Most of the time, the pricing at supermarket chains fails to reflect the real cost of getting that food to you. Foodprint writes, “the price we pay for many foods is usually artificially low, thanks to a combination of subsidies and practices that offload the real costs of our food onto workers, animals and the environment. A true cost accounting of food would mean the producers of the food took on more of those costs, with consumers paying more as a result.”
At Farmers To You, between 50 and 60 percent of your food cost is paid directly back to the farmers every week—that's nearly three times what supermarkets, on average, pay their suppliers.
You can trust, too, that the dollars you spend at Farmers To You are staying right here in our foodshed—not leaving our region.
From fruits to vegetables and even grains and corn, the produce available at most grocery stores today has substantially less nutritional value than it did when you were a kid. According to several studies, the amount of key vitamins and minerals like calcium, potassium, iron and Vitamin A (to name a few) has fallen by as much as a third in the past few decades.
There are many culprits, including agricultural practices that diminish soil fertility (think: monocropping, heavy tillage and heavy biocide use), food miles and increased processing and handling. Essentially, there is a higher likelihood that grocery chain produce was grown in poor soil, then spent days or weeks moving between warehouses, trucks, and back stock.
Compare with our model: produce is picked at our farms on Monday and shipped Wednesday morning. Cheese is picked up from the farm within days of being wrapped and sent to you the following day. Cows are milked three days before you receive your order. Seafood arrives at the port in Boston on Tuesday morning and is packed that afternoon. Our small team in Vermont works directly with farms to find out what's fresh, available and seasonal—there is no middleman, and we never source produce grown out of season.
What does all this mean for you? It means that the food you order from us is fresh, packed with nutrients, and bursting with flavor (we say it all the time, but flavor is truly the best indicator of nutrition).
Many studies have investigated the amount of food wasted by individual households. By some estimates, that number falls between 20 and 50 percent. And there’s more waste to be found upstream: at the farm, at the grocery store, and on the part of wholesale buyers like restaurants.
We order from our partner farmers only what we've sold each week to you—our partner families. Any leftover food is used for staff dinner or donated to one of our food access partners. Food scraps are composted, and no food is thrown away. And because the food arriving to your kitchen is so much fresher, many families report decreased household food waste after making the switch to Farmers To You.
