Regional food update. Thanksgiving always marks the beginning of the harvest season for our growers in Arizona. Citrus trees start to ripen as the cooler nights help increase sugar production of the fruit. Warm days and cool nights are a perfect recipe for growing greens, broccoli, and cauliflower. Among others. So although I am wearing a toasty winter jacket, Arizona growers are just coming into their peak season right now. Our network of Arizona growers is a pretty unique situation that allows us to bring you some incredible produce, at a great value, and within 400 miles of your front door during the coldest part of winter. Let’s look at this a bit.
One of my favorite things to do is search our region to see what cool business models are out there and who is doing what. It was during one of these searches when I met my buddy Philip. Philip owns/runs Patagonia Orchards south of Tucson. I feel like we are a lot alike as we both like to grow food but also try and help fellow growers find homes for their produce. Give growers a louder voice at the table.
Talking to Philip almost 7 years ago, he introduced me to a whole other world of winter food in Arizona. Only 400 miles away, but growers there live in a different climate. Their “off-season” runs from June until September when it is too hot to make produce happy. But from November until late May, the growers enjoy some of the best growing weather anywhere.
And by aggregating these smaller growers we get access to some incredible varieties of produce that you will never see in the grocery store. It is not uncommon for Philip to call me up and say, “Hey, I have a guy here who has one old tree of Leopard heirloom lemons, you want them?” Next thing you know we get boxes of some obscure weird looking fruit to try. These are the kind of partnerships that make me really love what we do and proud of what we are able to bring you.
So I will leave it there for now knowing that there is a lot more to talk about when it comes to our fantastic partners that we cultivate in Arizona. So stay tuned for some crazy tastes and fresh flavors coming your way.
Next up this week, a new direction to help end food waste. A good friend of mine, Michael Jackson, once gave me some pearls of wisdom. He said to me, “Farmer M, you need to start with the man in the mirror. You need to ask him to change his ways.” And I have been thinking about that recently as I grapple with the idea of food waste in our society. Are there sound ways for us to help prevent or eliminate it on the farm?
It is no secret that food waste is The hot topic in the food world right now. As I have mentioned before, many growers will lose half of their harvest because the bell pepper or cucumber is not perfect enough to sit on a grocery shelf. This need for aesthetically pleasing food increases the cost of all of our food as well as straps growers with huge inefficiencies. So I had a light bulb with something that we can do on our small scale and we will see how it goes…
I introduce to you the Scratch n Dent Harvest Box (if you have a better name, please let me know!) The idea is simple and we have launched it already. Basically we now have a Harvest Box that is 12 lbs of fresh fruits and veggies. It will always be a variety of produce, but you cannot make substitutions. The items in the box will be things that we cannot otherwise sell because the tomato has a small spot on it or the apple has a little hole. This is NOT a slimy box of compost. The idea is that if you are willing to cut out a little bad piece of the fruit, you can save that food and save your wallet a ton. The price for this 12 lb box is only $15!
My hope is that we can find a loving home for every single piece of food that comes through our door. Food waste is terrible for the environment and is a huge cost burden that gets shouldered by the consumer. Did you know that most grocery stores will throw out close to 10% of their food? Consumers pay for that additional 10% with every purchase. So let’s start with our farm and our food, and see if we can get our food waste down to zero. We are close already with the CSA model that we run, but I am willing to bet that we can get it to zero. Let’s do this.
Enjoy, Farmer Monte