Certified South Carolina - A Myth?
Posted by Chad Norman September 14th, 2007 .
Earlier this year, I blogged about the Certified South Carolina Grown program that had just kicked off. It seems like a great way to help greenies like myself find and identify locally grown food. The problem is, I have yet to see one of these stickers out in the wild.
Have you seen a Certified South Carolina label? Tell us where!
I’m starting to wonder if we’re actually growing anything at all. After going months without casually seeing a sticker, I methodically looked through all the produce at Harris Teeter and Food Lion and found nothing. I did find peppers from Canada…
6 Responses to “Certified South Carolina - A Myth?”
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I saw some stickers at the Piggly Wiggly off the IOP connector about a month ago on some peaches. Since then, I’ve looked, but it looks like all the peaches since have been from out of state.
I’ve looked for them at Whole Foods and have seen Zippo–Zero–ZILCH. Only “Local” signs with arrows to squash. And “Regional” signs to onions from GA.
Stono Market on Main Road, Johns Island. It’s deserved, because they mostly sell what they grow on their Johns Island farm (and the shrimp they bring in on their trawler).
The Certified South Carolina Grown is a marketing/branding campaign designed by the State Ag Department that is in its beginning stages. The good intention is there however it is still new will continue to bring awareness to South Carolina agriculture. If you are looking to purchase local lowcountry grown produce the easiest and best way to find it is to go to the local farmer’s markets. In addition many local restaurants often purchase a large amount of their produce from local sources. That being said, the issue with finding it in grocery stores and shops is that they require (at this point) produce to be delivered to their warehouses from which it is distributed it to their individual stores. The produce managers of each individual store do not have the power to buy from a local grower and the managers at the warehouses many would prefer to deal with one or two growers who can provide them with a certain type of produce (such as tomatoes or watermelon) then to have to deal with many more local and often times smaller growers whose produce is available, ripe, and in enough quantity for a couple of weeks. However these stores do work hard to keep their customers happy. Next time ask for the produce manager and tell them that you would really like to buy produce from local lowcountry growers. While it may seem like a small step it will bring awareness to the desire for more local production and the need to support our local growers. Several websites that you my find interesting are
http://www.naturallygrown.org/
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/
PS - In addition please see the website
http://www.lowcountrylocalfirst.org for anymore info on local business and sustainable agriculture information for our region.
Some stickers showed up at The Market when I was cruising through there with some out of town friends this weekend - they thought I was going ga ga for grits, but really was just excited to finally see the bag had a Certified South Carolina sticker on it!