A trying time

by Kenneth Keavey

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. Life has a habit of testing us, there is no question about that, they say you are never dealt more than you can handle, who I wonder decides that? 

After 20 years in business, issues still have ways of jumping out at you in ways you could never foresee.  Do you know those testing moments where all you want to do is drop everything and run away?  They seem to happen at times when you least expect them and at least in my case make me want to run for the fields. 

So, we have had some challenging times over the last few weeks and as result you may have had a missed delivery or a delivery that came late or had your day changed, or some produce that should never have been sent out, for all of this I am sorry, we are working hard on resolving the situation and we hope we are in much better standing going into next week.

Funny though when we have stress or crises in our life nature has a way of easing the burden, we all feel better out in a forest or near the ocean or in a field of veg even. And yet it seems if we don’t do something soon, there will be very little nature left to enjoy. 

During the week I had an interesting conversation with one of the people working here. We were talking about pumpkins. We have some carving pumpkins at our farm shop, grown by Millhouse organic farm. We are only selling them in the shop as they are too big for delivery for €8 or €9 euro. Anyway, the point was that Tesco have pumpkins and they are all discounted now to entice customers in and when you look at the cost of ours versus those in Tesco (which I believe are imported from the UK) you just can’t win.

This I think is reflective of the challenge a small grower and an independent retailer face. It is a difficult path, generally it’s impossible to compete with the large supermarket pricing, no chance. The supermarkets already control over 93% of the food sold in Ireland, they have all the power, and the pumpkins offer a remarkable reflection on below cost selling, if we pay €5 for a pumpkin to Millhouse how can we compete with retail price in Tesco of €3.49? The answer is we can’t.

So that is why we ask for you to support us, because that is our best way of keeping what we do alive, and I feel that what we do is important and in a world that is consistently and relentlessly diminished by greed and power, it may be a small act of defiance but I’ll take any act over sitting idly by and watching our beautiful planet going down the gully hole.

Your support makes a difference to us, to our farm, our business and all the other Irish farmers we buy from and partner with. So, thank you, it is indeed a small but significant act of revolution and into the bargain you get to feed yourself some of the most amazing chemical free food you can get anywhere.

So, as we are facing into the mid-term break, when and rightly so most are looking forward to a break, for us it is a time when orders drop and yet we have a staff of 50 people to keep going, and harvest to get in.  I hope that you can keep us in mind next week when you are planning your food.

Kenneth

What happened to our food?

by Kenneth Keavey

Isn’t it funny that if you or I choose to grow our own food we will always, always choose to grow our own food without chemicals! Funny that this is a criterion in our own gardens but less of a consideration when it comes to choosing in a supermarket.

My Grandad grew peas, and turnips, and carrots and potatoes as did my dad. My mum had raspberry bushes, blackcurrants, and goose berries. We were picking and eating our own fruit and vegetables and that was in the 70’s and 80’s. What happened? Where did all the back garden growing go? Not only that where did all our commercial veg growers go? 

In our 20 years we have seen so many changes to our food system we have seen the number of vegetable producers here in Ireland fall dramatically to just 60 commercial field scale producers, down from over 600 in the 90’s. Supermarkets have had a hand in this, squeezing the farmer to the extent that there is just nothing left. The consolidation of the packing and distribution process into the hands of a few middlemen has not helped either. 

In the space of just one generation, we have become disconnected from our food. Where is our food grown, who grows it, how is it produced, how is it handled? 

This disconnection is not our fault. We have had school kids come on to our farm and been completely mesmerised by the fact that carrots come from the ground, having thought they begin their life on supermarket shelves in the plastic packaging. 

So it is that the shiny plastic packs that line the supermarket shelves give us the impression that our food system is unlimited, vibrant and fair, but of course this is not the case. The problems occur when we try to apply factory type controls to a natural system, but nature is not a factory, and the same rules do not apply. 

Over the last few weeks, I have gone out to meet some of the organic farmers that are growing for us, Philip Dreaper growing amazing organic carrots, Donal and Cameron Treacy growing the amazing organic potatoes that grace your boxes each week. We are getting the very best Irish organic apples from Richard Galvin in Waterford. The first Brussel sprouts and savoy cabbage from Padraigh and Una in Beechlawn. Amazing salad and rocket from Mick and Audrey in Millhouse farm and so much more.

We here on our farm certainly know where our food comes from, and we know that it has been produced without chemicals. 

When it comes to the apples though there is another special substance contained in each bite, a mini time machine, these apples will take you back in time. They certainly took me back to the orchard my grandad used to have in his back garden, the apples there which I picked as a young lad were full of flavour. I believe there is a distinct flavour and taste to an Irish apple, and Richard’s apples are that if they are anything.

It is exciting to see that our food and our food producers are becoming a revered part of our culture again, thank you so much for being part of that transformation!

Kenneth

An emotional rollercoaster of a week

by Kenneth Keavey

Supermarkets have a stranglehold on our food system, whatever way you look at it they set the rules, they control 93% of a €22 billion pie, that is some power when you think about it. The argument goes that supermarkets are only giving us as consumers what we want, but how would we know what we want?

Please watch my Instagram video this week. http://instagram.com/greenearthorganics1

There is immense psychology around getting people to buy high margin low value products (think ultra processed food). I was at panel discussion during the week chaired by Aoibheann O’Brien who runs Food Cloud, and the title was the “myth of choice in supermarkets” a very interesting discussion.

We have been conditioned for instance to expect vegetables and fruit to come in a certain shape and size and look a certain way, if we only ever shop in supermarkets how would we know that fresh produce comes in all sizes, and in fact comes out of the ground with soil on it, and that this is, ok? In fact, it is more than ok, it is amazing and wonderful.

The shiny plastic packs keep us in our box so to speak; they convey a very comforting all is well and this is the way things should be feel. But you know what it is not “all is well” and don’t even get me started on all the plastic rubbish generated by these single use plastics. At the excellent Climate Carnival discussion there was a discussion on plastic, and the big elephant in the room, is what truly happens to the contents of our blue recycle bin?

We pack in paper and compostable bags, and the reality is supermarkets will not pack their veg in compostable bags because they are expensive.

I spoke to a man who knows the food system and knows the buying behaviour of supermarkets, and his take was ultimately fresh food is too cheap, and supermarkets are responsible of bringing us to this point, end of story. I spoke to Philip Dreaper who is an amazing carrot grower, and he reminded me that we as consumers paid more for a kg of carrots 20 years ago that we do today. He also reminded me that growing is getting more challenging as a result of climate change.

We had an amazing day of celebrations last weekend at our 20 year anniversary Sustainable Festival.  It was emotional and uplifting and enlightening and I cannot begin to convey my thanks to all of you who came, to all the suppliers and vendors, and to all our amazing team that made it all work.

It was then with all of this as a backdrop that we faced into our usual Monday morning with orders not at all where they needed to be for mid-September, each week we had been waiting for the routines to set in and things to improve for our deliveries, and we were left with a massive glut of cherry tomatoes, for us we counted nearly 400kg which is a true mountain of tomatoes. It was with a bittersweet taste in my mouth that I had to go to the tunnel and ask again as I did in the summer if you could support us this week. I would much prefer not to have to do this.

We I am sure could improve so many things, and so many things we need to address such as cost. We know there is a cost-of-living crisis we know our produce is expensive relative to supermarkets. But we simply cannot compete on some things with them, but we would hope that how we conduct ourselves as a farm and business and community, and the value that is in the fresh organic food would speak for itself.

I am sure I am missing something, so please if you know of ways we could make it easier and better for you to order from us and help us to ensure we keep more of you our customer supporting us, please send us an e-mail (info@greenearthorganics.ie) or leave us a comment. We will take it all on board.

Thank you so much for the last 20 years, and here is to the next 20 years.

Kenneth

PS We have reduced prices on several key items to help address some of the cost issues, check out our website. Also, as an added celebration of the start of Irish apple season, we are giving away a FREE portion of IRISH organic apples from Richard Galvin in Waterford when you spend over €80, just enter the code FREEAPPLES

farm washing … Not again!

by Kenneth Keavey

I was at Food on the Edge here in Galway this week. This is a food festival that champions transparency of our food system, and the fight to put good food on people’s plates, from fine restaurants to farms across the country. There was such positivity and a genuine feeling of solidarity.

It was clear that there are many people doing great work to put real food right at the heart of our small country. But the backdrop was less rosy, working in the food industry is tough, plain and simple, whether you are producing, growing or cooking food there are many challenges.

Why is this the case? Why is it that when it comes to food, good local sustainable food that we mostly look for the very cheapest option. There are many reasons for this I guess, but the cheapest is best, a food culture that the supermarkets have carefully curated is a race to the bottom where nobody is a winner. We recognise the need to provide value, but how do you define value, is good wholesome fresh organic food, grown without chemicals where people are paid fairly and nobody is exploited, does that represent value?

There is no denying that value is embedded in the price we pay, and we are no exception and are not exempt from the unrelenting pressure of supermarkets. To give you our customers more value we have reduced prices on some of our fresh lines. But it is impossible to compete with the large supermarkets, they are the gatekeepers and control our food system. In the race to the bottom here are two examples that highlight what is happening: Supervalu just this week are selling organic leeks all the way from Poland.

This is shocking, I know for sure that there is at least one large organic leek grower that they are not stocking, why is that do you think? We know it is more expensive to buy Irish apples, or to grow Irish leeks, we could easily stop growing leeks and just import, or buy imported apples over Irish, but we don’t! Surely it is a great thing to support locally grown sustainable food, it is our business model.

What do you think of supermarkets who create FAKE or PHANTOM farms as a marketing tactic to make us believe they are doing the right thing, greenwashing, or farmwashing spring to mind. Next time you are in Aldi, have a look at the “Egans” brand, what does it suggest, well very clearly it suggests a family farm called “Egans” but “Egans” as a farm does not exist, it is a misleading brand. What are your thoughts on this?

This supermarket culture, and price wars have brought us to a place where fresh food is continuously discounted and used as loss leading fodder. We could certainly be forgiven for thinking that fresh food is worthless, this is extremely disheartening as any grower will tell you.

Of course, this is a race to the bottom which has put the very future of the Irish horticultural industry in jeopardy. Our farm and business model is built on sourcing and growing chemical free sustainable food, we will always support other Irish organic farms and continue to grow local Irish food on our own farm.

Only through your support is this possible,

Thank you.

Kenneth

Fake Farms, what do you think…

by Kenneth Keavey

What do “Egan’s” and “Farrell’s” have in common?

They are all brand names used on supermarket packed own label fruit and veg. They give you the impression that they are family farms, BUT THEY ARE NOT.  They are marketing mechanisms, to make us feel warm and happy that we are supporting these assumed lovely family farms.

We are working hard on our Real farm to get the autumn harvest out and the conditions are favourable; this is the same in the remaining Irish vegetable farms up and down the country the likes of Beechlawn Organic farm, or McCormacks Family farm, or Philip Dreaper’s farm in Offaly where we get our Irish carrots, or Richard Galvin in Clashganny organic farm who supplies our organic Irish apples, and many, many more.

These family names used in some supermarkets give the impression there is a real farm with a family name behind the carrots, or tomatoes on their shelf. I recently went to check this out in a large Retailer.

In their fruit and veg section I was convinced that “Farrell’s” which was labelled on much of their Irish produce was a family farm and this family were producing a wealth of produce. At least at first glance that was my impression. I’m in the veg growing business I am a grower and understand a little of how these things work and I was taken in by the misleading advertising.

As I looked a little closer it seemed that my original assumption was not at all correct. “Farrell’s” is not a real farm; it is a marketing tool created by the supermarket to give the consumer that warm homely glow of things being done right.

Does it matter?

Well, I think it does, firstly, this is misleading, you are led to believe the produce is coming from “Farrell’s”, and it is not.  

The second interesting point that is worth considering is that this brand allows supermarkets or more frequently large pack houses and distribution centres, to take in produce from multiple farms and blend it into packs, so the carrots may be coming from multiple suppliers and you or I will never know.  This practice is now frequently called “blending”.

This is very helpful for large retailers as it gives it them the balance of power when it comes to price negotiation, and the ultimate flexibility to choose whose carrots or apples to put into their bag.

When the grower is hidden, he has less power to negotiate a fair price and as with all own branded products on supermarket shelves they are cheaper. It is this pricing structure that has done the damage to growers all over Ireland over the last twenty years.

As always with your support our real Farm continues to grow and our support for other REAL growers can be fair and transparent.

Thank you.

Kenneth

PS Thank you to everybody who donated to our Gaza appeal during the week, I am waiting on final confirmation but the total donated is looking like it was €2380, so thank you so much to everybody, we will be topping this up with the 50% of €1190 making the total donation we will make to the UNICEF Gaza appeal €3570. We will confirm this early next week and be making the donation straight away.

Something that really annoys me…

by Kenneth Keavey

Something that really upsets me is the fact that supermarkets not only sell fresh produce for next to nothing, but they also reject perfectly good produce, leading to increased food waste.

Have you ever seen a head of broccoli like the one in this video that weighs close to a kilogram and looks a bit wonky on a supermarket shelf? You will not, I think. They will never allow something like that for sale. More than likely the broccoli you get in supermarkets will be imported, will always be 400g, probably won’t be that fresh and will be wrapped in plastic and will usually be sprayed with chemicals and be very cheap. Did you know that a broccoli plant is quite big and will produce just one head in its lifespan? It takes quite a bit to bring a broccoli plant to harvest.  

During the week I had a conversation with our potato grower, Cameron from Battlemountain Organic Farm. We needed to discuss potato pricing, we had a frank discussion and came to a fair agreement for him and for us, one we were both happy with. 

If that conversation had went differently and it could have, then that would have been the end of our relationship and would have caused hardship for his farm.  It would not have been fair, and it is certainly not our way. We are growers and we know a little about the costs and the challenges involved in producing and selling fresh organic produce and believe in paying fairly.

Supermarket buyers take a different approach to paying for their produce and this has led to the decimation of the Irish horticultural industry. Only 2% of farms in Ireland now grow vegetables.

The most recent national field vegetable census showed that the number of field vegetable growers fell from 377 in 1999 to 165 in 2014. That is a contraction of 56%.

But supermarkets want it all their own way, there is few countries where fresh produce is as devalued as it is here in Ireland. It really bothers me, obviously it bothers me because it makes it so difficult to stay in business with this backdrop, but it also bothers me because it undermines our food security and has caused untold damage to our indigenous vegetable industry.

Supermarkets demand the cheapest possible price and the most rigorous specifications leading to hardship for growers. 

It is a broken food system. The funny thing is it would take very little to fix it, what if for example the specification on broccoli was relaxed to be above a certain weight, and if there was a slight increase in the price of the product and that went back to the grower and not to the supermarket, then that would fix a lot.  

Your support keeps us in business and supports not only our own organic farm but many other Irish organic producers too.

Kenneth

Pigs and Plastic

by Kenneth Keavey

In 2018, we said goodbye to plastic for good in our boxes – we were the first company to do that in Ireland. We sourced compostable plant based bags, we launched our ‘Plastic Free’ shopping aisle and we made a commitment to never include any plastic wrapped produce in any of our set boxes ever again. Over the past three years, we have expanded this range, adding lots more sustainable ‘plastic free’ groceries and we introduced a new BULK section of plastic free groceries – even better value.

Supermarkets can’t have it both ways. They maintain their single use plastic packaging; they argue that it prolongs shelf life and therefore it is necessary to reduce food waste, and at the same time they reject perfectly good food on aesthetics leading directly to large amounts of food waste!

The pressure that below cost selling and rejecting produce based on how food looks places on growers can mean that farmers struggle to sustain their livelihoods. There is always a price to pay.

Ironically, the argument for food waste reduction has been used for the continued use of plastic in our food chain, at the very same time that produce not looking the part is dumped! Maybe It is the food system and how we produce and sell food that needs to change?

We used to supply supermarkets and we were told that we had to pay for any produce on their shelves that they did not sell. They also demanded that we lower our prices and stopped ordering until we complied. We pulled the plug ourselves and focused 100% on our home delivery business.

The plastic problem and food waste are issues of our time and as with climate change, they can only be solved by changing our behaviour and by making these issues the very centre of all decisions taken. Our pledge is to do just that.

I will never forget our very first season of growing veg here in the West of Ireland on my grand-dad’s farm. We were told we were mad it could not be done. Others told us that the only way to grow veg was to use a “touch of Roundup” our neighbour wanted to buy the family farm and pretty much laughed at our attempts to learn to grow veg. The local garda called up to see if we were growing strange things! That was 15 years ago.

We have shown it is possible and viable to rekindle a sustainable food production industry in the West of Ireland, to relearn the lost skills of generations and apply them to growing food, but also to innovate and to do it in a truly sustainable way.

Maybe there is hope after all that the bigger issues will be addressed and we can live a cleaner greener future.On food waste there is one thing is for sure: our two pet rescue pigs never complain when they see us coming, they get the truly unusable food and recycle it back into nutrients for the land!

Thanks as always for your support.

Kenneth

PS Reuse is so much better than anything else and we have always championed this, our boxes are the ultimate reusable container. We collect them and reuse them every week.