MISSOULA — It’s easy to “eat Montana” on Thanksgiving — maybe a Hutterite turkey or bread from wheat grown in our state.
Shop at 2J’s Market in Great Falls and you’ll find Montana-grown products on every shelf including potatoes, onions, spring mix, and honey.
The wheat ground is fresh every day at Great Harvest in Missoula and is grown near Fort Benton and everything from meat to tea to pasta to milk is Montana-sourced at the Good Food Store in Missoula.
Just four miles from downtown Missoula at Turner Farms, the eggs you buy come from their chickens. They have meat too, and in the summer, they can’t grow enough produce to keep up with demand.
Montanans love their Montana-grown food.
“It's super important to have things this close as possible to the end user,” Michael Vetere with Fresh Market noted. “You think about the economy, we keep the money in Montana there’s less miles on the produce as well. We know the farmers; we can visit the farmers we can go there and check it out. We don’t get that when the supplier is a thousand miles away.”
A 2022 census from the Montana Department of Agriculture shows there were 24,266 farms and ranches in the Treasure State and family-owned and operated farms accounted for 92.8% of all in the Treasure State. Additionally, 931 Montana farms sold directly to consumers, with sales of $15.7 million.
“My dad used to say ‘You want your bread to be made by somebody you can see using your hands, not like a technician in a hard hat in a giant factory, right’?” Great Harvest Bread owner Charlie Scheel said.
While the local farm-to-market business has been around for centuries, some attribute COVID-19 to a recent rise in interest and access to local farm products.
“Since then, all the ups and downs of the food market, all the recalls the price hikes. I think people are coming back to we need to stay local and when they come and can talk to us or our kids and there’s a wholesome it and a connection,” Erin Turner with Turner Farms said.
Not everyone has the time and money to shop exclusively for Montana-grown products. But with more local stores providing the option — and many that allow SNAP benefits to pay for it — it’s becoming easier to incorporate it into our menus, even if it’s not every day.
“We have an audience. We have 80, 90,000 people. I and our family can’t feed them all. I’ll tell any farmer, whatever you need. We have a market we can’t supply all this family’s needs, said Jon Turner with Turner Farms.
McDonald’s is never going to go away and there are processed foods, but there is a drive to be healthier in Montana.
