PSFC Produce Update for August 2, 2007

Fair Trade Organic Bananas—We are at our summer low level for organic banana sales, averaging only 180 cases or 3.5 tons per week. For over a month now, we had enough access so that all of them have been Fair Trade.

Organic Red Tomato—While supplies last we have field run early harvest local ripe red organic tomatoes for only $.74 per pound.

Ginger from China—The California Department of Health has warned consumers not to eat fresh ginger from China after the California Department of Pesticide Regulation detected aldicarb sulfoxide, a pesticide not approved for use on ginger. The Coop does not carry this ginger, or any fresh produce from China. We did get in a couple of boxes at the beginning of this year, and it was not very good ginger. Fear not, if you think you had some back in January, as the flu-like symptoms of contamination would have occurred within the first hour of ingestion and disappeared quickly, within a few hours. In the spring, having heard reports of questionable integrity or purity of Chinese fresh produce, we stopped buying any of it. That occasionally has meant that we had no organic garlic at all, as most of the springtime worldwide supply of garlic comes from China.

The local produce items tally today: 97 local items, 72 of which were grown organically on small family farms.