I just came home from an interesting, delicious, and inspirational day. My local Whole Foods was celebrating its 10 year anniversary. The employees were each clad in commemorative organic cotton T-shirts and the parking lot was filled with a small "farmers market."
A few days ago, I got an email about Wal-Mart also attempting to set up farmers' markets in their parking lots. I'm not sure if that thought makes me want to cry or throw up, but let's discuss it beyond the flip.
Before I forgot, I want to share with you a VERY cool program you can participate in. Back in Madison, a new cooperative fair trade coffee called Just Coffee was all the rage - not only for its social responsibility, but also for its great coffee. I've just heard they are working with farmers in East Timor to help them "broaden their agricultural base and bypass the big Ag companies (Monsanto, etc) who are trying to get them to buy genetically modified and patented seed exclusively from them. The theory is simple....peole from all over send free non-hybrid seeds to the farmers and they test which will work for them. Heirloom variety seeds are best."
If you want to send seeds, the address to send to is in my tip jar.
Whole Foods
Whole Foods, I am learning, is an interesting place because many of the employees (in all levels of the business) really believe in supporting local farmers, reducing the amounts of pesticides, petroleum products, and chemical fertilizers used, etc. Furthermore, individual regions and stores are able to do their own thing a lot of the time, so a motivated employee doesn't have to be a top executive to make some waves.
Obviously, the chain isn't perfect. They sell a lot of crap food (such as vegan donut holes that call themselves 'healthy' on the label, made up of a long paragraph of unpronounceable shit) and while they also sell a lot of wonderful food (delicious, locally sourced, organic, healthy), you need some bucks if you want to afford it.
From a business perspective, they move slower than your average mom 'n pop shop because new ideas often requires a bureaucratic process before they can become realities. Sometimes distributors or vendors can't meet their needs, and they can't work together.
That said, the quasi-farmers' market today was spectacular. The products at the "market" weren't actually for sale - yet. Most vendors gave out samples - fresh organic strawberries, avocado oil, microgreens, sprouts, kumquat preserves, and gerbera daisies were just a few of the goodies customers who visited could receive. (Check out my free flowers and my de facto vase! I'm so classy!)
At least it's an organic beer bottle.
I chatted with several of the farmers and other vendors. Each came from farms very close to this particular Whole Foods (many said they were 30-40 miles away). Whole Foods either already carries their products or will begin to carry them soon. You can also buy from several of the farmers via CSA programs or at local farmers markets.
I recognized the strawberries from my local market, and I know they are a bit cheaper there than the $3.99/pt price tag at Whole Foods, but not much cheaper (I think it's $3.50/pt or 3 pts for $10 at the market). If you're some rich San Diegan who doesn't care about money, perhaps its worth the extra few cents to buy the berries at Whole Foods at your convenience instead of busting your butt to wake up and hunt for parking on Sunday at the market. As for me, I'm not so rich, so I go get my berries at the market. The market also offers cheaper berries, but these ones are SO good - it's better to buy great organic berries for $3.50/pt than styrofoam-tasting ones for a little less.
One man I met outside Whole Foods today is like the Energizer Bunny of local food. You give him an idea and he'll run with it for a week and come back to you later with 20 more ideas it inspired. His name is Leslie Goldman and he blogs as "Your Enchanted Gardener." My neighborhood's Whole Foods works with him to bring more locally grown foods into the store.
An event like the one held today could serve as an ideal PR stunt, and I am looking forward to watching Whole Foods prove that it was more than that. It's a relief to know that many of the employees in the store are the 'true believers' who really want to provide local, organic food to their customers along with the education to understand why buying local and buying organic is so important.
Obviously, Whole Foods has more of a "Williams-Sonoma" feel than a natural foods co-op feel inside the store, which explains in a way why so many people are willing to fork over their "whole paycheck" for their weekly grocery bill. It's a bit of a chicken or egg type question, whether Whole Foods leads its customers forward or vice versa. Some customers bring their own coffee mugs to re-use and ask for shade grown coffee. Others show up at the coffee counter and ask for the Equal or Splenda.
For the most part, Whole Foods seems to cater to its customers' many needs (for example, by stocking those heinous vegan donut holes), but it doesn't always (like not carrying artificial sweeteners like Splenda). I always bitch that the food in the store would be healthier if there were more (sorry for the pun!) whole foods at Whole Foods, but as a full service grocery store, they carry what the customers want - and that means chips, cookies, TV dinners, and other processed foods.
On the whole, I'm more optimistic about Whole Foods and its effects on our food system after today than I was after reading Omnivore's Dilemma (or even before reading it). The critique Pollan gave was all true, and we definitely had no farmers or vendors that produced or sold animal products at the "market" today, but on the other hand, Whole Foods animal product standards ARE head and shoulders above the shit sold at your regular grocery store. The eggs may come from a gigantic stinky chicken operation, but if the hens are veg-fed, that's an improvement over the alternative - feeding them ground up bits of cows.
Wal-Mart
I don't have a ton of info here, but if it's Wal-Mart, you know the news probably isn't good. Here's what I have heard (and it's gossip, so take it with a couple grains of salt if you wish):
Wal-Mart is apparently thinkingn about setting up "farmers' markets" in store parking lots. Odds are, Wal-Mart has no interest in using local organic farmers (or even local non-organic farmers) for anything more than symbolic or markeitng purposes. Their business model is built up around cheap Chinese and Mexican imports, and they are famous for their centralized, uber-efficient distribution system - basically the antithesis of local.
I didn't ask the person who told me this if I could share it, so I've tried to reword things without changing the meaning, but I just have to share this great blurb from the email I received:
Like their TV commercials which try to portray Wal-Mart Supercenters as little "villages" with clowns and bands and friendly greeters, this move towards "local" organic will probably be 99% illusion and 1% reality -- a marketing gimmick -- something they do very well.
Well, I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to going to my real farmers' market tomorrow... but I'm also absolutely tickled that Whole Foods is really making a legitimate effort to step up their emphasis on locally produced goodies. The store by me has arranged to take customers on a tour of local farms next month, so I'll try to go and report back!