The "Made in Vermont" label brought has always brought distinction to a jug of maple syrup,apple cider, or a wheel of cheddar cheese, but it's not so simple anymore. When you buy a Maine lobster, you expect that it comes from a lobster boat anchored somewhere off the coast of Maine, right? And Georgia peaches come from Georgia. So, how come some Vermont products are perceived to come from the Green Mountains and have a label which suggest the product comes from Vermont, yet is produced in another place. The fact is that Vermont's good name is peddled by larger companies - far and wide.
In other words, can a company from "Anywhere U.S.A." create food products and say it came from Vermont? The answer is yes and no. Take Williams of Vermont Deli Meats owned by the largest meat company in the world - none other than Tyson Foods, an Arkansas company with $25 billion in sales. The Vermont name was peddled for years on the label. The products was discontinued a few years ago.
When most Vermonters think about Green Mountain Gringo Salsa, with a picture on the label of mountains and the sun in the background, they just assume its produced in Vermont. Sorry folks -- that's not the case. Today, it is a national brand owned by T.W. Garner Food Company of Winston-Salem North Carolina. In 1989, the first jar of the salsa was produced in the kitchen of Christine and Dave Hume at their Chester, Vermont farm. Perhaps they used local ingredients from their garden. When the salsa was made commercially in Stowe, Vermont, the ingredients were purchased from outside Vermont and mixed up in batches at the processing factory.
The state of Vermont does have rules regarding labeling, but for the most part, most consumers don't read the labels. If a processor takes wheat flour from the midwest and sugar from Florida and makes cookies with them, they could call their product, "Vermont-Made Cookies. All they'd have to do is have a glorious cookie picture and say they were baked in Vermont. Most folks wouldn't know the difference. This is a far stretch but some people believe the coffee beans in Green Mountain Coffee roaster coffee comes from Vermont. Hum!
Maple Grove - B&G Foods is the New Jersey owner of B&M Baked Beans. They also own Maple Grove Farms of Vermont, which began in 1915 as a cottage industry by two local women, Helen Gray and Ethel McLauren, who made maple candy using pure maple syrup and cream that were produced on their farm. Today, Maple Grove of St. Johnsbury, Vermont has grown into one of the largest packers of maple syrup and salad dressings in the U.S.
Most of the syrup comes from Canada and some from the U.S. Even though Vermont is the largest producer of syrup in the U.S., Maple Grove could not find enough syrup to meet its needs. All of the products at Maple Grove are brought in and processed at their facility in St. Johnsbury along with a gift shop.
At one time, "Up Country Naturals of Vermont," was a Maple Grove brands. The Up-Country cake-mix product began 1996. Other products included "all-natural" specialty foods including maple syrup products, honey, spices, and salad dressings under the title of Maple Grove. The Up-Country cake-mix label stated that the company was on the banks of the Moose River in northern Vermont. That much is true.
Maple Grove discontinued the Up-Country line and created another label called Maple Grove Farms Organics, which now sells a pancake mix, a host of maple products syrup and salad dressings. The ingredients in the pancake mix are USDA certified organic.
* By the way, the Adamant Natural Food Co-op makes their own cake mixes from flour milled locally, sometimes grown locally. It is the oldest food co-op in Vermont and the nation.
McKenzie's - Some Vermont companies have had to leave the state because of industry competition. Years ago, the McKenzie family of Vermont processed pork products in Burlington, however there weren't enough local hog farms to supply them with pork products so they had to purchase hogs from the midwest. The family company was particularly famous for frankfurters and using Vermont maple syrup on its hams.
Like many industries, the trend in the food industry has been towards consolidation. When McKenzie's was sold in 1999 to a Massachusetts firm, the family stopped packing bacon, hot dogs and maple-cured hams after a 92-year run in Burlington. Kayem FoodsInc. of Chelsea, Mass is now the owner. They're also a family business.
There is still an operation in Burlington with McKenzie's Country Classics on the label. 10 people work in the company's Flynn Avenue facility. In the late 1980s, 75 to 100 people were kept busy at the Burlington facility. The deli meats are processed in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and don't use the Vermont name on their products any longer. Bill McKenzie, the brand's regional sales manager is the 65-year-old grandson of the company's founder.
Side Notes:
Jack Lacy raises hogs in Jericho and they are processed in Williston and Barre. Lacy makes it clear that fake Vermont products hurt Vermont farmers and punish Vermont entrepreneurs. Hadley Gaylord raises pigs in Waitsfield and takes them to Craig Harrington's slaughterhouse in Williston. Brenda Blair makes them into sausage. Local Vermont producers and processors can develop legitimate brands, but it's a struggle against the likes of B&G and Tyson Foods.
The reality is that there isn't enough grain being grown to process into bread and pancakes or pigs being produced to make hams and bacon. And there aren't enough raw materials that could go into the salsa's, pickles, pasta, dressings, jams, and chips that are processed in the Green Mountains. Jerry Seinfeld would say - "Not that there's anything wrong with." Well, there probably isn't if you consider the fact that many so-called "local products," contain ingredients from elsewhere, like pretzels from Pennsylvania. I'm referring to the wheat and salt in those baked, twisted flour concoction. It's all in the marketing, folks.
I'm not saying that is true of Vermont cheddar cheese or some maple syrup products even though the farmers in Quebec might raise heck about how some of there maple syrup goes into bottles of syrup with the Vermont name on them. The fact is that some Vermont companies use all Vermont products and some businesses process food without using local ingredients. Take Red Hen Bakery of Middlesex. They use as much local grain as possible as long as the grain is of high quality. But the fact is that there aren't enough farmers growing wheat in Vermont to satisfy the needs of local bakeries.
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The Vermont Bread Company (VBC) was founded in 1978. Its original name was Innisfree Farm. As the small bread company grew into a national business, it came to be known as the Vermont Bread Company. Very few people can remember the name Innisfree Farm any longer.
If you call try and call VBC today in Brattleboro at (802) 254-4600, you won't get any information because they were bought out by Charter Baking of Boulder, Colorado in February of 2005. As natural and organic breads become part of the mainstream baking industry, many small bakeries were bought up by large corporations.
Charter Baking was established by a New York-based equity firm. The company's management team reads like a who's who in the industry. Paul Mullan, former chief executive officer of Del Monte Foods, is the bakeries chairman. Charter Baking not only bought out the Vermont Bread Company, they also acquired Rudi's Organic Bakery - a national brand in Colorado, Superior Bakery in Connecticut, Mathews Bakery in Boston, and the Baker Bakery in New York and New Jersey.
Side Notes:
Rules/Smules - Today, the Vermont Bread brand is the leading natural and USDA organic bread in the Northeast. Charter Baking also bought a small bakery in Western Massachusetts called, Baldwin Farms - one the best tasting, heavier organic breads I've ever tasted. Today, the bread has lost its flavor and quality.
The same is true with Ben & Jerry's ice cream that was bought out by Unilever a few years ago. To me, it just doesn't taste the same. I believe the quality has been compromised. Unilever, a multi-national food corporation of Anglo-Dutch parentage, also makes home care, food, and other personal products including margarine, beverages, teas, and Dove Soap.
Many companies choose to do business in Vermont because it's where they were founded, even though the raw materials come from out-of-state. Peter Thompson's company, New England Country Foods, makes Vermont Country Soup. He said, "we can't source sufficient raw materials here in Vermont to meet the content requirement because the state of Vermont doesn't have processing facilities for vegetables and for chicken meat." If you look on their web site, it states, "New England Country Soup that is all-natural, ready to serve, low sodium, earth-friendly soup that is easy to prepare and safe for the environment."
Vermont's Not-So-Easy to Understand Regulations
According to state regulations, if the Vermont Bread Company had baked the bread in Illinois, it could not use the Vermont name on its label. The regulation would possibly change if Vermont was a wheat-exporting state, which, of course it is not. In that case, the bread maker would need to use a certain percentage of wheat grown in Vermont in the bread.
• Cold Hollow Cider of Waterbury, the largest producer of apple cider in the state, no longer uses the Vermont name on its label as most of the apples come from New York state.
• Vermont Jam Company - If someone made a blueberry jam with imported blueberries, they could use the word Vermont on the label as long as they processed the imported fruit in the state. Vermont does not grow enough blueberries to make them indigenous to the state.
• The way the regulation reads in relation to cheese is that 75 percent of the milk must come from Vermont unless there is a deficit of milk produced in the state. Twenty five years from now this may change if less milk is produced. That is highly unlikely, but you never know. The same could be said with a Vermont Apple Sauce brand if fewer apples were grown in the state.
• The question is - are products being misrepresented to the public via their labeling and packaging? One draft of the attorney general's regulation would require at least 85 percent of a product's ingredients to originate in-state or at least 85 percent of the product to be processed in-state for it to be called a Vermont product. The claim must be true. The item must be substantially transformed in Vermont into something new and different such as milk being made into yogurt or apples processed into applesauce.
• Basically, Vermont takes a "compromised" position when it comes to labeling. Legislative oversight is necessary to keep up with the changing times. On October 7, 2005, the Attorney General's office adopted a new consumer fraud rule, CF 120. A revised rule was filed on August 8, 2007. The rule was issued on order to avoid deceptive marketing. In general, the rule prohibits the use of the word "Vermont" on certain "non-Vermont" items except when a "Vermont" company name is used in close association with the product. For more information, go to www.atg.state.vt.us
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An Example - The latest salvo in the label war came when the infamous Bove's tomato sauce received a hefty penalty by the state of Vermont for using Vermont on its label. Bove's is a well-known restaurant in Burlington and a processor of up-scale tomato sauce. The sauce did not use Vermont tomatoes nor was it processed in Vermont. Thus, the company did not comply with the law. Not only did Bove's pay the fine. They also donated a large amount of tomato sauce to the Vermont Food Bank.
Vermont Seal of Approval - As far back as 1975, the Vermont legislature authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to establish an identity label, which would be applied to agricultural products produced in the state as long as they met standards of quality. The legislation led to the establishment of the Vermont Seal of Quality (VSQ).
During its first 25 years, the VSQ was a regulatory-based program, serving primarily as a means of identifying Vermont farm products that met or exceeded federal standards. Through 1999, sugarmakers represented approximately two-thirds of program participants, while the dairy industry dominated the program in sales.
By the mid 1980's, there was a limit to the number of inspections the agency could perform as many new products and commodities like Christmas trees, nursery stock, and processed food came onto the market. There was also a lack of personnel to regulate the program. Within a ten year period, the program was shuffled among three different agencies and now it's back under the Agency of Agriculture.
It was not until 2003, that other more permanent changes were made to the system. The "Buy Local" initiative was instituted to promote the purchase and promotion of Vermont farm products. However, there's never been enough money to support the program. For twenty years, value-added products have struggled with erratic marketing support. Its been like trying to keep the old tractor running with wire and old parts.
What's clear is that the "Vermont Seal of Quality" should be maintained and strengthened as should the "Buy Local" initiative. The ideal program would include both marketing and regulatory support. While the "Buy Local" marketing program has been well received in the state, many of the major markets for Vermont products lie out of the state, where the "Buy Local" message is lost.
Source:
Justis, Steve. Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Agriview,
February, 2007.
Italian False Foods - It's not only Vermonters who are questioning their name being on food produced out of state; the Italians are outraged by false `Italian' foods being imported into their country. Imagine a delicious dinner of pasta with meat sauce and grated parmesan. Add a salad of fresh mozzarella and Roman tomatoes sprinkled with Tuscan olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The only problem is that none of this food comes from Italy.
Foods that look or sound Italian but are produced elsewhere amount to $66 billion in annual sales - nearly half of the $135.5 billion worth of real Italian food that is sold worldwide each year. According to the Italy's farmers association, it might not be illegal but it is deceptive to the consumer.
I was trying to learn more about Mckenzie meats-their website lacks information! But this has been an useful post thanks!
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