Non-Local Love.
At Family Dinner, we are always looking for new, exciting items to put into your shares and the add-on section of our store. We want to bring whimsy and variety into your cooking experience as much as possible! In the store you can find Fresh Pasta, rotating Cheese selections, Pastry of the Week, and more. Recently, we added three non-local items: Organic Avocados and Bananas, and Citrus. Although we are adding some non-local items, we remain a business that celebrates all of the beautiful foods created in our local community. While rolling out these non-local items, we wanted to share a bit more about why we selected them and how we are sourcing them. Shannon, our Operations Manager and Veggie Sourcer extraordinaire, tells the story of these selections.
- Erin
Why would a local farmer’s market home delivery service who loves and celebrates every and all things local start supplying tropical fruits? Well, because we are realistic in understanding there is a larger, complex global food system and palate that our customers (and we ourselves) enjoy that cannot grow in New England!
One of our core values at Family Dinner is people first--we care about all of the people in and around the food system in which we take part, from the farm workers in the fields and trees to our amazing customers! For this reason, we knew if we were to bring in these tropical items, we would want not only the most delicious fruit, but also the fruit that is good for the folks growing, harvesting, packing, and living around the crops.
In our general sourcing, we try to only buy organic except when it is not usually possible (e.g., fruit in New England is mostly IPM due to growing conditions, pest, and disease pressure). So with a minimum of organic (which protects the environment--synthetic fertilizers are one of the MOST carbon intensive products to create, not to mention the impact pesticides have on human and soil health--and also protects farm workers and those who live near the fields from numerous health impacts), we also wanted to ensure that the people working on the farms are treated fairly. Ergo, we were looking for bananas, citrus avocados that are USDA certified organic!