Irene's Impact on our Local Vendors
Several of our local producers and farmers have suffered setbacks due to Hurricane Irene with many losing equipment and/or inventory. Here are some products where you may notice supply issues affecting our shelves:
- Vermont Peanut Butter Company in Waterbury was flooded. The product they had ready to ship when the storm hit was covered in mud, and they will be out of production for at least a month. We have some product on hand at City Market, but will be unable to order any more until at least early October.
- Vermont Artisan Coffee and Tea Company, also in Waterbury, lost inventory of coffee, tea, and suffered damage to their production equipment. Their facility had severe flooding; in an email from the company they reported “hip deep water and sludge flowing straight through our complex.”
- La Panciata Bakery in Northfield had all their flour ruined by the floodwater. They will not be delivering bread until further notice.
- All our farmers in the Intervale were affected by the flooding. We’ll still be seeing Bella Farm’s pesto and organic chickens and turkeys from City Chicks, but once we sell through the current supply of pre-flood produce we won’t see any further produce coming from the Intervale this season.
- Outside the Intervale, Riverberry Farm lost their entire field of lettuce though we will continue to see some produce coming from them as the season goes on.
- North Hollow Farm in Rochester sells us grass fed beef. Due to the road closures in that area, the farm has had delivery challenges and is set back approximately 1 week.
- Champlain Orchards lost 300 trees during the storm and another 400 are badly damaged. Luckily, however, we will still have apples from them this fall and winter.
- We’ve been heartbroken to read about dairy farms throughout the southern and central parts of the state. Dairy farms without power have been making calls for volunteers to help milk cows. In communities where the roads are impassable, milk trucks have not been able to pick up milk and farmers have had to dump thousands of dollars’ worth of milk. While we don’t buy directly from these farms, our thoughts are with them as well in these financially tough times.