- Check out our lists of farmers, sorted by food item and by region.
- We also have a list of farmers who offer other foods than the 20 food items featured on this site.
- The Minnesota Grown directory lists hundreds of Minnesota farmers. You can search online by product type and by region.
Request a free print copy by contacting Brian Erickson, 651-201-6539, brian.j.erickson@state.mn.us
- Food Alliance Midwest is a national organization that certifies farmers who follow sustainable farming practices.
Contact Bob Olson, the director of Food Alliance Midwest, for assistance in finding farmers: 651-265-3682, Bob@foodalliance.org
- Local Foods Partnership online searchable database includes a wide range of food products from farmers mostly in northwest, western, and central Minnesota.
- Pride of the Prairie farmers have experience in selling to retail food buyers. For assistance in finding farmers, contact Terry VanDerPol, (320) 269-2105, tlvdp@landstewardshipproject.org
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| If you are a distributor and would like either to be added to this list or to provide updates to the information below,
please contact JoAnne Berkenkamp at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, jberkenkamp@iatp.org. |
- Appert's Foodservice is a local, independent, family-owned foodservice distributor based in St. Cloud, MN. Apperts typically offers apples and potatoes grown in Minnesota and North Dakota, respectively, in season.
- Bergin Fruit & Nut Company, founded in 1951, is a family-owned distributor of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and related items. Bergin offers a range of locally grown produce items in whole form and has some capacity to pre-cut items. Most of their local items come directly from a long-running family farm in Apple Valley, MN with potatoes and carrots coming from other areas of the state. Bergin can deliver across the Twin Cities metro area and selected locations in out-state Minnesota and neighboring states. Bergin participates in the U.S. Department of Defense program.
- Bix Produce Co. was founded in 1930 and offers one of the long-running and largest local food programs in the area. Based in St. Paul, Bix serves customers in and across Minnesota and portions of neighboring states. Bix offers nearly 30 local fruits and vegetables in season and purchases from approximately 15 farmers, primarily in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. Bix also offers sustainably-grown produce from local farmers certified by Food Alliance Midwest. Bix has extensive processing capacity and offers a full array of local, pre-cut items. In summer 2009, Bix will begin offering a variety of pre-cut blends featuring locally grown products. Items are clearly identified on their website and invoices as “local”, which Bix defines as products grown in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Eastern North Dakota, Eastern South Dakota and northern Iowa. The company also offers a variety of other local items include cheese, milk, and flour. Bix puts together a weekly sheet alerting its customers about local products in stock as well as the farmers providing the products. If you purchase locally grown produce from Bix Produce, you can access photographs of many of the Minnesota farmers who sell to Bix. Please contact Paul Hugunin at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture: 651-201-6510 or paul.hugunin@state.mn.us.
- Co-op Partners Warehouse (CPW) distributes produce, fresh and frozen grocery items and other quality perishables. Based in Minneapolis, CPW specializes in organic and locally-sourced goods from small farms. Many regional producers utilize CPW’s unique drop-ship program to efficiently deliver their product via CPW trucks while maintaining the direct farmer-to-consumer relationship. Our local product offerings include natural and organic beef, pork, eggs, and poultry; fresh organic produce; milk, cheese and yogurt; maple syrup; and select prepared foods such as pizza and chili. CPW defines “local” as the five state region of MN, IA, WI and the Dakotas.
- Reinhart Foodservice. Reinhart’s facility in LaCrosse, WI (LAX) services accounts in Southeast Minnesota and offers a wide variety of locally grown produce items, primarily from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. Reinhart LAX purchases local items from other produce distributors or processors and they offer local product both in whole and pre-cut form. On request, they can provide husked sweetcorn and blends of locally grown pre-cut items. In Fall 2009, Reinhart LAX plans to introduce a new feature in their on-line catalog that will identify products grown in the three state region. The Reinhart facility in Rogers, MN does not currently have a local food program.
- Upper Lakes Foods, Inc is a family-owned, broadline foodservice distributor. Based in Cloquet, MN, Upper Lakes’ offerings include approximately ten types of locally grown fruits and vegetables in season. Most is sourced from farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Beginning in Summer 2009, Upper Lakes will offer local produce only in whole form. Pre-cut local produce items will not be available.
- US Foodservice (USF) is a broadline distributor with its Minnesota office located in Plymouth, Minnesota. USF offers a wide range of local produce items grown by approximately six farms in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. USF procures local produce both directly and through a re-distributor and can provide delivery of whole and pre-cut products to customers throughout Minnesota and into neighboring states.
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