As champions of buy local for more than 20 years, our family owned and operated business has grown alongside both small and large scale BC farmers. With a local first procurement policy, we purchase with a purpose aiming to create opportunities within our food systems.
Jordan Marr is a certified organic farmer at The Homestead Organic Farm in Peachland (you’ll often find The Homestead’s greens in our stores in Kelowna and Westbank). Between weeding his beds a few seasons ago, Jordan took some time to write about working with us and the local store, local farm relationship for the Good Life magazine.
“Every Monday during the growing season, I call Noreen in Westbank and Garret in Kelowna. I find out how their weekend went, and vice versa. Then we get down to brass tacks, making lists of greens and radishes and kale to be delivered. I show up on Wednesday in my crappy Mazda to find six offers of help to unload my truck from staff members. Everyone is in a good mood. And like clockwork, the cheques from Nature’s Fare arrive once a week. It’s a great way to do business. And it’s belying the notion that chain grocery stores and small farmers are incompatible.”
Likewise high-quality and ethically raised meats are not only good for you, but they are good for our local food economies.
“Local was a somewhat new buzz word when we started our distribution and processing company in 2008,” says Jason Pleym with Two Rivers Specialty Meats. “For us it is all about the story, we know our partners and farmers, so we know where the meat has come from and how it was raised. There’s a quality and ethics standard that frames our business based on happy animals.”
Two Rivers is more than a marketer of local meats that are free of antibiotics, hormones, and chemical feed additives, they are also a processor that takes pride in the finished product. “25-50% of the quality attributes are the aging components of beef,” says Pleym. “We use a dry-aging method that extracts water from the meat to help with tenderness and flavor profile.”
The company’s full production facility in North Vancouver handles the aging, butchering and packaging for more than 20 partner farms. Shop for Twin Rivers product in our stores.
Be a Co-producer
In closing, we wanted to share some buy local lingo we like these days. The Slow Food movement’s messaging promotes a shift in our mindsets from consume to co-produce. Here’s how to get started according to the organization’s website:
- Buy whole ingredients. Cook them. Eat them.
- Avoid processed stuff with long ingredient lists. Eat real food.
- Grow some of your own food. Even if just on your windowsill.
- Whenever possible, know the story behind the food you buy.
- Buy local food; find out what is in season!
