Cows, milk, tasty yogurt, a beautiful Kansas day and a fascinated group of bloggers are what made up our trip to McCarty Farms in Kansas on Thursday. The McCarty’s are a family rooted in agriculture. They have been producing milk for generations – first in Pennsylvania, and now at four progressive diaries located within 80 miles of one another in the heart of rural Kansas. On this particular day we were at their Rexford location and had the chance to tag along with a group of food bloggers hosted by the Kansas Farm Bureau. Just one of many stops on the #farmfoodtour, the McCarty’s rolled out the red carpet and showed these ladies all facets of their business. We saw fat and happy cows, brand-new-still-wet calves, their processing facility for transforming raw milk into a condensed product sold to Dannon yogurt, and, of course, the actual milking in action. It was a great tour on a beautiful farm and a perfect example of how learning and seeing where your food comes from can transform your vision of agriculture and food production. Our hats are off to the entire McCarty family!
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Alberta Views
As you can imagine, telling the story of where food comes from takes us to to some pretty amazing places. Last week, Jim and Gordon were auditing up in Alberta and we had to share this shot of them in front of Horseshoe Canyon. Beautiful!
Harvest Day Fun
There were pumpkins galore at CALF’s Harvest Day this year! Check out these fun photos we snagged during the event on Saturday. Moms, dads and kids alike were having a great time!
Farm to Table Dinner – a Success!
What an amazing night! 9 members of our local Where Food Comes From, Inc. team here in Castle Rock, Colorado were able to participate in a wonderful farm to table dinner honoring our friends at the Colorado Agricultural Leadership Foundation (CALF) last night. The food was to die for, the company was tremendous, and all in all we helped raise $7,000 for the organization. Amazing!
Chefs from Manna, The Old Stone Church and Plum Creek Golf Course prepared an amazing four course meal, and the final course of the night featured some incredible Shepherd’s Pride Lamb from Mountain States Rosen! All in all, it was a huge success.
To learn more about CALF and their amazing efforts, visit http://www.thecalf.org.
The Happiest Hour @ Expo East!
Natural Products Expo East is really a site to behold. Thousands of vendors, tens of thousands of attendees, and food, food, food everywhere! The Where Food Comes From team has been attending both Expo East and Expo West now for a few years, and we decided to step it up a bit this year at Expo East in Baltimore with an invitational reception that is going to be hard to top in 2016.
Our happy hour event was held at the Pratt Street Ale House (thank you to their AMAZING crew!) and featured numerous third-party verified foods cooked to perfection. Small plates and signature cocktails included:
Chicken Satay featuring Miller Poultry chicken, verified by Where Food Comes From to Global Animal Partnership’s (GAP’s) 5-Step Animal Welfare program, USDA Certified Organic, the Non-GMO Project Verified standard, and the Where Food Comes From Source Verified® claim.
Beef & Bacon Sliders featuring Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, verified by Where Food Comes From to the Non-GMO Project Verified standard, and American Homestead Pork, verified by Where Food Comes From to the Non-GMO Project Verified standard;
a cheese & meat plate featuring Trickling Springs cheeses, verified by Where Food Comes From to the Non-GMO Project Verified standard, and Grayson Natural Foods beef sticks, verified by Where Food Comes From to GAP’s 5-Step Animal Welfare program;
a variety of herbs and vegetables certified to the National Organic Program; and
signature cocktails featuring organic spirits, Marquis mixers, verified by Where Food Comes From to the National Organic Program and the Non-GMO Project Verified standard, and organic lemons and limes for garnish.
Hungry yet?! The entire night was a huge success, and we look forward to replicating this at future Expos.
Alltech USA adds Feed Verified…and we love it!
Feed Verified. Did you read about it? If not, check out our latest program here.
We are excited about this new program and how it will help livestock producers ensure they are meeting complex verification and certification program requirements for feedstuffs. Learn more about how Alltech is leading the way in verified feeds in their recent blog post.