LOCAL

Posted July 13, 2018 by Tamara

Supporting a Regional Food System: An Interview with Myers Produce

As you may know, here at Real Pickles we are deeply committed to buying our vegetables only from Northeast family farms and selling our products only within the Northeast. One way in which we are able to achieve this, and in turn help to build a strong, organic and regional food system, is by working with small independently-owned regional distributors who bring Real Pickles to our Northeast neighbors.

With this in mind, we began partnering with Myers Produce in 2016 as a way to bring our ferments deeper into the urban areas of the Northeast, and we’ve been thrilled with the results!

Myers Produce has been in operation since 2013. As a regional distributor based in Vermont, they buy vegetables and value added foods primarily from small, mostly organic farms in Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine. They then truck and sell to stores and restaurants in the New York City and Boston areas. Everything they offer has been produced in the Northeast. It’s a beautifully closed loop!

I recently chatted with Annie Myers, owner and founder of Myers Produce, about her experience delivering delicious regionally-grown food to cities in the Northeast. Read about it here, and let us know your thoughts on how regional food fits into your life.

How did you decide to start a food distribution business?

AM: I had been working on a farm in Northern Vermont for about three years at the time, and it had become clear that the farms in my area were struggling to reach markets outside the state. After the local wholesale market was maxed out, our farm considered major supermarket chains to be the best option for increased sales, and the demands of those large supermarket chains were not well-suited to the structure and diversity of our vegetable farm. Although I had been living in Vermont, I am originally from Brooklyn, and had spent some time working in the food industry in New York. I had friends in the city who I knew were looking for a better way to source food grown in our region, and who could afford to pay reasonable prices for that food. After a few years of seeing the disconnect between Vermont farms and high-end urban wholesale customers, I decided to start a business that might connect the supply in Vermont with the demand in the city.

Who are your main customers?

AM: Our produce goes to retail stores and restaurants throughout NYC and the Boston area. Our largest customers are a food co-op, an online retailer, and a fast casual restaurant chain, all in NYC.

How many truckloads of regionally-produced food do you deliver to New York City & Boston each year?

AM: We deliver in NYC four times per week throughout the summer and three times per week throughout the year. We deliver to the Boston area five times per week through the summer and twice per week throughout the year. All told this is about 330 truck loads per year!

How has Myers Produce changed over the years since you started?

AM: When we started, the business consisted of me, a van, and a computer, and I was delivering exclusively to NYC customers once a week. We have grown a lot since then! We are now a team of ten employees operating four box trucks. Our mission has remained the same since the beginning – we work to increase Northeast farmers’ access to regional urban wholesale customers, in order to support the strength of agriculture and the regional food system in the Northeast.

How does the seasonality of our Northeast agriculture impact your business?

AM: We have a much less diverse list in the winter than we do in the summertime. We don’t source any products from outside the region, so as soon as a product goes out of season in the Northeast, it is no longer offered on our list. That said, many of our farmers do an amazing job of season extension, and our winter offerings are probably more diverse than you might expect! We have greenhouse-grown spinach, tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes year-round, and we generally have kale, fennel and leeks well into January. And we have added value goods made with locally-grown produce available as well, like products from Real Pickles!

In a relatively short period of time, you have built up a great reputation as a regional distributor. What are the integral aspects to your success?

AM: We don’t know the answer to this entirely, but I think we have prioritized efficient systems, clear communication, and good customer service from the very beginning. I know these things mean a lot to our farmers and producers, and to our urban customers.

With all the farms and food producers in Vermont and the Pioneer Valley, how do you choose your offerings?

AM: We don’t have an exact formula, but we try to keep our list diverse and to offer a consistent high quality. We try to source the products that we consider to match growers’ strengths, while also balancing location, price point, seasonality, and scale.

What do we need to be thinking about as consumers and shoppers, in terms of building a strong regional food system?

AM: I know that all of our customers are constantly competing with huge corporate sources of food (Amazon/Whole Foods in particular), and that they are challenged to differentiate themselves in the eyes of consumers. I think the most important thing is for shoppers to be intentional about where they spend their money, and think about who they are supporting by where they buy their food. If we want to support local growers in the Northeast, we need to make sure to spend money where it will stay in regional circulation.

What is the most interesting behind-the-scenes aspect of Myers?

AM: We really only have one physical warehouse space. But, to cover the distances we cover while adhering to regulations – and also create jobs that we think are sustainable – we have drivers based in NYC, Western MA, and VT. All of these drivers start and end their days in the same locations, but they drive from VT to Western MA and back, from Western MA to NJ and back, from Western MA to VT and back, and from Western MA to Boston and back.

What has been your favorite aspect of your job over the years?

AM: I have always loved puzzles, and I’ve grown to enjoy creating systems that are physical, flexible, efficient, and full of moving parts. I love it when an opportunity or inquiry comes up on a given morning, and I get to think about how that opportunity fits into our current operation, send a few emails, make a few phone calls, and be able to take advantage of that opportunity (often by the next day) in a way that makes sense for all parties involved. It keeps me on my toes, and it helps me feel that Myers Produce is providing a real service that can adapt to the needs of the folks that we are trying to serve.

Posted January 19, 2017 by Dan

Creating Social Change, Together

The extraordinary political events taking place in our country are affecting us deeply here at Real Pickles Co-operative, as they are for so many others. They highlight how far we have to go to build the just, democratic, and sustainable society we wish to see. We are reminded why all of us here take Real Pickles’ social mission so seriously, and why we must continue to work as hard as we can in pursuit of it. It is also now as clear as ever that we cannot do this work alone.

One essential lesson of the 2016 presidential election – among many others – seems to be that our economic system is truly not working for many millions of Americans, and that this fact cannot be ignored. The Dow Jones may be up, the economy may be growing, corporate profits and the 1% may be doing great. But many are being left behind. Real change is needed, and the big question is what kind of change will we work toward?

At Real Pickles, we are committed to creating positive social change based on an inclusive vision that prioritizes equality, justice, health, democracy, and sustainability. We are seeking to build a system that offers real opportunity to all people to live healthy and fulfilling lives. This means moving away from corporate capitalism and toward an economy where small, community-oriented businesses are the norm. It means making hatred and discrimination things of the past. And – urgently – it means doing whatever we can to avoid disastrous climate change.

Thankfully, we are far from alone in these efforts. A strong example is the New Economy Coalition (of which we are a proud member), whose vision is “a new economy…that meets human needs, enhances the quality of life, and allows us to live in balance with nature…a future where capital (wealth and the means of creating it) is a tool of the people, not the other way around.” As a diverse array of 175 member organizations, each is pursuing these goals in its own ways, and also coming together wherever and however possible to build on each other’s efforts. So much essential work is happening within this network, and we are grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to collaborate with such members as Equity Trust, Co-op Power, Cooperative Fund of New England, Cutting Edge Capital, Tellus Institute, Slow Money, and Project Equity.

Our work of creating a more sustainable food system is supported by many thriving organizations. Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), for example, has been paving the way for countless food and farm businesses here in western Massachusetts to reach success as a result of their highly effective marketing of the “buy local” concept. The Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG), a 12-state network of over 500 organizations, is leading the way in building a vibrant regional food system. The Northeast Organic Farming Association and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association are each in their fifth decade as influential developers of the organic agriculture movement.

We are also encouraged to be seeing the rise of the co-operative movement which is building a valuable alternative to the traditional corporate model. Worker co-operatives are sprouting up here in western Massachusetts (and elsewhere), with the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives providing a forum for area worker co-ops to collaborate as well as offering assistance to start-ups. Around the Northeast, we are seeing more and more consumer food co-ops both getting started and expanding, with support from the Neighboring Food Co-op Association – a regional network of food co-ops representing combined memberships of over 107,000 and annual revenue of $240 million.

While the primary focus of Real Pickles’ work is the Northeast U.S., we recognize the importance of maintaining a national and global perspective, as well. We admire and support the grassroots climate activism of 350.org, and have participated in climate marches in NYC and Washington DC. The National Co-op Business Association, a national trade group of co-ops, is doing important work developing and advancing co-operative enterprise both in the U.S. and internationally. The Cornucopia Institute is providing the public with essential reporting highlighting both the problems of industrial agriculture and beneficial practices of family-scale organic farmers. Over the past year, thousands have been camped out on the front lines protesting plans to build the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation (we recently made an exception to our Northeast-only distribution commitment to send a donation of fermented vegetables to the protesters).

We’re deeply fortunate to be working with so many effective partners who share our commitment to a just, democratic, and sustainable society. At the same time, we know that our approach to creating social change, as well as the scope of our own network, represents merely a narrow slice of what is happening and what must happen if we are to truly achieve our vision. In the months and years ahead, we commit to redoubling our efforts to create real and positive change by building on the work we’re already doing and by seeking out new connections and partnerships across our region, nationally and globally. We hope you will join us.

Posted March 24, 2016 by Real Pickles

The Scoop on our New Turmeric Kraut!

This guest post is written by our friend Brittany Wood Nickerson, a well-respected herbalist and health educator with a background in Western, Ayurvedic and Chinese herbal medicine. Her treatment and teaching approach emphasize personal empowerment, preventative home healthcare and whole body wellness. Brittany is the founder and primary instructor at Thyme Herbal in Western Massachusetts, where she teaches a three year Herbal Apprenticeship Program. She teaches women’s health at the University of Massachusetts and is the organizer of the Northampton/Amherst Herbal Meet-up group. Brittany is the author of The Everyday Living Series, The Herbal Homestead Journal and her newest work: Recipes From the Herbalist’s Kitchen, to be published by Storey in Spring 2017!

I first met my fiancé, Casey Steinberg, when buying salad greens at his Old Friends Farm stand at the Amherst Farmer’s Market. He was handsome, and his greens were really good! In the fall they had bountiful baskets of fresh ginger and turmeric – I had never seen anything like it! Casey and his business partner, Missy Bahret, pioneered growing ginger in northern climates in 2004. A few years later they began growing turmeric and now, almost a decade later, this practice has caught on. Today, Old Friends Farm gets regular inquiries about growing ginger from farmers in locations ranging from California to Vermont, and Costa Rica to Germany.

It is important to include medicinal herbs in our efforts to forge a vibrant local and regional food system. Culinary traditions are based on ancient wisdom. Cooking with herbs and spices makes food easier to digest and kills bacteria associated with food borne illnesses. You might put basil on your pasta or cumin in your curry because it tastes good, but these practices have been passed on by generations of cooks who seasoned food with herbs because it was practical, necessary and healthful.

The caraway seeds found in many traditional sauerkraut recipes are a perfect example. Cabbage can cause gas and bloating, but caraway seeds make the cabbage easier to digest and help reduce gas. Traditional spices, such as the black pepper and dill in pickles, help warm and balance the cold energy of cucumbers. Once you understand these principles you start to see them everywhere and you can make up your own traditions. Excellent examples from the Real Pickles’ collection include: Red Cabbage with thyme, winter savory and marjoram; Beets with rosemary and onion; Ginger Carrots; and their new, absolutely fabulous Turmeric Kraut!

Turmeric is a powerful medicinal herb, traditionally used in cooking and medicinal preparations. It is a mildly warming, aromatic, bitter digestive aid. It stimulates liver function and the release of bile, which helps with the digestion of fats and oils. It improves the breakdown and absorption of nutrients and relieves gas and bloating. Turmeric supports digestive metabolism, liver metabolism, and cellular metabolism, which aids in detoxification and helps to relieve inflammation.

Holistic health sees the health of each part of a system being integrally connected to the health of the whole. In the body, holistic health starts with good digestion. If digestion is compromised, all other systems become compromised. A well functioning digestive system allows us to absorb the most nutrients from our food and to expel waste effectively. Our digestive system is also closely tied to the nervous system. The enteric nervous system, which governs digestion, has almost as many neurons as the brain! It connects the digestive system to all other systems in the body. Aromatic culinary herbs help relax the GI tract and calm the nervous system, while at the same time relieving many digestive upsets.

Fermentation, like cooking with culinary herbs, makes food easier to digest. Fermented vegetables also contain beneficial bacteria, which have been shown to improve skin health, decrease allergies, and increase immunity (see Real Pickles’ health page for more info). Lactic acid, produced during the fermentation process, makes fermented foods taste sour – hence the name sauerkraut. As if everything we have learned so far isn’t enough, the sour flavor is also great for digestion! Sour tasting foods stimulate the secretion of acids and enzymes, as well as bile from the liver and gall bladder. The probiotics and sour flavor of kraut combined with the bitter, aromatic and mildly warming energy of turmeric are a perfect recipe for holistic wellness. The benefits complement one another, improve digestion and help to support whole system balance.

As organisms in a larger system, our holistic wellness is dependent on many interconnected systems: environmental, economic, social and cultural. Efforts to restore local and regional food systems and economies understand this kind of holism, recognizing that our food is only as healthy as the system from which it comes. Real Pickles’ commitment to producing healthy food and creating a sound regional food system is a role model for the planet. We need more businesses willing to think outside the box and be structurally creative – committing to policies that support workers, distributors, retailers, consumers and the environment in ways that foster health on all levels.

Years after we met, I was teaching Casey how to make sauerkraut in our home kitchen, and he said, “let’s add turmeric!” It was harvest season, and we had fresh turmeric coming out our ears! We were very excited to share our first batch with Real Pickles. Cabbage and turmeric have not traditionally been grown in the same climate, which is part of what makes this product so special and unique. Real Pickles and Old Friends Farm have created a special partnership which builds on each other’s innovations and shared mission to work toward a thriving local and regional food system. This is health as it should be – interconnected, responsible and delicious.

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!

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.

Posted January 30, 2014 by Dan

Beyond Local: The Case for Regional Food

Where should we get our food from? How far need it travel?

These are essential questions for anyone who wants a better food system – one that is ecologically sound and socially just. After all, a big impetus for the rapidly growing movement to transform the food system is the modern-day reality that places like New England – quite capable of raising such crops as apples or tomatoes – will instead import them from thousands of miles away and burn up large quantities of climate-changing fossil fuels in the process.

Long-distance food transport brings other drawbacks, too. By getting our food from California or New Zealand, we’re often giving up on flavor and nutrition because those distant farms are growing crops that were bred, first and foremost, to be shipped. Farms supplying national or global markets also tend to become big and concentrated, and thus are more likely (organic or not) to be engaged in industrial, monoculture practices, rather than the kind of agriculture that supports healthy soil, healthy crops, and healthy ecosystems. And, of course, eaters in this kind of food system are left hopelessly disconnected from the source of their food, which brings all sorts of unintended consequences.

As local as possible

Buy local! This has been a primary response to the crazy, unhealthy, industrial food system we have in this country. Leave behind that bad supermarket food shipped in from who knows where, and go get to know your neighborhood farmer. The push to buy local is taking the burgeoning new food system far. Countless farmers markets and community supported agriculture farms have come into being. More and more restaurant chefs are buying ingredients from local farms. Local food has even begun to make its way into schools and hospitals.

The idea of buying local makes sense in many ways. If our food system is broken and a central problem is that we’re sourcing from thousands of miles away, the obvious response is to switch to getting our food from as close to home as possible. And if the disconnect between farmers and eaters is a serious problem, we should start buying our food from a farmer who we can actually meet face to face. There’s a logic to it, and this indeed is an important part of the solution to building a new and better food system.

Is “buy local”, however, the end of the story? Is the right way to create the food system we need to buy as local as possible every time? It’s an increasingly popular idea. These days it serves as the basis for commissioned studies and marketing slogans suggesting that single small states – even single towns – might feed themselves almost entirely. But, I think the real answer is more complicated.

Urban and rural

A trip to a pickle festival in New York City a couple of years ago got me thinking about the issue in a new way. Addie Rose and I traveled to the Lower East Side to set up the Real Pickles booth at the Peck Slip Pickle Fest, a special one-day event at a public food market called New Amsterdam Market. During a short break between pickle sales, I got a chance to walk the market, and was struck by how different it was than the farmers markets back home in western Massachusetts. In rural western Massachusetts, farmers and other food producers typically travel ten or twenty miles to get to a farmers market. Here at New Amsterdam Market, I noticed that the vendors – vegetable farmers, cheesemakers, maple syrup producers – were coming from a much greater distance. Some had driven 100 miles or more from various points in the Hudson Valley. Others had traveled even further, coming down from the Finger Lakes or Northern Vermont. There were a few vendors with products made in Brooklyn, but few if any were using agricultural ingredients produced local to the city.

None of this came to me as a real surprise. A place like New York City – with its urban development stretching for many miles – obviously can’t support many real farms anywhere close to its borders. But, it got me thinking about all the talk about being a “locavore” and switching to a “100-mile diet”.

For those of us living in rural places like Vermont or the Berkshires or Maine, it’s remarkably easy to become convinced that solving our food system’s problems can be wholly accomplished by the act of buying as local as possible – and organic – in an effort to create a multitude of insulated, local food systems. And, yet the point of changing the food system is not to create an elitist alternative for a limited subset of the population. The point is to bring about a transformation that gives everyone the opportunity to participate in and benefit from a healthy, just, and sustainable food system.

If everyone is to be part of the new food system, then I think we need to keep this fact in mind: the majority of the U.S. population lives in concentrated urban areas whose local agricultural resources are entirely inadequate to support the food needs of their populations. For those in and around cities, then, the task of sourcing food from much closer to home means re-building the food system on a regional level. Instead of local food systems with a 100-mile radius (as many choose to define “local”), this means focusing on regional food systems with, perhaps, a 250- or 500-mile radius.

Those of us in rural areas – rich in agricultural resources – thus have an inescapable responsibility. As we do the necessary work of helping to overhaul the food system, we must consider what part we can play in feeding the populations of places like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. While it is surely tempting (and so much simpler) to focus inwardly and exclusively on how to feed merely ourselves, that is not, in the end, the way to build a better food system. It is essential to be actively promoting and supporting our local farm economies – and, at the same, we need to be thinking more broadly.

Resiliency

There’s another strong reason why we need to think regionally as well as locally, one that undermines the notion that it would even be possible for any one town or small state to securely depend on its own agricultural resources. It has to do with things like weather and pests – those unavoidable factors that make farming inevitably risky and unpredictable. Factors which also threaten to make farming even more unpredictable as a result of climate change.

The changing pattern of cucumber growing here in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts helps to illustrate the issue. Dave from Chamutka Farm in Whately has been growing pickling cucumbers (among other crops) since 1980. Before that, as a kid, he helped out his parents and other local growers raise them for the old Oxford pickle plant in nearby Deerfield. Dave, who was Real Pickles’ first cucumber supplier, has witnessed the harvest season for local pickling cucumbers shrink dramatically in recent years. When he first started growing, he could harvest cucumbers all summer long, typically going into mid to late September. By the time Dave started supplying cucumbers to Real Pickles in 2001, cucumber harvests would last at least until early September. Over the last decade, however, it has come to be a crapshoot to expect a harvest beyond mid-August. For Real Pickles, that means pickling all of our cucumbers for the entire year (60,000 pounds in 2013) within a single six-week period.

What’s steadily squeezing out our local cucumber season? It’s a disease called cucurbit downy mildew, which blows in from the southern states each summer and, just about overnight, wipes out the cucumber crop. These days it’s showing up much earlier than it used to, a trend that is likely to continue as the climate warms. As UMass Extension vegetable specialist, Ruth Hazzard, explained to me recently, human attempts to breed cucumber plants resistant to it have been failing to keep up with downy mildew’s rapid evolution via genetic mutation and natural selection. In the future, cucumbers could become a much less reliable local crop. And yet, as downy mildew does not typically reach all parts of the Northeast (check out these maps illustrating its recent impact), it may still be a reliable regional crop.

Differences in weather (and its effects) from one locale to another point us in a similar direction. Tropical Storm Irene barreled through the Northeast in August 2011 and brought epic amounts of rainfall. Small rivers flooded immediately, and within a few days, major rivers started overflowing their banks – leading to crops losses for numerous farms located along riverbanks (where the best soil is). Three of the six farms that regularly supply Real Pickles had flooded fields and ruined vegetable crops. It was a disastrous event for many farmers – though not for all farmers in the region. For one thing, Pioneer Valley farms located on higher ground tended to fare better during Irene. Looking regionally, the storm was a disaster for farms in such places as Vermont, the Hudson River Valley, and western Massachusetts. But, farms in many other parts of the Northeast – further from the track of the storm – emerged relatively unscathed.

Last season, farms in our area had to contend with one of the rainiest months of June in memory. About ten inches of rain fell here in the Pioneer Valley that month, adversely affecting our local food system in a variety of ways. The direct effect on Real Pickles was that 20,000 pounds of summer cabbage that we had planned to buy from one of our local farms rotted in the sopping fields. While our local farms had all experienced similar weather, farms in some other parts of the Northeast had not. The same week that we got the local cabbage news, we received a call from our friends at a farmers co-op in Pennsylvania and learned that organic farmers down there had produced a bumper crop of summer cabbage. We bought enough to fill up a tractor trailer – making the transport as energy efficient as possible – and were able to make the batches of sauerkraut and kimchi that we needed.

These examples all drive home the same point: While a global industrialized food system is clearly not a resilient one, neither is an entirely local one. If we are to build a better food system, resiliency must be among its central features. The inevitable conclusion, then, is that we need to make a shift toward regional scale. We must move away from the hopelessly unhealthy, inefficient, and insecure reality offered by our current global food system. And we also need to properly account for the impacts of weather, pests, and climate change – and do our best to ensure that everyone can be reliably fed.

Local and Regional

The work of building the new food system that we need involves a wide array of priorities – like reducing corporate dominance, expanding organic production, and shifting to healthy, minimally processed foods. Cutting back dramatically on long-distance food transport is another top priority. Here, we need to engage in food system development on two scales: local and regional.

How do we do this? CISA recently put out a fantastic guide, Eat Up and Take Action for Local Food, outlining all the many ways one can help build up our local food economies. Buy locally-grown food, support access to it for low-income folks, become a local foods entrepreneur, invest in a local foods business. There is plenty of important work to be done.

On the regional level, a key task is to build up the regional connections between farms, processors, distributors, retailers, and eaters. At Real Pickles, we enjoy working with and supporting three family-owned distributors – Angello’s, Regional Access, and Associated Buyers – all of whom do a great and efficient job of connecting Northeast family farms and producers with retailers throughout the region. (I mention “efficient” because regional food distribution can, in many cases, outcompete local food distribution when it comes to minimizing energy consumption, a key consideration.) We also make a point of keeping in touch with Northeast farms outside the Connecticut River Valley, so that we are prepared whenever those inevitable weather challenges arise. We primarily buy our vegetables from local farms, but we can turn to Pete’s Greens in Vermont or Tuscarora Organic Growers in Pennsylvania if we need to.

Encouraging retailers and eaters to support local and regional products is important, too. For years now, “buy local” marketing campaigns have been successfully raising awareness about the benefits of supporting local farms. It may be time for “buy regional” campaigns, as well. At Real Pickles, we honor our original commitments to buy our vegetables only from Northeast family farms and sell our products only within the Northeast. This is our way of publicly promoting the idea of regional food systems. We would love to see many more food businesses making similar commitments!

If we want a better food system, then we must be sourcing our food much closer to home. The food system is complex, however, and simple prescriptions will only take us so far. Responding to the reality of global food transport with the call to “buy local” is extremely important. If, however, we are to truly to change the food system – the whole system, not just the margins of it – we must also develop a regional perspective. By doing so, we will help to ensure that our food system can be healthy, secure, and sustainable. And that it can be so for everyone!

NOTE: If you’re interested in learning more about regional food systems, I recommend checking out the work of Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG). In particular, you’ll find excellent in-depth papers on the topic here and here. For a number of years now, NESAWG has also been helping to build a Northeast regional food system through their annual conference, It Takes a Region.

Posted August 15, 2013 by Real Pickles

Real Pickles and the Path to a Co-operative Economy

We are excited to share a few words written by Erbin Crowell, Executive Director of the Neighboring Food Co-op Association (NFCA) and local expert on cooperative business. Erbin was a huge help to the Real Pickles Co-op founding group as we forged ahead with our transition to a cooperative structure. He earned his Master of Management: Co-op & Credit Unions from St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia and serves on the boards of the National Co-operative Business Association and the New England Farmers Union. He lives in Buckland, MA, with his partner Kristin Howard and their son Elias, and may be contacted at erbin@nfca.coop.

By Erbin Crowell, Executive Director, Neighboring Food Co-op Association

The United Nations International Year of Cooperatives was celebrated in 2012

It’s been about five years since I first sat down with Real Pickles’ cofounder Dan Rosenberg at his home in Montague, MA. As he considered the future of his company, Dan was interested in knowing more about the co-operative business model and its potential for preserving Real Pickles’ unique mission over time. For my part, I wanted to better understand the perspectives of entrepreneurs like Dan who were uncomfortable with the traditional paths of business succession. Could co-ops offer a viable alternative for business owners who see success as defined more broadly than just the bottom line?

My partner Kristin Howard – now Real Pickles’ sales manager and a founding worker-owner – and I had recently left Equal Exchange, a worker co-op and pioneer in fairly traded products, where we had been member-owners for a combined two decades. My experience developing new initiatives within a rapidly growing co-op had been profound on a personal level. It had also demonstrated to me how co-ops could have a dramatic impact on the economy by working together across the food system. I wanted to be part of making the experience available to more people, and growing the wider co-operative economy. This path had led me to studies in co-operative management and work with organizations including the Co-operative Fund of New England, the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-ops, and finally the Neighboring Food Co-op Association.

A basic challenge for the co-operative movement is that it has been largely overlooked by universities, economic development organizations, and local governments. It is easy to go through one’s academic career without learning anything about this business model, despite the global impact of co-ops. When young entrepreneurs seek out support for starting or growing a business, the co-operative model is rarely offered as an option. Basic legal and financial support is weak at best.

And yet, co-operatives have succeeded. For example, more than a billion people around the world are co-op members — more than directly own stock in publicly traded corporations. Co-ops also employ more people than multinationals. And in the quest for food security, co-operatives have been recognized as lifeline for small farmers and consumers in the developing world.

In recent years, co-ops have been recognized for their performance during the global recession that began in 2008 and continues to cause massive unemployment, dramatic shifts in wealth and austerity. Co-ops have proven extraordinarily resilient during this period, preserving jobs, wealth and community infrastructure. And their global contribution to human development, poverty reduction and sustainability led the United Nations to declare 2012 the International Year of Co-ops.

In addition to being driven by a distinct set of values and principles, the co-operative legal structure prioritizes social needs and goals above the accumulation of profit. Based on the principle of one member, one vote, co-ops are very real examples of the kind of economic democracy that people are clamoring for in the wake of this global recession.

Food co-ops in our region are an illustration of the potential of this model. For the past three years, I have served as executive director of the Neighboring Food Co-op Association (NFCA), a network of over 35 food co-ops and start-ups across New England. These are community businesses, locally owned by more than 80,000 people. Success is not measured by investor dividends, but by factors such as environmental impact, benefits to members, and employment. Because they are not focused on maximization of profit, co-ops have been innovators in the food system and pioneers in healthy foods, organic products and Fair Trade.

Food co-ops have also been leaders in the re-localization of economies, illustrated by the fact that the members of the NFCA purchase over $30 million in local products each year. In communities across our region, food co-ops serve as anchors for local producers and as places to experiment with new products.

However, a central challenge for food co-ops, and for the “buy local” movement in general, is that the purchasing power we invest in the local economy does not always stay in the community. For example, our members and customers have invested millions of their consumer dollars in socially responsible businesses, only to see them bought out by large multinational corporations. In this sense, local economies often serve as a testing ground for the investor-driven economy. Entrepreneurs create new products and services and those businesses that demonstrate sufficient potential to generate profits for investors are absorbed into this market economy through investor buy-outs, initial public offerings (IPOs) or purchase by a larger corporation. As a result, the capital, creativity and infrastructure created by local entrepreneurs are extracted from local communities, and the stakeholders who helped create that market value are left behind.

Another challenge for the local movement is business succession. What happens when an entrepreneur decides to retire or simply move on to something new? As we invest our consumer dollars in local businesses, are there ways to ensure that those businesses don’t fade away or get sold to corporate interests? Is there a way to engage other stakeholders — workers, producers, consumers and the wider community — in the mission and long-term success of local enterprises so that they are more sustainable and accountable to the people who depend on them?

This question has been at the root of the co-operative movement since its beginnings. In response to the concentration of wealth and control that characterized the Industrial Revolution, community activists created a democratic business model, rooted in social values, and oriented toward the meeting of human needs rather than accumulation of profit. For the first food co-ops, the goal was food security and rooting a source of healthy, affordable food in the community. For farmers, it was pooling resources to invest in the shared infrastructure needed to compete with larger growers and corporations. And for workers, it was gaining more control over our work-lives so that a company couldn’t just up and leave in search of higher profits.

Certainly, these goals speak to many entrepreneurs today for whom the ideals of economic democracy, sustainability and human fulfillment are integral to their vision of success. What has been missing is a roadmap for succession that provides an alternative to the traditional corporate buyout. Real Pickles founders, Dan and Addie Rose, may have part of the answer. Five years after we sat down to talk co-ops, their company is on the cutting edge of a trend toward a new way of thinking about the basic purpose and priorities of local business. For an emerging group of entrepreneurs, conversion to a co-operative structure may be driven by the desire to root their business in the community, to safeguard their mission, or simply to share ownership, risk and reward with their co-workers. For others, “co-operation” was always what they had in mind – they just needed a formal business structure for it.

This is not to say that there is not an important role for outside investors in this effort. What is needed is a new way of thinking about this role. Some have used the term “social investor,” and “slow” or “patient” capital. Tom Webb, former manager of the Master of Management, Co-operatives and Credit Unions Program at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada, has called for something a little more specific: “co-operative capital.” For Webb, the financial crisis of 2008 and the accompanying global recession has demonstrated the problems of an economic system built on maximization of profit. “We need capital that is socially constructive rather than destructive and more stabilizing rather than destabilizing,” he writes. “We need capital that is restrained, limited and controlled and directed to meeting human need rather than human greed.”

In fact, some of the most successful contemporary co-ops have relied on this kind of capital to grow their businesses. Equal Exchange and Organic Valley, for example, offer investment opportunities for non-member individuals and organizations. This capital is constructive in that it is driven by social and environmental impacts as opposed to maximization of return; it is restrained because investment shares are non-voting, with control remaining with the membership; and it is stabilizing in that share value is based on cash value rather than the theoretical market valuation employed by the stock market and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), rooting wealth in the community. Over time, many have insisted that investors would not accept these limitations on their influence and returns. And yet, year after year these co-ops have had little trouble attracting sufficient capital to support their growth.

What is particularly exciting about Real Pickles is that they have demonstrated a model in which people can invest in the conversion of a privately held business into a co-operative enterprise. Essentially, investors are using their financial resources to secure a business within the local co-operative economy, as opposed to the market economy. This represents a compelling shift in our conception of what is possible.

Over the years, food co-ops across the Northeast have invested substantial purchasing power in the success of local businesses like Real Pickles. And I am proud that the Neighboring Food Co-op Association has been able to play a small part in the transition of the company, becoming an investor in Real Pickles as part of our vision of “a more healthy, just and sustainable food system, and a vibrant community of co-operative enterprise.”

On a personal level, it has been inspiring to work with the member-owners of this new co-op in this process. In my role as the first staff person for the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-ops, I began to see the importance of co-op led development and the potential of peer-to-peer collaboration in supporting the success of co-operative enterprises. While my primary work is now with the NFCA, there is a clear overlap in the vision of our food co-ops and that of companies like Real Pickles. Moving forward, my hope is that co-ops and local entrepreneurs will be able to see the potential in this kind of collaboration in growing the co-operative movement in our region.

Dan Rosenberg and Addie Rose Holland have not only chosen an inspiring path for Real Pickles. They, along with the other founding member-owners of the Real Pickles Co-op, have laid a path for local business succession and the transformation of individual entrepreneurship into what would be more accurately described as co-opreneurship: creative economic development with the goal of strengthening economic democracy, sustainability, and community wealth.

Posted April 8, 2013 by Dan

A Community Perspective: Investing in a Better Food System!

We are honored to feature this guest post from the leadership team of the Pioneer Valley Slow Money chapter. The burgeoning Slow Money movement is about “investing as if food, farms and fertility mattered.” We at Real Pickles are excited to be offering a local investment opportunity of this kind as we work to transition our business to a worker-owned co-operative. And, we are thankful to our local Slow Money chapter for its support!

by Paul DiLeo, Joe Grafton, Kyra Kristof, Spirit Joseph, Jeff Rosen, Sam Stegeman, and Tom Willits

“As long as money accelerates around the planet, divorced from where we live, our
befuddlement will continue. As long as the way we invest is divorced from how we
live and how we consume, our befuddlement will worsen. As long as the way we invest
uproots companies, putting them in the hands of a broad, shallow pool of absentee
shareholders whose primary goal is the endless growth of their financial capital, our
befuddlement at the depletion of our social and natural capital will only deepen.”

-Woody Tasch, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money

The leadership team of the Pioneer Valley Slow Money Chapter has been working diligently to support Real Pickles in its efforts to raise capital through its community investment campaign. When Dan and Addie asked us to share our reasoning behind these efforts, we responded with equal zeal. So, here goes:

Living where we do, in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, nestled within the regional community of New England, we are participants in an exciting movement. Over the past several decades, we have seen an increase in the number of farms and farmers in the region, reversing decades of decline. Many of us have ample opportunity to join a local CSA and to shop at one of the many new farmer’s markets that are now part of our daily economic life. Both producers and consumers are driving positive changes in the food system, as more producers build businesses with a deep commitment to their local food system and more consumers shift their buying patterns in support of local food.

And, while we are all pleased with the positive trends, few, if any of us, feel satisfied with that pace, or the current scale of the local food economy in our region. So, what’s slowing us down?

As Woody Tasch suggests above, there is a missing piece to this economic equation. We are missing the investors in our local food system. Slow Money, as a movement, is growing alongside of the local food movement, designed to help that movement obtain the type of investment capital it needs. Many of us have been engaged in heated conversations, where we decry our inability to move a portion of IRAs or other investments out of the traditional investment world and into our local economy. There is a lag, a logjam of intent, when it comes to finding a way to match our consumer commitment to local food with an equally straightforward investor commitment.

But, as people who have been engaged in this space have learned, it’s not easy to match our mission zeal up to investment opportunities. For one thing, there are not many opportunities. For another, as movement leaders, we are asking for our businesses to be mission-focused in a way that supports a local (food) economy. We want them to treat their suppliers and employees well, use best ecological practices, and maintain a long-term commitment to local ownership and place. Yet, such mission requirements do not typically provide investors with the kinds of returns they seek, or a quick way to get their money back.

Slow Money seeks to provide patient investment dollars that can finance businesses. These dollars would not pressure them to sell out on their mission commitment. The Slow Money movement rests on a thesis that there are good, viable businesses that can scale up to the size of the local economy which houses them. The movement seeks businesses who can demonstrate the principles we all seek, who really need this new kind of patient, or “nurture” capital.

The Pioneer Valley Slow Money Chapter – operating as a working group within the PVGrows network – is pleased to be working with Real Pickles to assist them in meeting their finance challenge. Real Pickles has demonstrated commitment and business competence in light of the mission elements we all seek. They buy from local/regional family farmers, paying them fair prices. Their transition to a worker co-operative continues a tradition of fair and equitable treatment for its employees. Real Pickles is committed to organic agriculture in the field, and energy efficiency and solar power at its facility. And long-term commitment to local ownership and place is what their co-op transition deal is all about.

The team at Slow Money is excited to support Real Pickles because they are the real deal. Their commitment to principled business makes it hard for them to offer investors the kind of return they are accustomed to seeing in the world of Fast Money. But, they embody the change we seek, and offer supporters of local food an opportunity to invest in a way that is consistent with their consumer commitment. Real Pickles has worked hard to make this offer viable and available. We are proud to help them get the word out.

For more information about Real Pickles’ co-op investment campaign, visit www.realpickles.com/invest.

Posted March 16, 2013 by Real Pickles

A Community Perspective: Keeping It Local!

Margaret Christie is a rock star. Especially when it comes to our local food system here in western Massachusetts. As executive director of Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) in the late 1990s, she oversaw the launch of the hugely successful “Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown” marketing campaign. In her on-going work as CISA’s special projects director, Margaret plays an essential role as researcher, thinker, and organizer in the effort to build a better food system – locally and beyond. Here, Margaret offers her perspective on the social benefit of Real Pickles’ decision to go co-op. Thanks, Margaret, for your kind and insightful words!

by Margaret Christie, Special Projects Director, CISA

Why is Real Pickles’ decision to go worker co-op good for the rest of us? If they keep making good dill pickles, ginger carrots, and sauerkraut, do we care who owns them and how that ownership is structured? Yes, we do—not only because of the impact this business will have, but because the folks at Real Pickles are showing us how we can be involved in building a better food system.

The change in Real Pickles’ ownership provides a number of collateral
community benefits, but most important may be the model of business success they offer. As we work together to create a network of farm and food businesses that provide more of the food we eat every day here in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts (and the surrounding region), we often focus on business start-ups, not on what follows success. But what happens to a business that starts with a commitment to sourcing regionally or sustainably grown ingredients as the business matures? When the owners are ready to do something else—or just to shoulder a little bit less of the burden of keeping the business going—how can their commitment to regional sourcing be maintained? Real Pickles’ decision to form a worker co-op models one answer to this important question.

Every month, I attend meetings of the PVGrows Loan Fund as CISA’s representative. When local farm and food businesses apply to us for financing, we review a list of criteria that represent our mission of “enhancing the ecological and economic sustainability and vitality of the Pioneer Valley food system.” Among our concerns is long-term commitment to the Pioneer Valley. If we finance a new business, will they continue to source from local farmers in the long run, or will they decide that it’s less expensive to find their ingredients in the global marketplace? Or might they move altogether, finding both cheaper ingredients and cheaper labor? When evaluating loan applicants, we often have no way to assess the owners’ long-term commitment to our region.

Real Pickles’ new ownership structure, in contrast, provides two clear answers to this question. First, the business will now have multiple owners, all relying on its success for their employment, and unlikely to choose to ship their jobs someplace else. Second, they’ve codified their commitment to regional sourcing and regional sales in their bylaws, and made those bylaws very difficult to change. Rather than getting big and getting bought out by a larger corporation with, perhaps, a stronger commitment to their shareholders’ profits than to our local economy, Real Pickles has strengthened their commitment to our region while restructuring their ownership.

Real Pickles’ action reminds me of a courageous step taken by another Franklin County business more than a decade ago. In 1998, a group of Franklin County dairy farmers decided to form a co-op and market their own milk to local consumers, becoming Our Family Farms. They introduced the milk by giving out lots of free samples, explaining that it came from their own farms, right down the road. There wasn’t much fanfare then about locally grown food, but the response was clear: the milk was delicious, and local residents understood that supporting businesses in their own communities benefitted the local economy. Many farmers and farm advocates in the region took notice. At CISA, when we started the Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown campaign the following year, Our Family Farms’ success gave us confidence that the campaign would resonate here in the Pioneer Valley. CISA is now celebrating our 20th anniversary, and the founding of Our Family Farms was a critical milestone on the road to the Local Hero campaign and the explosion of interest in local food and farms.

I expect that Real Pickles’ decision to form a worker co-op—and the campaign for investors which will finance the shift in ownership—will play a similarly important role in the growth of our local food system. Growth and success can lead to a renewed commitment to our region and the health of its farms, workers, and local economy. And as residents of this region, some of us can do more than applaud and eat pickles: we can finance this growth from within our own community.

For more information about Real Pickles’ co-op investment campaign, visit www.realpickles.com/invest.

Posted December 16, 2011 by Dan

Why Our Food System Needs the Occupy Movement

Here in western Massachusetts, we are fortunate to be part of a community brimming with exciting efforts to build a new and better food system. Farms of all kinds are starting up or heading in new directions: offering winter CSA shares, doing on-farm cheese or yogurt production, growing grains and selling them to local bakeries. Non-farm businesses are using more local ingredients in their restaurants or using them to produce value-added foods like salsas, meads, and (in our case) fermented pickles. New retail markets are forming for local/regional foods, such as winter farmers’ markets and a new food co-op. Non-profits are doing tremendously valuable work, as well, whether encouraging people to “Be A Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown” or running an incubator kitchen for start-up food businesses.

To someone like myself who sees enormous social value in transitioning to a regionally-based, organic food system, these developments are very encouraging. And, of course, such activity can be found in many other communities around the country (and beyond), not just in western Massachusetts.

In my view, this is an approach to social change that can produce substantial progress. Small farm and food businesses create the building blocks for the new food system. People generate increased market demand by choosing to buy their products. Non-profit organizations help in all sorts of ways. The momentum starts to build as more people come to be exposed to the benefits of a regional, organic food model–as more people get to taste the really good food it puts out, as they see the farms in their communities beginning to thrive. And in time, people can even come to perceive a new food system taking hold (at least at the margins), and imagine the possibility that the corporate, industrial food system could truly be replaced.

But, while this work on a local/regional scale to start building the replacement for the current food system is hugely important (I would not have started a pickle business if I thought otherwise), I don’t see a true transformation of the food system happening by this avenue alone. We also need something like…well, the Occupy movement.

The Cheap Food System

A key challenge in trying to change the food system is that our political-economic system offers enormous advantages to the purveyors of industrial food. The result is that the big food corporations can sell their products for extremely low prices. With healthy, regionally-produced, organic food made to look expensive in comparison, it becomes difficult to compete. Those who see the benefits–and have the ability to pay–will buy regional, organic food. But, as long as we have a cheap food system, local efforts to change things will only be able to convince so many people to switch to the good stuff.

Of course, cheap food is not actually cheap. It’s just that a portion of its cost is being paid for at someplace other than the supermarket checkout. Our taxes, for example, fund the billions of dollars in subsidies–mostly going to the largest farms–for commodity crops like corn and soybeans, whose by-products can then serve as cheap ingredients for processed foods. Our ever-increasing health insurance premiums pay the bills for the diabetes and obesity epidemics caused by high-fructose corn syrup and other refined sweeteners.

Other costs are being substantially passed off to future generations. The current-day farm practices which are causing our agricultural soils to erode away ten times faster than they can be regenerated will mean less farmland from which our grandchildren will be able to feed themselves. And, the burning of fossil fuels to transport our food thousands of miles from farm to plate will result in an outsized burden for our descendants as the effects of climate change further unfold.

These are the kinds of “externalized costs”, as economists call them, which constitute the unfair advantage of corporate, industrial food. (Regional, organic food has such costs, too, but to a far smaller degree.) Until eliminated, this advantage will continue to stymie efforts to fundamentally change the food system. And yet, those working on a local/regional scale–as opposed to a national scale–are not going to be able to change this equation. This is where we need the Occupy movement.

There are, of course, the more everyday tools for effecting national political change–lobbying, petition drives, electoral campaigns. And, use of such tools has yielded some progress, as illustrated by programs in the Farm Bill promoting local food and conservation (as limited as they may be). But, as I see it (and I’m clearly not alone), not enough progress has been made. The problems of our food system are serious and urgent, and the ever-increasing influence of money in politics makes the prospect for serious change by everyday means very slim. Our food system needs a non-violent, direct protest movement that views our society’s challenges in a systemic way and demands serious change. The kind of change that would mean an end to the excessive advantage and influence held by corporations in our food system–and in our society as a whole. Our food system needs the Occupy movement.

Food as a Right, Not a Privilege

There is a second reason why our food system needs the Occupy movement. If we are to finally succeed in stripping the big corporations of their unfair advantage–the ability to pass off to society the social and ecological costs of their activities–then most of us are going to find our food costs increase. Having learned just how expensive “cheap” industrial food really is, we will have substantially switched to healthy, organic, regionally-produced food. The price on that delicious tomato from the organic farm down the road will finally beat out the price on that pale, sad excuse for a vegetable (or fruit, to be precise) flown in from who-knows-where. But the local, organic tomato will still cost more than the industrial version used to cost.

For many people–I would venture to suggest the clear majority of Americans–this will be a manageable adjustment. It will require a re-alignment of expectations about the percentage of household income spent on food: perhaps Americans will end up devoting closer to 24% of income on food as we did in the 1920s, up from the 9% we currently spend. Many millions of Americans, however, will be able to handle this–especially when one considers all of the societal costs which will have been avoided (societal costs, of course, eventually translating into individual costs like taxes and insurance premiums).

Still, a substantial number of Americans will not be able to afford higher food prices. Many of them cannot afford food even at current prices. Thus, what is already an imperative will become even more critical: that access to food be made a right, rather than a mere privilege. Every person deserves to be able to afford to eat healthy, nutritious food, and we as a society need to figure out how to make that an assured reality. This is not something that those involved in local efforts to change the food system can do much about. Communities can develop good food pantry networks or organize fundraisers for low income shoppers at farmers’ markets, but they’re in a poor position to institutionalize food as a right.

The Occupy movement, however, can help get us there. Just as with corporate advantage, this is not a challenge that is likely to be overcome by everyday petitioning and lobbying efforts. Establishing access to healthy food as a right will come only as part of a bigger societal shift. And, such a shift is precisely what the protesters at Occupy Wall Street have been talking about from the beginning. As stated in their Principles of Solidarity: “We are daring to imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers great possibility of equality.” This is about moving toward a society in which it is not just the 1% that are guaranteed to eat. 100% are guaranteed to eat.

If, then, we are to build a truly new food system, I suggest this: Let us be engaged, wherever we are able, in that much-needed work of creating a better structure from the ground up–buying local/regional, starting or supporting small farms and food businesses, developing community gardens, joining support organizations. And in our broader-scale efforts, may we not give up on the standard citizen tools of the political process (letters, petitions, etc.). But at this moment, let us also give serious consideration to how we can best support and participate in the Occupy movement and help to chart its future direction.

After all, we are the 99%. It’s our movement, too, regardless of whether or not we have yet joined a single street protest. This is a moment with great potential to effect serious social change and move us toward becoming a more equitable and sustainable society. May we make the most of it.

Posted November 11, 2011 by Dan

Lessons from a Muddy Season

Dave Chamutka of Chamutka Farm recently harvested the last of his 2011 cabbage crop and delivered it to our door. By the next day, those cabbages were all peeled, cored, shredded, salted, and fermenting in barrels. It was the final batch of vegetables for the year for us. We’re now stocked up until next season – the cooler is full of packed cucumber pickles, the warehouse extra-full of barrels of fermenting cabbage, beets, and ginger carrots.

This particular November, it’s a bit of a relief walking through our warehouse and seeing all those barrels full of locally-grown vegetables on their way to becoming pickles. Given how heavily we depend here at Real Pickles on the success of the local farm harvest, there was a lot of uncertainty this season about how things were going to go.

The first concrete indication that 2011 might be a little different came in June when Gideon Porth from Atlas Farm called up to say that he was re-seeding his entire main crop of pickling cucumbers, and so we should expect a delay in the harvest this year. Many of the cucumber seeds had just rotted in the mud, as spring had been so cool and wet. As we got further into the season, we learned that the spring weather had affected many of the other crops we were waiting on, as well.

Once July hit, the weather got hot and quite dry for awhile. But, the dry weather, of course, was not to remain. In late August, Irene dumped epic amounts of rain on all the farm fields in the area. Within a couple days, the Connecticut River was overflowing its banks and flooding fields at three of the six farms we work with (among many other area farms). Harlow Farm, in Westminster, VT, was especially hard hit – a significant portion of the farm was underwater before the river finally receded. The sky was blue within a day of Irene’s passing, but many more inches of rain came down in the weeks following. By the time Dave Chamutka was ready to start harvesting his cabbage in late September, his fields were so muddy he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get in there to cut them.

In the end, though, we managed to fill all those barrels with top quality, delicious, locally-grown, organic vegetables. Amazing! Despite the odds, the area’s local farmers came through for us. Gideon re-planted those seeds and went on to grow us plenty of beautiful pickling cukes. Dave and his crew had to walk those first heavy crates of cabbage all the way out of the muddy field before being able to finally drive a truck in, but in the end managed to deliver to us what we needed to stock up on Organic Sauerkraut for the year. The losses at Harlow Farm included carrots we were planning to buy. But, we struck up a relationship with Joe Czajkowski, a third-generation farmer in Hadley, MA, who was able to fill in so that we could keep making our Organic Ginger Carrots.

We are always appreciative here of our local farmers, but in a year like this one we are especially thankful. This season we were reminded of the challenges of committing to buying our ingredients only from local farms. If we hadn’t been able to get enough cabbage, then come next spring we would be running out of several Real Pickles products. But, even more, we were reminded of how resilient a well-developed local/regional food system can be. After all, local farms still produced a tremendous amount of food this year, despite the adversity.

Resiliency is one reason why local/regional food systems make so much more sense than our dominant industrial one. This has much to do with diversity and decentralization, as opposed to monoculture and centralization. In our centralized industrial system, the majority of lettuce consumed in the United States is produced monoculture-style in Salinas, CA. As a result, when the weather in Salinas is bad for lettuce, suddenly an important food can become scarce and expensive as far away as New England. An even worse situation ensues when scary pathogens like E. coli 0157:H7 (whose appearance seems to be a direct result of industrial agricultural practices – see Michael Pollan for details) show up on a crop like lettuce. With agricultural production so concentrated, such contamination quickly leads to widespread illness and nationwide recalls.

But, the diversity and decentralization that come with local/regional food systems promise to make us far less vulnerable than that. On farms producing many different crops, rough conditions in a given year are likely to impact certain ones but are unlikely to impact everything. In the huge October snowstorm we experienced recently, Atlas Farm’s two-acre lettuce crop got squashed by the snow, but their other autumn crops survived. In a decentralized food system, a critical crop shortage experienced by a particular region in a given year could likely be rectified by sourcing from another region. No one need starve.

A food system’s resiliency does not stem solely from diversity and decentralization, however. As I think about all of those cucumbers the crew at Atlas Farm managed to harvest for us after such an inhospitable spring, and about all the heads of cabbage that were coaxed to maturity in the mud at Chamutka Farm, I am reminded that it is also the skill, tenacity, and creativity of the farmers that make a food system resilient. Those farmers worked especially hard this season. We at Real Pickles wish them a good winter’s rest!

Posted October 28, 2011 by Dan

Occupy Wall Street: An Interview

As I noted last time, on the subject of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Real Pickles: We are doing essentially the same work, even if employing different approaches to making change in the world, and from mostly different locales. But, some actual connections are being made these days between the two efforts. A couple weeks back, we shipped two gallons of sauerkraut as food donation to the protesters in NYC as a show of support. And, recently some staff members from Real Pickles have made opportunities to drop in on the protests. Joe Mirkin, Real Pickles’ stellar facility manager and co-production manager, joined in on the events in NYC for a weekend and came back with some thoughts to share. Here are some excerpts from an interview I did with him:

DR: What prompted you to travel down to NYC to join in with OWS?

JM: After several weeks of reading news reports, it seemed the protests were gaining steam. What at first seemed like a flash in the pan quickly turned into the genesis of a popular uprising. Hey, who doesn’t want to be part of a popular uprising? So I got restless, grabbed a couple friends, some sleeping bags, and drove down to OWS. I also have friends in NYC who had participated in the OWS protests in the weeks prior to my visit. They all said the same thing, “You gotta get down here and see it for yourself!” Which is now what I tell everybody who is interested in the goings on of OWS: Go see it for yourself!

DR: When you arrived, did you find what you were expecting? How did things match your expectations? What surprised you?

JM: Heading down there, I figured I’d find just a bunch of young people having meetings and sleeping in the park. What I encountered was deeply surprising and, for the most part, encouraging and inspiring. Volunteer cleaning crews roaming the park 24/7 collecting trash and recyclables; a composting/gray water operation for recycling food scraps; a makeshift kitchen serving thousands of decent meals every day; an extraordinarily well-stocked, well-organized People’s Library fully staffed with friendly and competent librarians offering free reading material on all matter of subjects; people of all ages and various social classes; successfully facilitated General Assembly meetings with hundreds or thousands of participants; spontaneous classes and workshops organized and attended by interested people; clothing and bedding donations arriving by the carload, all sorted by volunteers and given away for free to anyone in need.
One of the things I did expect to find was a very significant amount of police present, and that was certainly the reality. The NYPD has these surveillance towers which can raise and lower from the ground to a height of almost 30′. The only other times I’ve seen anything like them were at Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., and overlooking Beale St in Memphis, TN. The police apparently prepare for the worst when it comes to large gatherings of peaceful people, whether it be in protest, in celebration, or to hear blues music and eat barbecue.

DR: How do you see OWS fitting into the work for social change that needs to happen?

JM: Having untold numbers of people marching and demonstrating in the streets everyday allows for a whole slew of other social change to take place. The primary benefit I can see is that the protests allow all the groups that were already engaged in making change to expand their imaginations on what kind of progress is possible. They can demand more in their lists of goals, they can intensify and amplify their tactics for winning change, and they can build relationships and coalitions with other groups that may not have previously had specific overlapping issues. You’ve seen all sorts of labor unions come out in support of OWS, and now you’re seeing OWS link up with other movements for change around the city. The same dynamic is playing out at Occupy protests all over the country. I don’t think the camping out part alone is going to bring down corporate greed and all its associated ills, but it does seem to be a catalyst for a more networked and energized movement for justice.

DR: What’s your assessment of the “message” coming out of OWS? What do you think of the criticism that the movement doesn’t have a clear, coherent message?

JM: The moment people at OWS begin pushing a single demand is the moment a lot of people will decide to stop participating. The real strength of the protest – the actual power that makes the city and the banks so bloody nervous – is the broad base of support OWS has. Any action taken to weed out some issues in favor of others will only weaken this power, and so it is best to avoid any such thing, in my estimation. That certainly does not preclude OWS from issuing messages about the protest, which they have done. Nor should it keep individuals from teaching and talking to others about those issues close to them, which some people do. Keeping the message as broad as the 99% of people in this country is no easy task, least of all because of the pressure from media to present clear, concise demands. But it’s well worth the effort if OWS is to maintain the strength it has gained.

DR: After posting my blog entry, “Occupy Wall Street and Organic Pickles”, we heard from a couple Real Pickles customers who were frustrated over our support for OWS. They cited several reasons for opposing the protests. One was that the protests were “disruptive”. Any thoughts about that, having participated in them?

JM: My response to that criticism is: Ask the millions of people losing their housing due to mortgage lending practices if they consider the protesters “disruptive”. Ask any farmer who’s been taken to court by Monsanto for intellectual property theft if they think OWS is “disruptive”. Ask any teacher or firefighter in Wisconsin if the word they would use to describe OWS protesters is “disruptive”. It goes on and on. Hard to imagine that a single protest in New York City can be even remotely close to being as disruptive as modern-day global neoliberal capitalism.

DR: Another criticism we heard was that direct action (i.e.-street demonstrations) is not the way to go about changing the world. Instead, it is best to follow Gandhi’s precept to “be the change you want to see in the world” and focus on, say, making organic pickles from locally-grown vegetables or buying locally-grown food. What are your thoughts about the relative importance of these different approaches to making social change?

JM: Changing the systems of food production and consumption in this country is of obvious importance to creating a better world. Sometimes in order to achieve your goal you need a diversity of tactics. Say you want to purchase food that was produced by workers who are paid fair wages. It may be as easy as going to a different store or market and maybe spending a little bit more money. But, sometimes one may have to do as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers down in Florida has done, and head out to the streets to demand that corporate grocery chains pay fair prices for hand-picked produce!

Posted October 14, 2011 by Dan

Occupy Wall Street and Organic Pickles

In lower Manhattan and in cities and towns across the country, thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand change. We are the 99%, they are saying, here to put an end to the societal injustices perpetuated by the 1%. Those occupying Wall Street and elsewhere are speaking out against the concentration of corporate power and its negative impact on people and ecosystems, including problems ranging from joblessness and lack of access to health care to loss of biodiversity and accelerating climate change.

Meanwhile, in western Massachusetts, a small crew is hard at work inside a solar-powered food processing facility, peeling and shredding cabbages freshly harvested from an organic farm ten miles away. The cabbage will ferment for several months, and then be sold as raw sauerkraut to stores around the Northeast.

Occupying the streets. Making organic pickles. Any connection here? I would say so.

At first glance, what happens here at Real Pickles appears to be merely ordinary business activity. Just a small enterprise trying to yield a reasonable profit by producing food for people. An observer not so familiar with the workings of contemporary America might be tempted to think it normal, as well, that we source our vegetables from a small organic farm down the road, generate our own power, sell our pickles in raw and fermented form, and only distribute within our own region. But of course, in 2011 here in the United States, there is nothing ordinary at all about such practices. Nor is it typical these days for people to be eating food produced by a small business.

While the representatives of the 99% are seeking to occupy Wall Street, we should probably be thinking of the 1% as the real occupiers. Climate activist Bill McKibben, in a recent address to the demonstrators in NYC, noted: “Wall Street has been occupying the atmosphere. That’s why we can never do anything about global warming. Exxon gets in the way. Goldman Sachs gets in the way.” Indeed, Wall Street has long been occupying many realms of our lives. And our food system is a prime example.

Local food production and distribution by small businesses certainly used to be the norm. But these days, our food system is primarily national and international in scale. It is dominated by huge corporations with massive influence over what we eat and how it is grown, processed, distributed, and sold. These companies have spent significant sums of money to convince us that there is nothing wrong with this picture. Monsanto’s public relations message is that we need them if we are to “feed the world”. Kraft Foods assures us that they’re there for us, “fighting hunger and encouraging healthy lifestyles”.

Increasingly, however, people are starting to see through the slick PR campaigns. They are starting to see connections between the corporate control of our food system and a wide variety of societal problems – the diabetes and obesity epidemics, the huge “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, and ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions, just to name a few. Indeed, I think the evidence is robust and convincing enough to say quite clearly: A global, corporate-dominated food system has profoundly negative consequences for people and ecosystems. We are, without a doubt, in need of a new food system.

Here, then, lies the connection between Occupy Wall Street and a business such as Real Pickles. Among the Wall Street protesters, some are more radical than others in their demands for change. But there appears, by and large, to be a unified determination to alter the balance of power in our society away from the corporate elite and in favor of the 99%, and thereby begin to remedy a long list of social and ecological problems.

At Real Pickles, we are doing essentially the same work. Having recognized that a corporate-dominated food system does not serve our society well, we have set about helping to build a new one. Real Pickles is small, people-centered, ecologically-conscious, and local/regional in scale; and puts out food that is authentic and nourishing. The aim is that this business will serve as a model as our new and better food system emerges. Just like those protesting on Wall Street, we also recognize that the problems stemming from corporate control extend far beyond the food system, and hope that our work has impact as part of a broader re-shaping of our society, as well.

Occupy Wall Street and Real Pickles represent different approaches to the same effort. Many approaches are needed, as there is much work to be done and no one simple path to an equitable and sustainable society. So, it is with excitement that we witness the latest social ferment on the streets. Here at Real Pickles we love fermentation! We fully support the Occupy Wall Street protests and are delighted to be engaged together in the work for a better world.

Header photo: David Shankbone