View Food Travels of Jarod - May 12, 2012 in a larger map
After reading The
Omnivore’s Dilemma and hearing the war stories of Michael Pollan, I knew
that tracking food would be difficult.
Little did I know how difficult it would actually be. I won’t bore you with all of the details of
the full experience of trying to track and locate where my food came from, but
a short run-down of it is very important for us to start to understand how
truly unaware we are about our food and from where it comes.
So, I own this tiny side business called Green Illuminations
(www.green-illuminations.com -
shameless plug for it) that is a crafting business that makes candles and
lanterns using recycled wine and beer bottles.
Wondering why this is important to the story (aside from a ploy to
direct you to the business’ website)?
Well, I had a craft show at a local bar—The Elbow Room—on my tracking
day. About a week before this, I decided
to cut meat out of my diet unless if I can find it locally. Having done this, and limiting my options to
eat at the bar significantly, I thought this would make it easier to track what
I was eating. Sadly, this didn’t seem to
be the case.
A couple of days after I ate my food and decided to start
actually tracking and mapping it, I called up the bar and politely asked to
speak with a manager. Unfortunately, the
manager was unavailable at the moment to take my call, but I was directed to a
member of the kitchen team. My veggie
burger—which I originally thought was made in-house—was actually purchased from
Gordon Food Services, a restaurant supplier.
After walking through the steps of grieving over the fact
that my veggie burger was not actually locally made—specifically denial and
then anger—I finally pulled myself together and began to play Dick Tracy with
my food. I knew that the burger was
purchased from a GFS on the East side of Indianapolis, so I jumped past them
and called the corporate distribution center in Michigan. I got a hold of Terry, who walked me through
as much as she knew about the product.
It seems that the problem was that GFS is not actually a food producing
company; they outsource their food production to other companies. Or, as you’re about to find out, repackage
other products as their own.
Terry at GFS was unable to tell me where the vegetables in
the burger were from (aside from using words like “MorningStar” and
“Kellogg’s”), but she directed me to Ada Valley Meat Packing in Ada,
Michigan. Meat packing…for my veggie
burger. That was disturbing to begin
with.
So, I called Ada and spoke with a man named Robert. Very kind gentleman, but he, too, was unable
to help me. According to Robert, Ada Valley
Meat Packing repackages veggie burgers that are MorningStar brand—a subsidiary
of Kellogg’s. Robert took my number and
said he would do some research for me and would have someone call me back. Sounds great…
So I waited…
And waited…
And waited…
Essentially, I waited three days to receive a call back from
them and never got one. It was up to me,
again, to crack the code of where my carrots were from. I called Kellogg’s directly, asking about the
source of my food. After a few little
white lies—“I’m doing this for a school project” and “I’m in college still”—I
was told that the vegetables are sourced from proprietary farms and,
unfortunately, that is private information that couldn’t be shared with
me. But, “they would be more than happy
to direct me to a website to discuss Kellogg’s initiatives and goals for
sustainability.” No thanks, I’m ok…
Dead end. Cue stages
of grief…
A week later, I received a call from Mary from Ada Valley
Meat Company who has been emailing back and forth with Kellogg’s. She got a hold of someone named Dustin and he
also said that the information from the farmers is private and cannot be given
out, but she did give me his number to try to ask him on my own. I took this as defeat, but I was thankful for
Ada Valley Meat Company for being so diligent in their search. So thankful, that I am half-tempted to write
a thank you letter or send a box of MorningStar veggie patties.
My only solace from this whole experience? The beer I drank that night was locally
sourced from a new microbrewer here in Indianapolis. And it was delicious….I may need to go get
one of those right now.
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