September 1, 2016

Spotlight on Gringo Jack’s

As we kick off our month-long Eat Local Challenge, we’re shining our Co-op Spotlight on Gringo Jack’s! Member-owners can enjoy 20% off Gringo Jack’s full line of delicious local tortilla chips, salsas, and sauces this week, so it’s a great time to plan a localvore fiesta! Read on to learn more about Gringo Jack’s, their commitment to sourcing quality local ingredients, and their recently launched Chip In campaign.

Our Mission

At Gringo Jack’s, we’re dedicated to producing handcrafted, flaky tortilla chips along with natural, vegetarian sauces and salsas – always successfully pre-tested in our own restaurant kitchen. We promise to always prepare each recipe in small batches, with only quality ingredients – no fillers or preservatives – giving the consumer the means to create a healthy, gourmet WOW without the extra work. We stand for taste, quality, and uniqueness, always.

Who Are We

We’re just a bunch of gringos that found ourselves in Vermont. But we’re doing our flaky chips, sauces, and salsas better than anyone. Our spices, textures, and flavors will knock your socks off. And we’re doing it the all-natural way, without preservatives or ingredients you can’t pronounce. Just fresh and authentic ingredients for a fresh and authentic taste. Our Co-Founders are Jack Gilbert and Michele Kropp. Jack is an artist and restauranteur and it’s his belief that real flavor comes only from authentic, quality ingredients. Michelle is daughter and wife to two wonderful chefs, and good food is her true passion. Her commitment to real, minimally processed food ensures that Gringo Jack’s products are the very best!

How Are We Different

How are we unique from the other wonderful, healthy products out there? First, we use local ingredients whenever possible. Here’s a list of some of the local farmers and producers from which our ingredients are sourced:

Long Wind Farm in Thetford
True Love Farm in Bennington
Clear Brook Farm in Shaftsbury
Singing Cedars Farm in Orwell
Yoder Farm in Danby
Full Sun Company in Middlebury
Sugar Bob’s Finest Kind in Londonderry

In addition to sourcing the best local ingredients whenever possible, we also make our products from scratch. Our BBQ sauces do not contain ketchup – rather, we make our own ketchup. Our chips are so unique with a light, flaky crunch and a hand dusting of spices. We also make all products in small batches to ensure quality in every bag and jar. Bottom line – it doesn’t get better or tastier than Gringo Jack’s!

Our CHIP IN Campaign

Calling all Vermonters! We know you already support local and buy local, now you can invest local! CHIP IN is an investment campaign by Gringo Jack’s to expand our line of locally produced and sourced specialty food products. It is an opportunity for Vermonters to help grow local business and invest in the economy here at home.

The CHIP IN Campaign will raise capital to expand our product lines and distribution networks. It will also allow us to build new partnerships with local farms, producers and retail establishments, in addition to building a regional food system and more jobs in Vermont.

CHIP IN provides not only the potential for a return on investment, it also allows Vermonters to make a social investment that will help support and grow the local economy.

CHIP IN is made possible by the Vermont Small Business Offering (VSBO). VSBO is a new program that allows Vermonters to make small investments in local businesses and help grow the Vermont economy.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
We need your help to make CHIP IN successful! Milk Money is the crowd-funding portal for CHIP IN and VSBO. Click here to learn more and INVEST LOCALLY.

September 1, 2016

Co-op Connection Deals on Shoes & Apparel!

With back-to-school season looming large, perhaps the kids are asking for some new duds? And maybe those old, tired winter boots are no longer keeping the elements out? Or, maybe you’re in the market for a new pair of Carhartt’s or some Darn Tough socks? It’s a perfect time to check out our Co-op Connection Business of the Month – Green Mountain Shoe & Apparel! Co-op member-owners can enjoy 10% off when they shop at Green Mountain Shoe & Apparel! Read on to learn more about this family-owned local business and the wide array of products they offer to keep you covered from head to toe.

Here at Green Mountain Shoe & Apparel we believe that high-quality products and good service should also be affordable. That’s why we carry the brands you know and trust. We offer a wide variety of dress & casual shoes for the entire family. Sneakers by Asics, New Balance, & Saucony. Casual shoes by Merrell, Keen, Born, Haflinger, Sanita & Dansko clogs. We know which products run narrow or wide, which ones will break in and which ones hold their shape. Both quality and comfort are important to us. We’ll help you get the shoe that is right for you.

Our store is also chock full of fleece, jackets, hats, gloves, jeans, vests, and coats. We’ve got your favorite brands of casual clothing by Woolrich, Carhartt, & North River, and socks by Smartwool & Darn Tough. Our selection of Carhartt is one of the best in Vermont and if we don’t have your size in stock we are always happy to order it for you. Find out what the locals already know- Green Mountain Shoe & Apparel is their source for work wear, warm gear, and year-round comfortable clothing and footwear.

Our family-owned business has been serving our communities for over 12 years in Middlebury and 7 years in Bristol. We carry the items your family needs from head to toe!

We have two locations to serve you:

Middlebury- 260 Court St., Suite 4, near Hannaford.

Bristol – 1 Main St., in the heart of downtown.

August 18, 2016

Spotlight on Orb Weaver Farm

We’re casting our Spotlight on a farm that has been a part of our Co-op family since 1981 – Orb Weaver Farm. While we shed some light on this local 100-acre gem this week, member-owners can enjoy 20% off their full line of glorious cheeses and organic produce. Read on to learn more about Orb Weaver Farm, the fabulous female farmers responsible for it, and the wonderful bounty of products they bring to our Co-op:

The Farm –

Orb Weaver Farm sits on one hundred acres in the Champlain Valley, the rocky top of Camel’s Hump Mountain visible towards the east. Patchwork fields bordered by hedgerows, dotted with Jersey cows, bales of hay waiting to be picked up, a green tractor tilling the earth. Straight garden rows planted with lettuce, swiss chard, tomatoes, peppers, flowers. Our 200-year-old farmhouse, and across the yard the weathered barn, the cheese cave carved into a hillside, fronted by huge stone slabs. The seasons dictate our chores for the day, but the rhythm of the seasons is blissfully the same, year after year, as it has always been for those who work the land. The life of a farmer is both simple and vastly complex, dependent not only on planning and muscle but also on what falls from the sky and what pushes up from the earth. This is Orb Weaver Farm, the farm we have built with our hands for over thirty years, our small piece of the beautiful Vermont earth.

We’ve been practicing sustainable farming since we began. We cultivate our organic gardens and sell the produce to local restaurants and markets. We compost all our culled vegetables, cow manure, and whey (a byproduct of making cheese) and eventually return their nutrients to the gardens and pastures.

The Farmers –

Orb Weaver Farm was founded in 1981 by Marjorie Susman and Marian Pollack. They are the driving force behind the farm, with help from farmhand extraordinaire, Lauren Slayton.

L portrait 300 dpi — Marian with Cow, circa 1976

At the Co-op, you’ll find a gorgeous array of organic produce from Orb Weaver, including plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, and big, beautiful shallots, each in their own season. You’ll also find two of our most popular cheeses: Farmhouse and Cave-Aged. Here’s what Marjorie & Marian have to say about these delicious cheeses and the cows that make it possible:

Farmhouse Cheese –

When farmers use milk exclusively from their own cows to make cheese, it’s called “farmhouse cheese.” That’s what we’ ve been doing at Orb Weaver Farm since 1982. We milk our Jersey cows to make rich, raw milk cheese with a slightly tangy, full-bodied flavor. More moist than cheddar, our Farmhouse Cheese has a natural buttery color and smooth, creamy texture. It is delicious with wine, melts beautifully to complement any recipe, brings grilled cheese sandwiches to new heights, and distinctively tops nachos and pizza. Our two-pound waxed and cave aged wheels also make elegant gifts that are easy to mail.

Cave-Aged Cheese –

In 2001, we took a new step into an age-old tradition and began making cave-aged cheese. Using stones from neighboring Panton, VT, we built a cave in a small hillside on our farm to replicate as closely as possible the aging process used for centuries before refrigeration. Cave conditions are warmer and more humid than those for our standard farmhouse cheese, and the aging cycle is longer – up to a year for a 10-pound wheel. We don’t wax cave-aged cheese, but instead turn and brush the wheels every other day for several months, creating a natural rind. The end result is heaven for cheese lovers: a robust, complex array of nutty, earthy flavors and a firm, slightly drier texture that makes our cave-aged cheese a true delicacy. Cave-aged cheese may require more time and TLC, but we think you’ll agree the results are more than worth it.

We make our cheeses simply, in the European tradition. We stir, form, and date-stamp each wheel by hand – we don’t use mechanical stirrers or hydraulic presses. Our wheels age from 6 to 12 months and, since we do everything ourselves, quantities are limited. We make cheese from November through May. We give our cows, and ourselves, a break every summer while we tend our organic gardens.

The Herd –

In our experience, Jerseys give the highest quality milk for cheesemaking, with more butterfat, protein, and vitamins than milk from other breeds. Because we care for our own Jerseys, we know we’re always using the purest, most nutritious milk possible for fine-quality farmhouse and cave-aged cheeses.

We feed our cows sweet-tasting, sweet-smelling grain and organic hay to produce the most savory milk. That’s one of the reasons we won an award for the best-tasting milk in Vermont. For cheese, we milk a small family of seven Jerseys. Happy cows make the best milk, and so our Jerseys enjoy the sounds of classical music whenever they’re not rotationally grazing 30 acres of clover pasture.

We love our farm in Vermont’s beautiful Champlain Valley. During an era when family farms are quickly disappearing, we feel blessed that our small farm is thriving.

August 11, 2016

Spotlight on Vermont Smoke & Cure

We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Vermont Smoke & Cure this week to shed a little light on their recent qualification for B Corps certification. This designation is granted to companies that use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. Vermont Smoke & Cure received the certification thanks to their sustainable and socially conscious business practices such as sourcing meats raised humanely and without the use of antibiotics, using ingredients from local farms, offering commercial meat processing services to family-scale farmers, and utilizing solar power. The company also fosters an ownership culture by granting employee stock options to each of its employees. Their full line of smoked and cured meat products are 20% off for member-owners this week, so it’s a perfect time to stock up and save! Read on to learn about their rich history and commitment to small batch meats proudly made in Vermont:

At Vermont Smoke & Cure, we’ve been consciously crafting delicious smoked meats and meat snacks since 1962. We use humanely raised meats whenever possible, and simple local ingredients like Vermont maple syrup and apple cider, combined with the highest quality spices and herbs. Our flavors grew from the heritage of our founder, Roland LeFebvre, who started the smokehouse as “Roland’s” in South Barre, Vermont. At that time, South Barre was a small town made up of many recent immigrants drawn by the granite quarrying and carving industry. Roland based his now-famous recipes on traditional methods and ingredients. After all, the sausages had to pass muster for the large Italian population in Barre, who had come to work in the granite industry.

For the next 50 years, we operated in a farmhouse and then in the back of a gas station, until April of 2012 when we moved 50 miles to Hinesburg, Vermont, renovating a portion of a former cheesemaking facility into a world-class smokehouse. While we still use many of the same methods and recipes, Chris Bailey, our CEO, is expanding on Roland’s vision by sharing Vermont values with a larger market.

Chris has the same driving passion that inspired Roland over 50 years ago: to create great tasting meats that make customers smile. Chris is a former professional cyclist and farmer and loves to cook. He has a deep reverence for our land and an intricate understanding of our food industry. A former vegetarian turned conscious meat-eater, Chris is committed to making livestock farming more humane and sustainable while making the food we eat more healthy and delicious.

At Vermont Smoke & Cure, we believe you should feel good about where your meat comes from. We buy all of the certified humanely raised meats we can, and we have transparent sourcing for all of our meats. Along with our customers, we’re helping the meat industry move to a future that is humane, transparent and environmentally friendly.

We proudly use Vermont maple syrup and apple cider in the brines for our bacon and ham.
We primarily smoke using ground corn cobs and maple wood shavings, traditional smoke sources here in Vermont. We never use liquid or artificial smoke flavor.
We use whole muscle hams and carefully hand place each piece into its netting to ensure the best quality in every bite.
Our team of employee-owners creates everything in our Smokehouse right here in the hills of Vermont. We hand trim all of our meats and we grind our meats on-site.
Our uncured items use natural preservatives to ensure food safety.
In our Sticks and Summer Sausage, instead of just adding acids, we ferment to lower pH the old-school way for the best flavor.
Our products are gluten-free and contain no MSG
More than 50% of the electricity we use is from solar – all generated within 60 miles.
We use high-efficiency smokers that reduce our energy requirements by more than 10%.

Our work in Hinesburg, VT has earned us a fine reputation that we aim to uphold. Thank you for being part of our history and for supporting local & sustainable meat!

July 14, 2016

Spotlight on Blue Diamond Growers Cooperative

Cooperative businesses are quite diverse when it comes to the types of goods or services they provide to their member-owners. There are nearly 30,000 cooperatives across the US, including food co-ops, agricultural co-ops, housing cooperatives, artists’ co-ops, credit unions, and even sports teams that are co-ops! Despite our diversity, we are all unified by the Seven Cooperative Principles, which are a set of ideals that form the basis for how cooperatives around the world operate. They were first created in 1844 by the founders of the very first co-op, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, England, and we are still guided by this same set of ideals today. This week, we’re honoring Cooperative Principle #6 – cooperation among cooperatives, by casting our spotlight on the Blue Diamond Growers Cooperative. They’re featured in our Member Deals program, and member-owners can enjoy 20% off the full line of Blue Diamond almond products all week long! Read on to learn more about this growers’ cooperative that was formed more than 100 years ago!

The Blue Diamond Growers Cooperative was first formed by 230 almond growers on May 6,1910, at the Hotel Turclu in downtown Sacramento, California.Their original name in
1910 was the California Almond Growers Exchange. They quickly identified core values to encourage all almond growers to join the cooperative: an intuitive ability to build relationships; communicate directly and honestly; and commit unequivocally to the idea that working together cooperatively would allow them to achieve the best return on their investment.

Their commitment to these core values paid off in the end because very quickly over half of the state’s almond growers pooled their resources and joined the cooperative. This was the beginning of their resolve to prove the power of partnership. They began working with U.S. government officials, the predominant Spanish and Italian almond producers (over 80 percent of the world supply was in Spain and Italy), and buyers, mostly from New York who had family connections to almond producers in Europe, to gather market intelligence and statistical information so they could market and sell their almonds for the best value.

Their name eventually evolved to become Blue Diamond Growers to emphasize the brand that has become synonymous with quality almonds worldwide. It made the perilous journey on the backs of visionary leaders committed to the idea that only through cooperative marketing could family farmers compete in the rough and tumble markets of the world. That vision translated into more equitable returns for grower/members, a guaranteed home for their crops and an ever-expanding market for their products.

Almost single-handedly it created an industry out of a loose collection of growers and shippers, an industry that swept from being a minor player in the world market to its current status as a global leader in growing, processing and marketing almonds. Today the California almond industry produces over 80 percent of the world supply and leads the state as the largest food export.

Look for Blue Diamond products at the Middlebury Co-op in the bulk and grocery departments. In bulk we offer sliced almonds and slivered almonds. In grocery, choose from various almond milks, both refrigerated and shelf-stable, or try their gluten-free Nut Thins! These crackers are the perfect accompaniment to your favorite cheese or summer dip.

July 7, 2016

Spotlight on Orca Bay

We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Orca Bay this week to shed a little light on their efforts to source sustainable, ocean-friendly seafood for all to enjoy. Their seafood products are 20% off for member-owners this week! Read on to learn more about this energetic and creative company providing exceptional seafood choices for more than 30 years:

At Orca Bay, we are pleased to be an example of how ethics, fairness, and friendship can be core values of a healthy and thriving business endeavor. Our success and longevity is owed to a winning blend of quality, value and innovation – it’s a formula that distinguishes every level of our business. From our people, to our products, to the clients that we serve, our goal will always be to exceed expectations and to keep the Orca Bay whale synonymous with true quality and customer satisfaction. We believe that from great people come great products. Orca Bay has invested three decades searching out and nurturing business relationships with some of the most quality-minded seafood harvesters in the world. From those fishermen and harvesters to our headquarters in Seattle, we source and process the very best seafood products, offering both variety and value to the health conscious consumer. By combining convenient and informative packaging with wholesome and delicious seafood, Orca Bay consistently delivers excellence to that most important of daily social events – mealtime. We are proud that our products have garnered awards from the prestigious Alaska “Symphony of Seafood” a competition celebrating wild, all natural selections.

We view ourselves as partners with our customers, our suppliers, our community and our environment. Together we collaborate to ensure that our demand and standards for the finest seafood does not come at the expense of the individuals or oceans that provide them. We are committed to supporting organizations which promote our values in business, health, and social responsibility such as the National Fisheries Institute and Sea Share. Our seafood products are non-GMO verified, we are certified for responsible fisheries management by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI), and our seafood is certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). We’re also a participating and certified supplier in a cool program called Smart Catch, created with chefs for chefs to recognize restaurants working toward ensuring an abundant supply of seafood for generations to follow.

Why is it so important to support sustainable seafood?

From above, it may seem that there are plenty of fish in the sea, but dive beneath the surface and it’s a different story. Over-fishing, lack of effective management, and our own consumption habits are just a few factors contributing to a decline in wild fish populations. Evidence of these problems abounds.

In just the past decade, Atlantic populations of halibut and yellowtail flounder joined the list of species at all-time lows. The cod fishery, once a backbone of the North Atlantic economy, collapsed completely in the early 1990s and has shown little evidence of recovery two decades later. The breeding population of Pacific bluefin tuna is now at only four percent of its original size and decline will continue without significant, immediate management changes.

Other harmful effects of fishing—some of which are preventable with modifications to gear—also impact the ocean, including the accidental catch of unwanted species (bycatch) and habitat damage from fishing gear.

So, how did we get here? One reason is the advent of industrial-scale fishing, which began in the late 1800s and has been accompanied by significant declines in the size and abundance of fish. By the mid-1990s, these fishing practices made it impossible for natural fish stocks to keep up. Ninety percent of the world’s fisheries are now fully exploited, over-exploited or have collapsed.

Because the ocean seems so vast and its resources limitless, these threats are often “out of sight, out of mind,” but over-fishing issues are not just for future generations to bear; they’re very real problems threatening our current seafood supply and the health of our ocean. The good news is that there is much we can do.

Support sustainable seafood with your food dollars – Ask for sustainable seafood at stores and restaurants. By asking this simple but important question, you can help shape the demand for, and ultimately supply of, fish that’s been caught or farmed in environmentally sustainable ways. Consumers play an important role in shaping ocean health, so start making a difference today!
Use sustainable seafood resource guides, like this one from the Safina Center, when shopping for seafood.
Consider these ocean-friendly substitutes when the seafood in your recipe isn’t a sustainable option.
Check for logos indicating sustainable seafood options like those from the MSC or ASMI.

Want great recipes, cooking tips, and other resources? Check out Orca Bay’s web page!

June 30, 2016

Spotlight on Wood’s Market Garden

There are certain fruits and vegetables that seem to announce the changing of the seasons, and for us here at the Co-op, the day we received our first delivery of local, organic tomatoes and strawberries from Wood’s Market Garden, we knew that summer was finally here! We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Wood’s Market Garden this week to highlight their magnificent 150-acre organic farm in Brandon, VT. Member-owners can enjoy 20% off all of their glorious local, organic fruits and veggies this week, including heirloom tomatoes, succulent strawberries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers (the first of the season!), shell peas, sugar snap peas, broccoli, and cauliflower! Oh, and don’t forget the offerings from the bulk department – dried organic black beans and pinto beans! Read on to learn more about the family that makes it possible for us to offer such a beautiful bounty:

Wood’s Market Garden is a fruit, vegetable & flower farm and seasonal market nestled in the quaint town of Brandon, Vermont. Our fields have been producing fresh food for the greater Brandon community for over 100 years. Jon Satz purchased the farm 16 years ago from Bob and Sally Wood. With his passion for growing and sustainable farming practices, the farm and market have blossomed into a destination for beautiful organic vegetables, quality bedding plants and some of the sweetest strawberries around! Jon, his wife Courtney, and their 2 young sons make their home on the farm and enjoy the continued legacy of farming the land that the Wood family started generations ago.

The farm consists of 150 acres of Vermont farmland and woods. Known far and wide for our delicious sweet corn and plump, sweet strawberries, we also grow over 50 kinds of vegetables and fruits on 60 acres of sandy loam soils. Our produce and vegetable plants are certified organic, and along with our field production, we also have 7 greenhouses for raising bedding plants, ornamentals, vegetable starts and the tastiest early tomatoes in the state! Our unique varieties of plants and our passion for quality crops keeps people coming back year after year.

We grow all of our produce organically here on the farm. It’s a labor of love for everyone involved from seeding to harvesting to washing and selling. We’re really proud to be able to provide such a bounty of farm fresh, organic fruits and vegetables to our community year after year. It’s what feeds our own families here on the farm and beyond and you should feel good knowing we grow it all with love, care and a commitment to good organic practices.

Aside from growing an abundant array of fruits and vegetables for retailers like the Middlebury Co-op, we also offer a CSA and have a seasonal farm stand open daily in the summer from 9 am – 6 pm. Outside, it’s a paradise of plants, hanging baskets, creeping vines, and gardens to wander. We’re on the banks of Jones Mill Pond on Route 7, which during the warm summer months is covered with those famous pink water lilies. Inside the market, the shelves and baskets are filled with gorgeous fresh produce from our farm and bouquets of fresh-cut flowers. Depending on what’s in season, you’ll find everything from fresh spinach to strawberries to squash. We grow over 50 different kinds of produce on our farm, just yards from the farm stand. In addition to produce, we have an unbelievable variety of artisanal cheese, organic milk, and other local dairy products, local meat and poultry, fresh baked goods, maple syrup, raw honey, homemade pickles, jam and more! If you’re looking to stock your own garden, you can browse our selection of farm-grown organic veggie and herb starts, and a stunning variety of annuals, and perennials! We hope you’ll stop in and see us on your next trip through Brandon.

June 23, 2016

Spotlight on Tierra Farm

We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Tierra Farm this week to highlight the socially and environmentally responsible practices of this employee-owned business. They provide an array of healthy products to our bulk department that are certified organic, gluten free, kosher, and gmo-free, all of which are produced in small batches in their solar-powered facility in nearby Valatie, NY. They’re featured in our Member Deals program this week, so member-owners can enjoy 20% off their delicious fair-trade coffee, dried fruits, nuts, nut butters, and other healthy snacks! Read on to learn more about this fantastic small business and their commitment to responsible practices throughout the supply chain:

Tierra Farm is a Certified Organic manufacturer and distributor of nuts, dried fruits, and coffee located 20 miles south of Albany, New York. Our customers consist mainly of cooperatives and independently owned grocery stores that value working with an employee-owned, environmentally conscious company that manufactures its own products.

Tierra Farm started as a diversified organic vegetable farm in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The organic nuts & dried fruit portion of the business started in 1999, as a way to generate income in the slower winter months. That portion of the business continued to thrive into what it has become today and we still maintain our original farm.

One of our core values has been to cultivate strong relationships with the best organic farmers in the world. Every year we purchase an increasing amount of our nuts, seeds and dried fruit directly from the farms, some of which we have worked with for over a decade. Our level of knowledge and communication with our farmers allows us to preserve our organic integrity and ensure fair business practices throughout the supply chain.

We offer our customers exceptional value through unbeatable quality at prices that are fair both to the consumer and to the farmer. Our products are made without preservatives, added oils or refined sugars, in our peanut-free facility. We manufacture the products we sell: we dry roast and flavor nuts and seeds, blend trail mixes, grind butter, cover nuts and fruits in fair-trade chocolate, and roast fair trade coffee. Everything is made in small, hand-crafted batches for freshness.

Tierra Farm handles only Certified Organic products which are grown without synthetic pesticides, genetically modified organisms, or chemical fertilizers. This helps sustain biodiversity, conserves fresh water, and enhances the soil. We generate over 70% of our electricity from solar panels and recycle over 60% of our waste. Our boxes are made from recycled cardboard and our deli cup containers are made from over 50% recycled material – both are recyclable after use. We’re continuously looking for better ways to protect the planet.

We also value the importance of investing in our staff. We have an in-house gym, an in-house chef who cooks daily organic, gluten-free meals for our staff – often using fresh produce directly from our farm, a staff masseuse who visits weekly, and we offer many employee health initiatives such as a smoking cessation program that allows our staff to be 100% tobacco-free.

We recently opened a retail store at our headquarters in Valatie, NY, where local customers are able to purchase all of our (almost 200) products. Also, if you’re in the Albany area, please stop into one of our Tierra Coffee Roasters locations for a great cup of coffee and some homemade baked goods.

We also invite you to take a virtual tour of our farm!

June 16, 2016

Spotlight on Neighborly Farms

As our celebration of Dairy Month churns on, we’re shining our Co-op Spotlight on a fantastic local, organic dairy farm hailing from Randolph Center, VT: Neighborly Farms! Member-owners can enjoy 20% off their award-winning organic cheeses this week! Read on to learn more about this 168-acre organic dairy farm that calls VT home:

Established as an operating dairy farm in the 1920’s, Rob and Linda Dimmick are continuing the tradition of family farming. Nestled in the rolling hills of Randolph Center, Vermont, Neighborly Farms decorates the countryside with its red barn and white post and beam farmhouse built in the 1800s. We operate on 168 acres with cropland and grazing fields to support the dairy and a sugarhouse for producing pure Vermont maple syrup. The clean and tidy barn is home to 70 Holsteins—the black and white cows that symbolize rural living at its very best.

Rob and Linda are continuing the family farming tradition because they have a passion for the land and animals. We are a totally organic farm. This means the farm is run in complete harmony with the land and the animals; no antibiotics, no hormones, and no commercial fertilizers. Just pure and natural techniques that keep the cows healthy, happy, and the dairy products wholesome and chemical free. It means that the cheese produced at Neighborly Farms are pure and natural. And the best part? The organic cheeses taste great too.

Neighborly Farms of Vermont is not just another dairy farm. At our family farm we have a love for the land and animals. That’s why we’re an organic farm. It says we care about our surroundings and neighbors. Neighborly Farms produces eleven kinds of delicious organic cheeses; all made with wholesome milk from our well-cared for Holstein cows. At our family farm we make cheese the old-fashioned way, by caring for the land and surroundings it helps us produce the finest cheeses possible.

At the Co-op, you’ll find a rotating variety of our cheeses including our Jalapeno Jack, Monterey Jack, Colby, Feta, Green Onion Cheddar, and our staple Raw Milk Cheddar, many of which have been honored with awards from the prestigious American Cheese Society. We hope you enjoy them and thank you for supporting your local, organic dairy farms!

June 9, 2016

Spotlight on Amy’s Kitchen

We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Amy’s Kitchen this week to shed some light on a family-owned company that was organic before organic was cool. Member Owners can enjoy 20% off the full line of Amy’s Kitchen products this week! Read on to learn more about this pioneering company that set out nearly 30 years ago to offer convenient, time-saving foods that didn’t sacrifice health or quality:

We didn’t set out to become the nation’s leading frozen food brand. All we wanted to do was create a business that would allow us to earn a living by providing convenient and tasty vegetarian meals for people like ourselves, who appreciated good food, but were often too busy to cook “from scratch.”
We started in 1987, the year Amy was born, using our own house and barn as headquarters. The founding meetings were held in the same room where we were married and where our daughter Amy was born. This was before the idea of “organic” food had become well known, and when there were very few frozen meals available for vegetarians to eat, either in health food stores or supermarkets. We were, however, very fortunate in being in the right place at the right time. The number of vegetarians had increased dramatically, as had consumer awareness of the harmful effects on their health and the environment of chemicals in the food supply.
Amy’s Kitchen uses organic vegetables, grains and beans whenever they are commercially available. At this time, over 99% or our vegetables, grains and beans are organic. All of Amy’s products comply with the NOP (National Organic Program) requirements that ingredients and products not be irradiated and not contain GMOs. We are active participants in the Non-GMO Project and we rely on testing and other procedures to assure the ingredients in our products are not contaminated with GMOs.
Although we have considerably expanded our production facilities and the number of people we employ, we have remained a family owned and operated business, sensitive to the needs of our customers. Our total commitment to quality has made the difference.

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