Spotlight On: Produce Department

By John Truncale, Produce Department Manager

The Produce department at the Brattleboro Food Co-op has been the gateway to the rest of the store ever since we moved into the new building back in 2012. The Co-op offers the best customer service from our distinguished and knowledgeable Produce team every hour the store is open. We are all more than happy to share ideas and recipes with you or help you sample something delicious. We carry everything from asparagus to yucca root, with an emphasis on local and regional producers. 

Back when I started working here in 1995 we were working with a very small group of local vendors. As time went on we were able to include more local farmers in the mix. Today we work with more than thirty local farmers and producers! Some of the original farms I’ve worked with since I started at the Co-op are still here today, for example, High Meadows Farm in Putney, VT, and Harlow Farm in Westminster. The Co-op has also seen some local farms grow dramatically over the course of time, like Deep Meadow Farm in Ascutney, VT, or Picadilly Farm in Winchester, NH. During peak season, 99% of our greens are locally grown, and during apple season we can carry as many as sixty varieties of apples to enjoy from Scott Farm Orchard in Dummerston, VT and Champlain Orchards in Shoreham, VT. And we continue to add new growers as well—for example, Nomad Farm in Rockingham, VT, which provides us with fresh herbs. I enjoy the interaction that I have with our local vendors and am glad to help them continue to succeed.

Purchasing as much as possible from local farms ensures the money generated stays in the community and provides jobs for local residents. It also allows us to cut down on the carbon footprint by sourcing most of our products locally. It’s comforting to know the amount of help we provide to keep farming sustainable and contributing to the local economy here in the region.

We also have a large assortment of specialty items, like jicama, endive, radicchio, turmeric root, and enoki mushrooms, to name a few. And we like to have an odd variety of fruits when in season—items like dragon fruit, kumquats, currants, medlars, and specialty cherries. I try to source non-local items as close to Vermont as possible. I will reach out to regional farms, and if supply is not available, I will reach a little further until I am able to find an item. I would much rather source a grapefruit from Florida than from California or Mexico. Sometimes we cannot avoid sourcing items from further away, but be assured I source items as close as possible to cut down on the carbon footprint. 

We provide a line of fresh in-house-cut fruit. We cut fresh five days a week and offer seasonal favorites like cut watermelon, cut cantaloupe, and cut honeydew, as well as mixed berries and cut strawberries. The cut fruit is generally located in our Deli department Grab & Go case. The fruit is always ripe and ready to enjoy on a hot day. During the winter months we provide mixed blueberries and strawberries, grape cups and cut strawberries. We often try new things to offer like yogurt parfaits and mixed cut melons. We also provide a full line of conventional pre-cut fruit such as mixed melon or tropical hula bowls. We are hoping to continue to add and grow that section of the department.

We also offer a full line of local flower and veggie starts throughout the season. We source veggie starts from High Meadows in Putney and Bare Roots Farm in Chesterfield, MA. The flower starts are from Couch Brook Farm in Bernardston, MA.

We also carry an assortment of local cut bouquets during the season from Miller Farm in Vernon, VT, Old Friends Farm in Amherst, MA. and Tapalou Guilds in Guilford, VT. During the gladiola season we carry beautiful gladiola stems from Green River Flowers. Throughout the year we receive our potted plants from Springfield Florist in Massachusetts (keeping it as nearby as possible). We also offer items like mushroom grow kits, woven baskets, firewood and fresh cat grass.

The Produce department is a special place in the store with a great crew. We enjoy each others’ company, listen to music, and laugh a lot. Part of the experience of working in Produce is riding the waves of busy times and slow times throughout the year. When the local harvests come in during summer and fall, and during Thanksgiving and December holiday times, the work can be intense! We do our best to keep the department looking beautiful, and stocked with the freshest, most local fruits and veggies we can find. 

Thank you,

John T