Locally Grown Products
Buying locally grown produce is a hot marketplace trend, with customers increasingly reaching for staples such as tomatoes and corn that grew in local soil. Walmart is pledging to grow its partnerships with local farmers and to purchase locally grown produce wherever possible, meeting customer demand and keeping prices low. “Offering local produce has been a Walmart priority for years, and we’re taking it to a new level with a pledge to grow our partnerships with local farmers. We’re committed to purchasing locally grown produce whenever possible,” said Pam Kohn, Walmart’s senior vice president and general merchandise manager for grocery. “Increasing the amount of local produce in our grocery aisles – and adding clear locally grown signage – reflects our dedication to offer the freshest products possible at great prices.”  Beyond the benefits to consumers and economic opportunities for farmers, Walmart’s commitment to locally grown produce is helping to reduce “food miles” – the distance food travels from farm to fork. On average, each piece of fresh produce in the U.S. travels an average of 1,500 miles from the farm that grew it. That’s roughly the distance from Bentonville, Ark., to Los Angeles, Calif. Reducing our food miles can help manage fuel costs and the impact on rural communities where agriculture is the local economy’s backbone.
In the past, fresh cilantro sold in Walmart stores came from California. By working with grower partner Duda Farms, the company sourced cilantro from Belle Glade, Fla., for distribution across the East Coast. Introducing Florida-grown cilantro resulted in an estimated savings of 250,000 food miles in a single season. Walmart is also working with state agricultural departments and local farmers to develop or revitalize growing areas for products, including cilantro in Southern Florida and corn in Mississippi, which had not grown there before or which were once native crops. Walmart announced its locally grown commitment this past July in a Supercenter in DeKalb County, Ga., with an in-store farmers’ market and growers on hand to educate shoppers about produce. This summer, Georgia Supercenters had many of the ingredients customers needed for a locally grown barbeque: sweet Georgia-grown Vidalia onions for burgers, Georgia cantaloupes and watermelons for fruit salad, and Georgia peaches for cobbler.
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