Capriole Farmstead Goat Cheese
Greenville, Indiana
In 1976, Judy Schad and her family fled the suburbs for a small farm in the hills of southern Indiana, in search of a more sustainable lifestyle. More than 30 years later, Judy has built a goat cheese farm on the 80 acres surrounding her home where some 500 goats roam the pastures and woods, while Judy and her crew use their goat milk to make fresh, ripened, and aged chevres by hand.

Mercier Orchards – Blue Ridge, Georgia

Tim Mercier has been picking apples since he was seven years old on the North Georgia orchard where he was raised and now lives with his children and grandchildren. Tim and his crew hand-pick dozens of varieties of apples over 200 acres that will ship out to Whole Foods Market the very next day, making them the freshest bushels of apples available straight from the tree to the market.

The Choptank Oyster Company is a thriving oyster hatchery and farm that produces high quality oysters, while also helping to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Traditionally, millions of bushels of oysters have been harvested annually from the waters surrounding Dorchester County, Maryland, up until the 1970’s when harvest numbers began to drop off substantially as a result of over harvesting. However, The Choptank Oyster Company is helping to turn this situation around by culturing and spawning millions of native oysters in the bay at any one time.

On Monday in Atlanta, Georgia, several hundred people gathered in Piedmont Park with Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA, to celebrate their Time for Lunch campaign. It was National Day of Action and this Eat-In (part potluck, part Sit-In) was just one of more than 300 across the country as tens of thousands of people came together on Labor Day to tell Congress that it’s time to get real food into schools. Preliminary results from the field showed that turnout was greater than expected, which demonstrates that people are concerned about our children’s health. Slow Food wants to send a clear message to Congress that the time to update the Child Nutrition Act is now. We have a chance to invest in our children’s health, protect them from food that puts them at risk and teach healthy habits that will last through life. If you haven’t done so yet, you can sign the petition at www.slowfoodusa.org/timeforlunch.

Shawn Thackeray – Thackeray Farms – Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina

Shawn Thackeray began farming this 200 acres of land located a mere mile from the Atlantic Ocean many years ago with his father-in-law when it was all planted in tomatoes. Today Shawn owns this land, where he dedicates 20 acres to grow heirloom tomatoes and has expanded the rest to grow a diverse roster of specialty vegetables and several varieties of wildflowers. Thackeray Farms is currently transitioning their sustainable farming practices to organic in order to improve the condition of the soil and the surrounding water and to provide the healthiest working environment for his employees.

MEADOW RUN FARM – Lititz, PA

Dee Horst-Landis and her husband Philip are turning her family’s scenic land in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, into a sustainable farming oasis. With pastured chicken and turkey, grass-fed beef and lamb, and pastured pork from heritage breed pigs, this young couple is intent on building fields of healthy soil and grass from which to feed their livestock a grass-based diet.

Joe & Jerry Watson, Monetta, SC

In their second year of growing organic peaches along the “Ridge” section of South Carolina, Jerry and Joe Watson are pioneers in organic peach farming on the East Coast. In a region full of conventional peach orchards, the humid environment deters most farmers from trying to grow the fragile fruit organically. Four generations of Watsons have been active in farming at Watsonia Farms, where they currently farm 900 acres of peaches and 180 acres of organic produce in Monetta, South Carolina.

Snowville Creamery – Pomeroy, Ohio
At Snowville Creamery in Pomeroy, Ohio, the cows graze in pasture all year long and the grasses that are in season affect the flavor of the milk.  Winter milk from Snowville may taste of hay; spring milk of dandelions.  Morning milk even tastes different from evening milk!   Warren Taylor, owner of Snowville, believes that milk is perfect when it comes from the cow, so he processes his milk as minimally as possible.  Snowville Creamery milk is bottled on the farm the same day the cows are milked and delivered to Whole Foods Market the very next day to bring customers the freshest product possible.  As they say at Snowville, they make “Milk the Way it Used to Be!”

Whole Foods Market joined a long list of musicians and nearly 90,000 fans from all over the world at the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, last weekend.  We set up a store on the grounds of the festival in Planet Roo where we served up loads of 365 products and delicious items from our vendor partners, including Talenti Gelato, Greek Gods Yogurt, O.N.E. Natural Experience, QBell all natural chocolates, and Lifeway Foods.  Check out what some of our customers had to say over the course of the weekend in Planet Roo!

Hal and Drew Ambos of Savannah, Georgia

The Ambos family, now in their fifth generation of shrimping off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, provides Whole Foods Market with fresh wild Georgia shrimp that has never been frozen.  The strong tides along the southern Atlantic coast, from which these shrimp are raised, provide these shrimp with a sweet succulent taste and a good firm texture that can only be produced in the wild.