzerland and Japan in the 1960s and CSAs started showing up in the US in the 1980s. There are an estimated 1300 CSAs in North America […]

The Sacramento Bee recently published a feature on the Black Mission figs of local farmer Buck Novak. Novak “had quite a stack of them at the Cesar Chavez Plaza market in downtown Sacramento,” despite their rarity in stores and farmer’s markets in the area. The price was $5 a pound, and “he expects […]

Construction crews broke the ground on a future State Farmers Market in Columbia, South Carolina. Given that most markets around me in the Bay Area happen in parks or other public places, I had to wonder how you “break ground” for a new site.
Turns out the future State Farmer’s Market is a little bit more […]

Consumers are becoming more conscious of the need to support local farmers. But large structures such as a hospitals or schools don’t always have time to seek out producers from their own area.
Rick Barrett of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reports that a former Whole Foods employee, Heather Hilleren, hopes to solve this problem with a […]

Boston’s network of Farmers Markets opened their season on Tuesday, May 30th, reports Darren Sands for the Boston Globe. The markets are managed by the Federation of Massachusetts Farmers Markets, a non-profit service organization run by a volunteer board of directors.
This year Boston residents can look forward to a plethora of local delicacies, including goat […]

Farmers may start selling their produce directly to institutional food providers such as hospitals and universities, according to this article in the Des Moines Register. The arrangement makes sense: Farmers need customers other than fickle weekend shoppers and the chefs at hospitals want to provide good food for patients and visitors. Even if institutions want […]

A few people told me about an article in today’s New York Times about Whole Foods’s new ad campaign. The new ads paint the upscale chain as…a source for values and deals.
It’s not hard to see the impetus: The chain wants to counter Wal-Mart’s moves into the organic marketplace. Whole Foods claimed earlier this week […]

After I read the Common Dreams article about shopping information, I explored other articles on the site’s front page.
One piece entitled “Welcome to ‘Whole-Mart’” caught my eye. Growers and Grocers readers know my feelings about Whole Foods, whose devilish business practices belie its saintly image. Author Mark Harris sums it up nicely:

Actually, there is a […]