November/December 2015 -- NC Growing Together and the Cooperative Extension Program at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University are sponsoring trainings for farmers and extension agents on how to use the Veggie Compass, a whole-farm profit management tool developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The tool is free and can be downloaded at http://www.veggiecompass.com/. [...]
Fresh Produce GAPs Workshop. Photo by Diane Ducharme. November/December 2015 -- NC Growing Together is helping to advance fresh produce food safety work statewide. Working in partnership with North Carolina State University, North Carolina Cooperative Extension, NC Cooperative County Centers, and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, NCGT has been sponsoring Fresh Produce [...]
Foster-Caviness is sourcing local Korean pears from Riverbirch Farm in Reidsville, NC. October 2015 -- North Carolina-based produce distributor Foster-Caviness recently opened an aggregation center for local food in Raleigh. The cross-dock facility on Glenwood Avenue will be used to aggregate and distribute local produce and locally made value-added products. (See previous [...]
October 2015 -- NC Growing Together supported the NC Choices Carolina Meat Conference, October 12-13 in Winston-Salem, NC. The conference brought together over 400 local meat supply chain professionals including livestock producers, James Beard Award-winning chefs, master butchers, commercial meat processors, allied non-profit organizations and government agencies. NCGT sponsored ten sessions focused on enhancing farmer [...]
October 2015 -- A panel discussion at this month's Carolina Meat Conference brought together farmers and processors to discuss how collaboration is key to advancing one another's businesses. The NCGT-sponsored panel featured Joe Cloud from T&E Meats, Cathy Cavender from Monrovia Farm, Abdul Chaudry from Chaudry Halal Meats, and Jennifer Curtis from Firsthand Foods. "Collaboration" [...]
November - December: Fresh Produce Good Agricultural Practices Workshop Series, Burnsville, Lumberton, Louisburg, and Mills River NC In 2016: Enhancing Farm Profitability Workshops for NC Cooperative Extension Agents Jan 12, Rocky Mt NC Jan 19, Newton NC Feb 9, Clinton NC This article originally appeared in the October 2015 NC Growing Together Newsletter. [...]
September 2015 -- NC Growing Together partner Merchants Distributors Inc. - sister company to Lowes Foods - held its seasonal food show on August 18-19, 2015, with a special focus on local produce. Based in Hickory, NC, MDI is a grocery wholesale distributor that serves over 600 retail food stores in 11 states. The purpose of [...]
September 2015 -- NC Growing Together is supporting efforts to promote local seafood in North Carolina. NCGT support is helping project partner NC Catch create two brochures designed to help consumers find local seafood in fresh seafood markets, grocery stores, stands, and farmers' markets across the state. The brochures will be distributed at the NC [...]
October 12-13: NCGT-sponsored sessions at the Carolina Meat Conference, Winston-Salem NC November 6-8: NCGT-sponsored sessions and events at the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association's Sustainable Agriculture Conference, Durham NC October - December: Fresh Produce Good Agricultural Practices Workshop Series, Burnsville, Lumberton, Louisburg, and Mills River, NC This article originally appeared in the September 2015 NC Growing [...]
August 2015 -- New NCGT partner Pate Dawson-Southern Foods has been making efforts to source locally for years, according to Director of Marketing Joel Sullivan. Sullivan is the fifth generation of his family to work in the business, which started out as a grocery store in Goldsboro. "We've always sourced locally, especially produce, from NC farmers, it's [...]
