Arizona food produced in-state more common

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by Megan Finnerty and Richard Ruelas -

The Arizona Republic

It's easier than you may think to eat locally produced food in Arizona, particularly at this time of year.

The "eat local" idea has long been associated with Saturday morning markets, specialty grocers and concept restaurants. But harvest season - that's now, in our desert climate - means produce aisles in nearly any grocery are stocked with locally grown food.

Shoppers can leaf through greens at Bashas', pick through the pomegranates at Whole Foods Market and browse the cabbage at Safeway. They can be confident that though the food isn't always marked or marketed as local, much of it comes from farms in the state.

Grocery stores aren't the only ones with local food. Order a foot-long at Subway or a salad at Chili's and you're almost certainly getting local lettuce this time of year.

Most of the milk and eggs we consume year-round also come from local suppliers.

Eating local food is an idea pushed by advocates for small farms and environmentalists who want to reduce the pollution associated with shipping food. The movement spawned the term "locavore."

True locavores generally pledge to eat only foods produced within 100 miles. More broadly, the government allows labeling agriculture local if it is produced within the state.

"People are consuming more local products than they think they are," said Sandy Kelley of Shamrock Farms, the Phoenix-based dairy that supplies much of the Valley's milk.

This time of year, Safeway stocks about 27 Arizona-grown items in the produce section. Bashas' supermarkets, including AJ's Fine Foods and Food City, offer a comparable number. Whole Foods Market offers slightly less in the produce section.

Not all are labeled as such because stores can't guarantee items are from Arizona, although for most leafy greens, according to the Arizona Farm Bureau, the chances of it being from the state are about 85 percent.

And consumers put off by higher prices for boutique items from local farms should know that "local" doesn't mean "luxury." At grocery stores, in-season produce is typically priced to move.

Restaurant suppliers including U.S. Foodservice, Shamrock Farms and Sysco aren't stocking local ingredients because it is trendy but because it reduces shipping cost.

At the grocery store

It's rarely obvious that grocery-aisle produce is local.

Only Bashas' and Whole Foods Markets reliably label Arizona-grown items. But Safeway spokeswoman Cathy Kloos said the chain has plans to start.

Bashas' started posting grown-in-Arizona signage about three years ago and saw an immediate bump in sales.

Jack Armstrong, Bashas' senior produce buyer, said customers "seem to be happier when they see it's from their own backyard." And it's more efficient.

"It can be in my warehouse in less than a day, sometimes a few hours," he said.

Armstrong adds two or three new growers to his stores each year, although few farmers and food makers in the state have a large enough production capacity to serve the chain.

The meat aisle is more complicated. A great portion comes from major producers in the Midwest, according to Shamrock Foods, the largest distributor in the state.

But the Arizona Beef Council says state ranches produce enough beef to supply 5.6 million residents. It is not clear where all of that beef goes, though. Basilio Aja, executive director of the council, said about 50 percent of beef consumed in the state is from Arizona.

Bashas' partnered with Local First Arizona, an organization that promotes Arizona-based businesses, to develop labels for items ranging from tomatoes from Sunizona Family Farms in Willcox to My Nana's Tortilla Chips from Phoenix.

The move appeals to Jennifer McHenry, 36, of Mesa. She shops for locally grown produce at Whole Foods and Sprouts Farmers Markets.

A mother of two, she tried shopping at farmers markets near her home, but ran out of time for those special trips.

"If more places used local labels, it would be an incentive to shop in mainstream markets," she said.

Darcy Landis works with about 200 local vendors to stock five Whole Foods stores with a range of products including chocolate, skin cream, produce and salsa.

Landis, Whole Foods' "metro forager" for Arizona and southern Nevada, is most proud to offer shoppers Black Sphinx dates, grown only in Phoenix's Arcadia neighborhood, harvested from privately owned trees. The thin-skinned, sweet dates have a cult following.

"They are, in my opinion, the best dates you can get," Landis said. "And through November and December, they're really fresh."

When shopping for staples, nearly every Arizonan buys local eggs and milk.

Hickman's Egg Ranch and the Shamrock Farms dairy supply a large portion of grocery stores' egg and milk supply, whether branded as such or not.

Cartons may not be labeled as local to allow both companies the flexibility to add in non-Arizona milk or eggs if needed.

But both companies say that is not common.

Eating out

Restaurant suppliers including U.S. Foodservice and Shamrock Foods also stock Arizona ingredients to keep costs down.

"It just makes good sense from a business standpoint," said Rob Ahrensdorf of Shamrock Foods, the largest restaurant supplier in the Valley. Shamrock Farms is an affiliate of Shamrock Foods.

Shamrock's customers include Subway, Applebee's and Chili's.

"There are times you're going to be buying local because that's when it's on the trees, that's when it's coming from the ground," Ahrensdorf said. "It's less expensive because they're not trucking it from Chile."

The egg market, over the past decade, has been increasingly dominated by Hickman's, located in Buckeye and Maricopa. Nearly every restaurant or institutional kitchen gets eggs from Hickman's, said Clint Hickman, the family-owned company's vice president of sales and marketing.

"You have to go to great extremes to not eat a Hickman's egg," he said.

In mid-November, lettuce pickers dismantle their operations in central and northern California and move them to Yuma. From that time until the growing season ends in April, it's almost certain that all lettuce served in restaurants is from Arizona.

Still, true locavores will take the extra effort to find leafy greens grown as close to home as possible.

"People are always so surprised that we have so many farms in the Valley," said Pamela Hamilton, publisher of the quarterly locavore guide Edible Phoenix.

"This time of year, all the greens we have growing, spinach, kale, mustard greens, they're really lovely. And they're the vegetables that lose the most nutrients when they're shipped from far away."

Whether a restaurant chooses to trumpet local ties, though, is up to each owner.

Foodie places like FnB in Scottsdale and Quiessence in Phoenix reprint menus often to highlight in-season produce.

Others push value. The fact that they serve local greens for a few months is merely circumstantial.

Hamilton welcomes the extra seasonal members into the local food movement, even if most are unknowingly joining.

"People shop local for a bunch of different reasons," Hamilton said. "If you're doing it for economic reasons, Yuma lettuce or Hickman's Eggs are great. . . . If you're doing it because you're supporting small farmers or want to eat organically, you might make other choices."

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