• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Real Pickles

Northeast Grown, 100% organic, fermented & raw pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, kvass, and hot sauce

  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Our Farmers
    • Our Co-operative
    • Our Story
    • Our Facility
  • Products
    • Online Store
    • Store Finder
    • FAQ
    • Recipes
  • Fermentation
    • Fermentation Process
    • Health Benefits
  • What’s New?
    • Ferment Blog
      Voices from Real Pickles
    • News
    • Press
Home / Ferment Blog / Calculating Food Miles at Real Pickles

Posted September 24, 2015 by Dan

Calculating Food Miles at Real Pickles

In the course of preparing our latest annual report, we learned some interesting things about how far Real Pickles products travel from farm to fermentation to fork!

Annual Report – Fiscal Year 2015

Since Real Pickles’ beginnings in 2001, one of our key social commitments has been to source our vegetables only from Northeast farms and to sell our products only within the Northeast.  We do this because we want to promote the development of strong local and regional food systems.  There are so many good reasons to be getting our food from closer to home – freshness and nutritional value, food security, strong agricultural economies, climate change, and more.  And, as I’ve written about here, it’s not just local that’s important but regional, too.

We’ve always had some sense about how far Real Pickles products travel from farm to fermentation to fork, but we’d never before really tried to figure it out.  For our most recent annual report, we decided to go for it.  We posed the question, “What can a business do to build a strong local & regional food system?”  We offered up our answer: “source locally & regionally…sell locally & regionally!”.  And, then we got to work with the calculator and spreadsheets to ascertain just how far – on average – our vegetables traveled from farm to fermentation last year, and how far our products then traveled from fermentation to fork.

Upon delving into the project, it quickly became apparent that we weren’t going to come up with precise numbers.  The reality of food transport involves all kinds of complexities that we could never fully sort through.  But, we could arrive at some useful estimates that would illustrate the difference it makes when a business commits to sourcing and selling within a region.

Farm to Fermentation

Determining the average distance that our vegetables traveled last year from farm to Real Pickles was the more straightforward of the two calculations.  We received a total of 128 vegetable deliveries from ten farms – beginning with the first load of cucumbers from Atlas Farm in late June, ending with our last drop-off of storage beets from Red Fire Farm in February.  For the purposes of the calculation, we assumed that all vegetables traveled straight from the farm to Real Pickles, with no other deliveries along the way.

Organic. Local. Cabbage. Ready to ferment!

The result?  The 285,000 pounds of vegetables used to make Real Pickles products from the 2014 harvest traveled an average of 17 miles from farm to fermentation!!  We’re very excited by this number.  Of course, it’s also what we’d expect given our commitment to working with suppliers like Riverland Farm (13 miles away), Atlas Farm (7 miles away), and Old Friends Farm (22 miles away).

What if we made no commitment to sourcing from Northeast farms?  Real Pickles would likely be buying vegetables from much farther away.  Most of our cabbage, for example, would be coming from major cabbage-producing areas like California, Texas, and Mexico.  In that case, our cabbage would be traveling thousands of miles from farm to fermentation.

Fermentation to Fork

CJ loads the Real Pickles van for local deliveries!

Figuring out the average distance from fermentation to fork was a more challenging task.  Nearly 20,000 cases of Real Pickles products traveled to over 400 stores last year.  Retailers here in the Pioneer Valley – like River Valley Co-op and Foster’s Supermarket – receive their pickle orders via the Real Pickles delivery van.  While those further afield – such as the Park Slope Food Coop and Martindale’s Natural Market – get their Real Pickles products through our distributors or via UPS.  We couldn’t possibly know exactly what route each jar of kimchi or sauerkraut took to get to each store last year, nor can we know the route each jar traveled to get to our customers’ plates!

We do, however, have good data on how many cases of Real Pickles product were sold to each store last year.  So, we mapped the driving mileage from Real Pickles direct to each of our top 50 retailers – which together sold about half of our product last year.  (We made the assumption that doing the calculation based on this group of stores would yield a reasonably accurate result, while saving quite a bit of time.)  Then, we used our sales data to calculate an overall weighted average for distance traveled.  Based on this approach, the final result was pushed higher by fast-selling stores in places like New York City (~175 miles away), while kept lower by nearby stores selling lots of our pickles in such towns as Northampton, MA, and Brattleboro, VT (~20 miles away).

When all the math was done, we learned that Real Pickles products traveled an average of 131 miles last year from fermentation to fork!

We’re pretty excited by this number, too.  As a growing business producing an ever more popular food (fermented vegetables), we know we could easily be shipping our Real Pickles products thousands of miles all around the country.  But, we also know there are so many important reasons to be sourcing and selling regionally.  When we consider that our 20,000 cases last year traveled an average of 131 miles – rather than 1,000 or 2,000 miles – we know we’re making a difference.

Tagged: CLIMATE CHANGE, farmers, fermentation, LOCAL, pickles, Real Pickles, REGIONAL, RESILIENCY, SOCIAL CHANGE, SOCIAL MISSION, sustainable

Primary Sidebar

  • Ferment Blog
    Voices from Real Pickles
  • News
  • Press

Tags

cabbage CISA CLIMATE CHANGE CO-OPERATIVES COMMUNITY corporate food system cucumbers decentralization diversity EQUITABLE farmers Ferment fermentation fermented pickles food as a right Good Food Awards health health benefits investing LOCAL mud NEW ECONOMY Occupy Wall Street Old Friends Farm organic PEOPLE-CENTERED PEOPLE POWER pickle posse pickles Real Pickles recipes REGIONAL RESILIENCY sauerkraut SLOW MONEY small business SOCIAL CHANGE SOCIAL MISSION SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY stocking up sustainable tasting turmeric turmeric kraut WORKER CO-OPERATIVES
Meet Lavender! Lavender joined the Real Pickles pr Meet Lavender! Lavender joined the Real Pickles production team a little over a year ago and was recently promoted to assistant production manager. Lavender's experience in commercial kitchens has cultivated a love for large kitchen appliances. Their favorite tools at Real Pickles include a “Very Big Whisk” and a “Very Big Immersion Blender”! At Real Pickles, Lavender loves learning about worker co-operatives and ferments. They bring a great sense of humor, a strong work ethic and a curiosity that makes them a source of knowledge on many subjects. When they are not at Real Pickles, Lavender is learning to be ambidextrous and nurturing their love of prime numbers. We absolutely love having Lavender as part of the Real Pickles family!
•
#MeetThePicklers #RealPickles #PackedWithAMission #fermentedandraw #fermented #peekbehindthemask #organic #pickles #kraut #coop #workerowned #fermentation
Video Repost from @iloveriverlandfarm • Riverla Video Repost from @iloveriverlandfarm 
•
Riverland Farm has been an important farm partner of ours since 2002! Riverland is a 40-acre certified organic, women-run farm growing a diverse array of mixed vegetables and fruits along the Connecticut River in Sunderland, MA. The farm is run by Emily Landeck (in photo) and Meghan Arquin, who combine their love of cooking and sustainable organic farming practices to make their business a standout in the community and an important part of the local food system in western Massachusetts. They grow high-quality organic produce for the community and continue the ongoing work to maintain and improve the land that they farm. Riverland Farm keeps Real Pickles well-supplied with vegetables, herbs, and spices for the Organic Kimchi, as well as the Organic Sauerkraut, Organic Beets, Organic Red Cabbage, and Organic Ginger Carrots - seen here, germinating in that fertile river bottom soil! 🥕🥕🥕 

#featuredfarm #organic #northeastgrown #carrots #gingercarrots #kimchi #realpickles #womanfarmer #springiscoming
Meet Greg! If you are local to Western Mass or Sou Meet Greg! If you are local to Western Mass or Southern Vermont, you may have seen this masked face driving around in the Real Pickles van.  As a long time supporter and fan of Real Pickles, Greg joined the production team in 2015 and says he found an incredibly supportive culture. He became a worker-owner after a couple of years and has since taken on many new roles including serving up Real Pickles at events and in-store demos. His main focus these days is helping to manage shipping and receiving and making local deliveries to area co-ops and markets. Greg's upbeat energy is infectious and he can make anyone laugh! He misses meeting pickle lovers throughout the Northeast and is looking forward to the day he is able to be at events again, giving out samples and talking about fermentation and co-ops. In Greg's spare time he likes picnics, ukuleles, and bicycles ... and especially bicycle ukulele picnics! His favorite ferment is our organic kimchi piled on top of some crispy pan-fried tofu. We love that Greg is a part of the Real Pickles family! 

#MeetThePicklers #RealPickles #PackedWithAMission #fermentedandraw #fermented #peekbehindthemask #organic #pickles #kraut #coop #workerowned #fermentation
We love this Warm Winter Salad recipe and now is t We love this Warm Winter Salad recipe and now is the perfect time to enjoy it! Roasted roots and toasted pepitas mixed with warm greens and ferments. A healthy and delicious twist on comfort food. Check out the recipe on our website and show us your version of this seasonal salad!

#RealPickles #FermentedAndRaw #PackedWithAMission #Recipe #Vegan #Organic #WarmWinterSalad #Kraut 

photo by @clarebarboza tattoo by @benreigletattoos
To all of our customers, vendors, farmers, investo To all of our customers, vendors, farmers, investors, distributors, staff, owners, friends, neighbors and fellow fermenters - we love and appreciate you. Today, and everyday! 

#heartbeets #realpickles #fermented #beets #organic #love
Happy Friday! This week in our Meet the Picklers S Happy Friday! This week in our Meet the Picklers Series, we’re featuring K, who joined the production team last September. K loves the straightforward nature of working in the Real Pickles kitchen and especially the community of co-workers who K says often reveal themselves in comedic, compassionate and contemplative conversation. K is excited about the opportunity to participate in a sustainable food system and enjoys learning more about the enduring process of fermentation. When K is not at Real Pickles they are often immersed in artistic endeavors and exploring ways to develop new means of communicating shared experiences. In pre-COVID times K was involved in the world of live performance through movement and theater-based work. We love the creative energy and big heart that K brings to Real Pickles and are thrilled that they are part of our team! 

#MeetThePicklers #RealPickles #PackedWithAMission #fermentedandraw #fermented #peekbehindthemask #organic #pickles #kraut #coop#workerowned #fermentation

Footer

Contact

311 Wells St
Greenfield, MA 01301
(413) 774-2600
info@realpickles.com

Connect

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Join Our Email List!

Co-operative Enterprise Logo
USDA Certified Organic
Good Food Awards Winner

Site Design by Ajitate · Photography by Valley Lightworks, Clare Barboza and others · Artwork by Emi Lynn Holler
Real Pickles® © 2021