Fresh idea
Far too often, the fruits and veggies you see on the shelves of a chain supermarket are shipped in from miles beyond what’s reasonably considered “local.” But, Mark Seale (with partner Jim Epstein) is hoping to change that. Together, they’ve founded Culpeper-based Blue Ridge Produce Company, a wholesaling operation on a 450-acre farm that will help local growers market their crops.
“Farmers want to be farmers,” Seale says. “These are magnificent people—fantastic growers—that don’t want to spend time marketing. We take that part out for them.”
After conducting a feasibility study two years ago, Seale and Epstein found that $16.8 billion are spent on produce annually, but less than 7 percent of that is local. Themselves passionate local food advocates (Seale owns Charlottesville-based Simply Fresh Produce), the partners developed the idea for two years before opening the business this month.
They recently finished construction on a 136,000-cubic-foot cooler to store produce from local growers. “We’ll be both aggregators and distributors,” Seale says, explaining that the company will purchase goods from farms and wholesale them to east coast groceries. Currently, for example, Seale is working on a strawberry deal with Whole Foods —but don’t let that big name throw you off. “It doesn’t matter if you’re one acre or 1,000 acres,” Seale says. “We want to work with local growers.”
