As promised, here is the reply I received from Whole Foods regarding my yes, you have no local apples query. Identifying information has been removed to protect the innocent...ME!
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When I visited Whole Foods this weekend, every apple was from California or New Zealand. Why, when local apples are so plentiful up and down the East Coast this time of year (organic and conventional), is Whole Foods importing apples from so far away? Thanks!
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Hi Amy,
Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. And You are right most of our apples are from California
Whole Foods Market is and has been committed to supporting local producers by buying their fruits and vegetables that meet our high quality standards, particularly those who farm organically. In the mid- Atlantic area we are working with local growers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland and looking forward to work with more farmers. To this end Whole Foods Market has a budget of ten million dollars for loan to be used to support local farmers who need money.
Most of our tomatoes, mushrooms and leaf vegetables and peppers are from local farmers. We have local gala apple and our Tote apples are from West Virginia.
We are continuing to look and source more local farmers to sell at our store, including apple growers.
We are working to have the local farmers market in our ***** store to be able to bring as more product as possible; and local farmers who are interested in introducing their products can send e-mail to our Buyers at local.vendors@wholefoods.com or drop us a line to our store.
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Discuss.
13 comments:
At least Whole Foods responded to your query. I filled out a little card at the customer service desk re: no local tomatoes earlier this summer and have yet to get a response.
Screw 'em! I'm heading to Butler's Orchard this weekend!
Yeah, I agree it was nice of them to give you a real reply. But I have to agree that Farmer's Market or the neighbor's tree is a much better bet.
Quick question for the blogging librarian: are you familiar with a relatively new children's book called Penguin by Polly Dunbar?
Elizabeth - I emailed them from the Whole Foods website - the reply was from my local store. I was impressed.
Miss. Kitty - you crack me up. And yes, I have yet to post a photo of the completed freezer paper project.
Mary Beth - Ditto!
Anonymous - No, but of course I Amazon'ed it after your comment and it looks adorable. Not to mention Sprout is totally into penguins (especially after our trip to the NE Aquarium) and I love Candlewick Press. Thanks for the tip - I'll have to see where I can find it.
You will LOVE your MacBook! I have switched to Firefox and it is perfect - much better than Safari! Thanks for coming by to leave a comment!
I agree it was great to get a reply but it did seem like the same story that those chain stores give us, just on a different day. I would much rather support a locally owned store anyway.
When i was growing up....my dad planted a peach tree, apple tree, pear tree, mulberry tree and fig tree in our backyard! Everyone should do the same!!! Do it now!!! in 4 years, you will have a great crop!!! Yummy!
Good for you!! I really hate finding hot house tomatoes in the grocery store in August. THis is one of my biggest pet peeves --
it would be interesting to see how far you can take it with whole foods. maybe pass out the info to the good apple farmers at the farmers market. see what they say about selling apples to whole foods. they may have an interesting perpective.
i do think it is smart to always question the image at whole foods. they are a big company making big money, afterall. in the end, i do appreciate what they have done to raise awarenes about quality and organic foods by bringing it to the masses.
Yes, I censored. You didn't miss anything in regards to the previous poster's comment...unless you were interested in Brazilian condos. I just had to weed the spam clutter - it's the librarian in me.
Good for you for making the effort to ask them. You know, I don't think Whole Foods really cares about supporting local farmers...they are all about big industrial organic farms, which ultimately boosts their bottom line. It's a shame, really. Better off at an orchard or farmers market!
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