Organic
Home
Delivery
Service
Via the
Internet?
(Mahoney Foods)
by
Alejandra
Mahoney
 |
We have 300 acres that are certified organic. We grow broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce green beans, snow peas, squash, artichokes, cabbage, leeks, carrots, cilantro, spinach and celery. We started a home delivery service. We get as much as possible from local organic farmers and all of our fruits and vegetables are certified organic. We do this because we feel that the certification process shows a real commitment to organic farming practices.
As part of our community outreach, it is our goal to inform and educate people about organic farming. It is also important to let people know that many organic farmers have had to quit farming because of an inability to get the product to the consumer at a fair price to the farmer. We are currently working on a project to form a consortium of small organic farmers that would have free access to an Internet produce selling site. This would allow us to offer a wide variety of fruits and vegetables from the central coast – each farmer selling his/her own produce but being able to join forces with others to offer the volume needed by many of the retail stores. Another one of our goals is to teach people about organics.
Here in Santa Maria, there is a large Hispanic population. It is our hope that we can bring this message of organics to them. One example is our new breads. We approached a Mexican bakery about going through the process of becoming an organic bakery. The response has been incredible, and now even their customers at the bakery, mostly Hispanic, are asking about the"new" bread. We are also in the process of working with a tortilla shop doing the same thing. We have also added recycling as part of our education program.
We have also spruced up our tech area by launching our new web site Mahoney-organics.com (without the hyphen). We will be featuring local farmers so that people everywhere will know the richness of the central coast. Please feel free to call us at 922-9299.
