Re: Whole Foods buying local?

Greg & Lei Gunthorp (hey4hogs@kuntrynet.com)
Thu, 5 Aug 1999 07:41:46 -0500

I know how you feel on the meat sales to this guys. I have about a
thousand pigs a year. All Federal Inspected. All properly labelled, the
whole works. They continue to purchase theirs from Premium Standard Farms
and talk about free range and humanely raised.
They don't even have to have the open door on the barn to label them free
range or free roaming. Only certain square feet requirements in their
concentration camps. It is conventional product and a marketing gimmick
that they sell.

Aren't you one of the scheduled stops for the pasture chicken genetics
symposium? I've got a good friend that is going to the conference.
Best wishes,
Greg
Free Range Hog Farmer

----------
> From: Patricia Foreman <goodearth@rockbridge.net>
> To: sanet <sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu>
> Subject: Whole Foods buying local?
> Date: Wednesday, August 04, 1999 5:50 PM
>
> The point I want to make in this discussion is not whether or not Whole
> Foods can or will buy from local growers, but that they should not be
using
> our image of wholesomeness and goodness to sell their mostly conventional
> products. We small farmers are pawns in the Whole Foods advertising and
> marketing ploys. They are very good at using phrases such as FREE ROAMING
to
> dupe their customers into believing that ALL their products are organic,
> when this isn't even close to being reality. I agree with all of you who
say
> that a chain store has buying challenges that small farmers often can't
> meet. For that matter, most small farmers can make more money, easier, by
> selling to local consumers. But, when a farmer represents a group able to
> produce 50,000 pasture-raised broilers annually, with a consistently
> excellent, USDA packaged product, available every month of the year, then
we
> should at least have an opportunity to talk to a chain store buyer.
Instead,
> Whole Foods continues to buy their chickens from the broiler barns, then
> resorts to phony advertising such as FREE ROAMING to sell product.
> Incidentally, the US Department of Agriculture encourages this duplicity
by
> allowing labeling of organic chickens and eggs that are grown in barns
> without access to any pasture. They also allow labeling of FREE RANGE any
> time chickens have access to an open door that leads to the barn yard. We
> should ask USDA to tighten up the labeling requirements.
>
> Andy Lee
> Good Earth Farm
>
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