Hi everyone!

A couple of weeks ago, I went along with Tim on the Thursday deliveries as we were setting up for Saltscapes.  We needed to pick up some bags, so we stopped by the Farnell warehouse in Burnside Industrial Park.  We ended up running into the area manger, who I chatted with for a while about bags and packaging.  (Sounds exciting, huh?!) 

Anyhow, I was actually impressed with some of the things he told me, and he followed up with a great email, explaining that Farnell is a good choice for plastic bags, if you must use plastic bags (and we do try to use as little as possible, but sometimes there's just no getting around it).  So, I'm happy to find out that we are making a good choice for plastic bag suppliers.  Here's the info:

"Farnell Packaging Limited has been supplying packaging to the food and consumer industries in Atlantic Canada and beyond since 1961. As a family owned and operated organization based in the Halifax region, we love working with other local companies that are a part of the Nova Scotian economy!

Farnell has always kept innovation and the environment at the top of its business plan. We are constantly challenging ourselves to reduce our own impact and work for “the greater good” – a statement found in Farnell’s “Vision Mission and Value” statement. Working with the food industry, we play a major role in delivering safe products to consumers across North America. Whether it be fresh produce, baked goods or fish, the product must make a safe journey from the producer to the consumer. Part of our job is finding the right balance for a given item, ensuring the packaging requirements meet producer and consumers needs that we can confidently say isn’t over packaged. As a member of the Packaging Association of Canada, and borrowing their mantra, Farnell is working hard to create “a world without packaging waste”.

Internally, we manufacture everything from raw materials on site in Burnside. Our modern facility uses leading technologies where virtually zero plastic is wasted thanks to our robust and rigorous recycling and re-pelletizing programs.  We use CFIA approved resins and produce highly engineered mono layer and co-ex films along with post-consumer and certified compostable films. In addition, we manufacture pressure sensitive labels.  

I hope this gives you an idea of our story and where we are going! Feel free to pass this info on to your shareholders. We appreciate building transparent relationships with our customer."

Shirley and Bubbie are grandmothers!  These sweet little things were born yesterday.

And proud Godmother, Isabel, watching over them

It's a really yucky windy and rainy day out there today, but I ventured out for a moment to snap a few photos of what the farm looks like today, the first day of the 2013-14 CSA season!

Jem here, hopefully we have seen the last snow day of this winter. I deliver shares to HRM on Monday Wednesday and Thursday, however Wed and Thurs were combined last week and the van was as full as I have seen it. Also on my first call at Petes of Bedford when I opened the back door three 50lb sacks of potatoes wanted to fall out on top of me. Somehow I held them in and managed to take them out one at a time. But I wouldn’t want to repeat that. So here we are on week 52 and for some people it will be their last week of CSA, so thank you for coming out every week and collecting your box(es), we have very much appreciated it. For others it will be as before continuing on, which is great so I look forward to seeing you again each week. Then there will also be lots of new people to meet which is so exciting for me; sometimes I only have time to say” Hello, Enjoy, Bye” other times I have time to chat a bit about life or the weather. Either way is fine with me, I’m certainly looking forward to warmer days, lighter boxes with more greens and less roots( though I do love my carrots and parsnips) and new and continuing friends among our members. Taproot is a great place to work and I am very blessed to have been here for almost 3 years and hopefully a few more to come. Thanks Jem.