Like granola, our support for local producers has been around since the beginning. That’s why we started the Local Producer Loan Program, which has provided almost $4 million in low-interest loans to small, local producers. We’re proud to be helping them grow their businesses and bring more products like these great granolas to market.

Michele’s Granola
Owner: Michele Thornett
Timonium, Maryland

In early 2006, Michele took the first dozen bags of her granola to sell at a local farmers market. It quickly gained followers, and within 18 months, she had moved production into a commercial kitchen where she began baking for local food co-ops and natural food stores. Although Michele’s Granola products are now available in almost 100 retail stores, the granola is still made by hand in small batches. Michele recently moved production to a larger commercial kitchen, and she used her loan to purchase equipment and build out the space.

Michele’s products are currently available in our stores in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Pure Bliss Organics
Owners: Jon and Karen Morgan, Antonio and Krishna DaCosta
Marietta, Georgia

Jon, Antonio and Krishna have been involved with natural foods for most of their adult lives. In fact, they met when Jon visited the Higher Taste, Antonio’s vegetarian restaurant in Tallahassee. Upon moving to Georgia, the two couples purchased local granola company Shooka’s, converted it to organic production, and changed the name to Pure Bliss Organics. They also expanded the product line beyond granola, incorporating nuts, whole food bars and energy bites.  They are using their Local Producer Loan funds to purchase packaging and packaging equipment.

Pure Bliss Organics products are currently available in our stores throughout the South region.

Laughing Giraffe Organics
Owner: Justin Baumgartner
Phoenix, Arizona

One of our first loan recipients, Laughing Giraffe Organics is a wonderful example of what the LPLP can do for a small business. Since receiving his funds, Justin has expanded his line of raw, vegan, gluten-free granola, first from a few stores, next to our entire Southern Pacific region, and then into nine (!) regions (hundreds of stores!), with an organic certification thrown in there for good measure! We are so proud of Justin’s success and are excited about his new packaging.

Laughing Giraffe Organics is available in stores in all of our regions except Mid-Atlantic, South, and the UK (for now!).

Have you tried any of these granolas? Let us know what you think!

Each of these long-time vendors creates just the kind of healthy, all-natural food that we are so proud to offer. Grindstone Bakery’s owner and baker Mario Repetto produces artisan wheat-free, whole grain breads and cookies, while Lydia Kindheart of Lydia’s Organics creates dehydrated foods made of raw, organic, vegan ingredients. Both will be using their loans to help expand production.

In fact, not only did Lydia and Mario help us break the bread, Mario baked it! Check out some photos from the opening.

Alaska’s Bakery

Owner: Noreen Naidus

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

Product: Organic dog treats

No, Whole Foods Market hasn’t opened a store in Anchorage or Fairbanks! Alaska’s Bakery is named after owner Noreen Naidus’s dog, Alaska. Noreen started Las Vegas-based Alaska’s Bakery in 2007, after having discovered that the organic treats she baked for her dog were popular with others. She has been selling to our stores for about two years. Noreen is using her loan for marketing, ingredients and packaging, which will help her expand her business.

Gourmè Mist

Owners: Sherene Costanzo and Simona Bunin

Location: Coral Springs, Florida

Product: Oil misters
I know from personal experience that a heavy hand on the oil bottle can totally ruin a meal. So I think that Gourmè Mist is a great idea: eco-friendly misters for oils and vinegars. Some are even organic! And even better: Sherene and Simona are using their loan funds to extend the line into packets of oil and vinegar for food service.

BTTR Ventures

Owners: Alex Velez and Nikhil Arora

Location: Emeryville, California

Product: Mushrooms and mushroom kits

So, two recent college grads growing mushrooms in a warehouse using leftover coffee grounds (some from our Allegro cafés!) is cool. Using the waste product from those ’shrooms for compost is very cool. But grow-your-own-mushroom kits using those same recycled coffee grounds? That’s just awesome! And that’s what BTTR (pronounced “better”) Ventures does. BTTR stands for “Back To The Roots”, and these two Berkeley grads certainly embody that spirit. Their loan will help them purchase equipment and expand into a larger space, so that more of our customers can grow their own.

ImagiPLAY

Owner: Barbera Aimes

Location: Boulder, Colorado

Product: Earth-friendly toys

Ever needed an eco-yo-yo, a wooden fruit cutting set, or a hedgehog rattle? ImagiPLAY has you covered! Not only are Barbera’s wooden toys environmentally responsible, but they will also stimulate your child’s mind while they are having fun. ImagiPLAY’s loan has helped them expand their inventory to serve even more of our stores. Which is a good thing, because, really, what kid doesn’t want Counting Penguins or a Puff the Alphabet Dragon?

Matt O’Hayer’s interest in chicken-raising started as a child delivering eggs door-to-door. Folks call him the Egg Man! Fast-forward to 2007, when he started Vital Farms, an organic pastured egg farm located on 27 acres along Onion Creek in South Austin. We visited Matt at the farm and, as you’ll see, learned that his chickens have an enviable life, with lots of green grass and plenty of space to roam.

Vital Farms is a recipient of a Whole Foods Market Local Producer Loan, which they have used to purchase equipment to help them expand their production.

Revolution Foods Featured in the New York Times

Revolution Foods founders Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey have set the bar for healthy school lunches really high – and this article in the New York Times explains how and why. We are proud to have provided them with Local Producer Loan Program funds to help their expansion! The Revolution Foods products you buy in our stores help support this valuable work. (Now available in 160 of our stores.)

Progress Coffee: One of America’s Ten Best Boutique Coffee Shops!

Congratulations to Local Producer Loan recipient Progress Coffee! In its January issue, Bon Appétit magazine named them one of the ten best boutique coffee shops in the U.S. Here’s what the magazine had to say:

Favorite coffee shops don’t just serve terrific joe; they also act as a modern-day meeting place. This Eastside spot with Owl Tree coffee and fresh biscuits is the best hangout in town.

Check out the rest of the piece here, as well as a great video on Progress Coffee. And if you live in Austin, go visit the shop itself or pick up some of their coffee at our Austin or San Antonio stores!

Edible Radio Interviews Will Harris of White Oak Pastures

We love being able to offer Will Harris’s grass-fed beef to our customers in our South Region stores. And we also love listening to him talk about his family’s fifth-generation Georgia ranch, White Oak Pastures! Edible Radio just did an interview with him about the history of the ranch, his transition from industrial beef to artisanal grass-fed beef, and the state of sustainable agriculture. He also talks about his on-farm processing plant, financed in part by Whole Foods Market’s Local Producer Loan Program. Will is knowledgeable and engaging; if you eat White Oak Pastures beef and want to know more about where your food comes from, you should definitely check out the interview here. We’ve featured Will in our own slide show interview too.

It’s great to work with such special local producers and it’s great to see others noticing them too.

One of the things that our customers love about Whole Foods Market is that they can find products from all over the world. They also love the extensive selection of local products that each of our stores offers. Sometimes that global mindset even finds its way into local products, especially when the producers themselves are originally from other countries.

Here are a few examples of Local Producer Loan recipients who are bringing unique products from their homelands to our customers in the U.S.

Benoît de Korsak

Saint Benoît Yogurt
Davis, California
Native of: France

Benoît de Korsak founded Saint Benoît Yogurt with his brother David in 2004. They are dedicated to the concept of “terroir,” a French word describing food “of a place,” which reflects the character of the land from which it came.

Saint Benoît Yogurt is an interesting mixture of the local and the exotic. They use local ingredients, including Jersey milk, fruit, and honey, yet their yogurt is created from a culture that was brought with them from France, where it has been used for decades to produce sweet, mild, and smooth yogurts. The yogurt is packaged in a reusable, returnable ceramic container, something traditional that now seems very exotic to most of us! The product itself is named after Saint Benoît (French for Saint Benedict), a monk who founded several monastic communities across Europe.

Saint Benoît Yogurt used their Local Producer Loan to build a new production room, which allowed them to increase their distribution. They’ve been selling to Whole Foods Market since 2006, and their yogurt is currently available throughout Northern California.

Tracy Claros

The Sticky Toffee Pudding Company
Austin, Texas
Native of: England

Tracy Claros, a native of the Lake District in England, has been in Austin baking English-style puddings since 2003. Her first product – and the namesake for the company – was the traditional sticky toffee pudding. Never had a British hot pudding? It’s like cake, but really, really moist! Sticky toffee pudding has a toffee sauce that melts when the product is heated, which makes for a fabulously gooey dessert. Tracy bakes each pudding in mini-tins to give them an authentic English pudding shape.

With the success of the original product, Tracy has since been able to branch out into other artisanal hot puddings: English Lemon, Molten Chocolate (filled with chocolate sauce), and Sticky Ginger. The English Lemon was even the winner of the 2007 Fancy Food Show competition for Outstanding Baked Good!

Tracy planned to use the loan to purchase a tray sealing machine, which will allow her to reduce her labor costs and increase her volume. Her products are currently available in seven regions, so check them out if you have the chance.

Yahia Kamal

Yummy’s Choice
Kansas City, Missouri
Native of: Palestinian West Bank

Chef Yahia Kamal grew up in the Palestinian West Bank. He came to the U.S. to study and eventually settled in Kansas City where he ran a Mediterranean café and a market. Demand was so great for his hummus and other prepared food items that he decided to concentrate on selling in other retail outlets. He got his products into our Overland Park, Kansas, store in 2006, and the rest is history.

Yummy’s Choice (named after his old market, Yummy’s Market) sells a number of Chef Kamal’s recipes for Mediterranean foods, such as lebaneh, olive mazza, shatta, and pita chips. In addition to the products’ taste and high quality, much of Yummy’s Choice’s success rests with Chef Kamal’s dynamic demonstrations, during which he and his daughter spend three full days at each store introducing their foods to shoppers. Because of the Local Producer Loan, which helped the company significantly increase its production and distribution capacity, Yummy’s Choice is now available throughout the entire Rocky Mountain region!

Just a month after providing our first loan in Oregon, Whole Foods Market is happy to announce that Ruby Jewel Treats, yet another Oregon producer, has received a loan through our Local Producer Loan Program! Like our first Oregon loan recipient, Townshend’s Tea Company, Ruby Jewel Treats was recently featured in The Oregonian.

Ruby Jewel was founded by Lisa Herlinger Esco in April 2004 when she started selling her ice cream sandwiches, handmade from locally-sourced ingredients, at the local farmers market in Portland. With her success there, she quickly realized the potential of the product, and later that year she even beat almost 100 fellow competitors to win the American Food Fight Portland Style competition sponsored by Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Since then the company’s success has continued to grow: after just five years, Ruby Jewel has retail distribution throughout the West Coast and many other parts of the country. Lisa will be using her loan to build a larger, more energy-efficient freezer for ice cream sandwich storage.

So if you’re near a Whole Foods Market that carries Ruby Jewel, go check out Lisa’s ice cream sandwiches. Ice cream in the winter, you say? Definitely! Check out some of the flavors: lemon cookie with honey lavender ice cream; double chocolate cookie with peanut butter ice cream; dark chocolate cookie with fresh, locally-grown mint ice cream; cinnamon chocolate cookie with espresso ice cream; and – seasonal and perfect for winter – ginger cookie with pumpkin! Not all flavors are available everywhere, but trust me, no matter which one you pick up, you’ll go home happy.

We are so proud to support these great products and their producer!

We are excited to announce the latest recipient of a loan through our Local Producer Loan Program: Townshend’s Tea Company ! Townshend’s is the first loan recipient in Oregon, where they were recently featured in The Oregonian.

Matt Thomas is the owner of Townshend’s, which has two teahouses, one in Portland and one in Bend. In addition to his sales at the teahouses, he has been selling tea at our area stores since 2008. The Local Producer Loan will help Townshend’s with its expansion plans, providing funding for new equipment, a larger production facility, and additional warehouse space in Portland. For those of you who love kombucha, you’ll be happy to know that the loan is specifically going to support the expansion of Townshend’s line of Brew Dr. Kombucha. Handcrafted in small batches with organic ingredients, Brew Dr. is available in four flavors: Nutritonic, Superberry, White Rose and Clear Mind. Brew Dr. is even available on tap at our Fremont and Pearl District stores in Portland! Wow!!!

A terrific example of a local producer, Matt started selling his tea in the Bend Whole Foods Market store and now has his product in all of our Oregon stores. We are proud to support this great producer!

Mark and Brian Nicholson are third-generation operators of Red Jacket Orchards in Geneva, New York, which grows apples and summer fruits. Red Jacket is a recipient of Whole Foods Market’s Local Producer Loan Program, which provides low-interest loans to local producers.

The Nicholson brothers spoke with us about their farm and how their Local Producer Loan is helping both production and the environment.

Okay, so we all know that local products are cool – but they can cool you off, too! A yummy locally-produced frozen dessert is just the thing during the hottest parts of summer, and the products made by recipients of our Local Producer Loan Program don’t disappoint. Organic ice cream, non-dairy ice cream, sorbet… you name it, our loan recipients make it. From California to Colorado to New York, these local icy treats are a hit. So go grab a pint and support your local producers!

Mudslinger’s Freestyle

San Francisco, California

Product: Non-dairy ice cream

Independent ice cream shop MaggieMudd carved out a niche with their popular non-dairy desserts, unique in that they use not only soy milk as a base, but also coconut milk. In our stores, husband and wife team Michael and Changying sell their non-dairy products in both pints and ice cream cake form as Mudslinger’s Freestyle.

Three Twins Organic Ice Cream

San Rafael, California

Product: Organic ice cream

Started in August 2005 as a scoop shop, Three Twins has since become certified organic, added second and third retail locations, and started wholesaling to restaurants, as well as to Whole Foods Market. And yes, there really are “three twins:” founder Neal Gottlieb, his brother, and his brother’s wife (also a twin!).

Boulder Ice Cream

Boulder, Colorado

Product: Organic ice cream

Boulder Ice Cream has been selling to Whole Foods Market for over ten years! In that time they have gone from a scoop shop on the Pearl Street Mall to pure wholesaling – you can now find their ice cream in four regions. Their Local Producer Loan helped launch an organic line.

Wine Cellar Sorbets

Brooklyn, New York

Product: Wine sorbet

You read that right – wine sorbet! With a product just as amazing as it sounds, Wine Cellar Sorbets was one of the first Local Producer Loan recipients. In fact, they have received a second, which has helped them expand into an additional three regions.