Baby Carrots

I just about died laughing the first time I saw one of those new baby carrot commercials on You Tube. My first thought was "...REALLY?" The commercials are completely ridiculous, complete with machine guns, carrot ammo, explosions and scantily clad women. I had recently heard a radio report on NPR on the new carrot marketing ploy, so I figured I should see the ad for myself. According to the radio report, "a bunch of carrot farmers" were trying to increase carrot sales essentially by marketing them as a junk food. There isn't a whisper about the health benefits of carrots or meeting your daily 5-veggies-a-day mark. The thing that makes the over the top ads bearable is that they know it's over the top. The machine guns and exploding shopping carts are certainly meant to draw the attention of young people, but they're also very clearly mocking similar commercials by the junk food industry. Their website is just as hilarious...they have a carrot video game (no, I didn't play it...looked tempting though), videos of their ads, another series of short videos called "Munchies" and even a "Karrut Kruunch Track" you can download (yep the sound of someone crunching a carrot...I know I want that as my ringtone!).


After learning more about this new craze, I started thinking...what exactly is a baby carrot, anyway? It took me a while to realize this, but baby carrots are not just miniature carrots. They're pieces of regular carrots that have been cut and peeled into "baby" sizes! When I learned this, I thought, what a waste...I bet a ton of perfectly good carrot is wasted just to make them into cute, peeled bite-sized pieces. Well, shows how much I know about carrots...that theory was also wrong. Baby carrots were actually created in the 1980s by farmer Mike Yurosek who wanted to find a way to use carrots that were too misshapen to sell but perfectly good to eat. Hmmm...makes me feel better about eating baby carrots if they actually reduce waste! (Of course, there are some issues with baby carrots...they cost more than buying an equivalent amount of whole carrots, but we're talking about getting kids to eat more veggies here...got to start small and make it easy! They are also grown from a variety of carrots that ripens faster and has less beta-carotene. Sigh...lower-quality food always seems to end up in schools. We'll save this issue for another time.)


Now that we're familiar with this new generation of carrot farmers who are more adept at social media than I am (not that hard to accomplish, honestly) and have figured out what a baby carrot is, there is one question outstanding in my mind: will this ploy actually work? I am all for healthier food in schools, but will the expensive commericals and new baby carrot vending machines actually make more kids eat vegetables? It's definitely true that brand recognition can have a major impact on food choices, especially if kids are exposed to it at a young age. However, real junk food has a leg-up over carrots: salty, fatty and sugary foods are tastes that are rare, and therefore valuable in nature. Biologically our brains are wired to desire those things (not to mention how unhealthy foods are frequently associated with comfort). I think the new carrot marketing will help increase the consumption of vegetables by young people, but I worry that it won't last. To significantly change food habits, I think the culture of food in schools needs to shift: away from serving what is cheapest and easiest to what is most healthful and truly tastes good. The point shouldn't be for vegetables and Doritos to compete to spend the most on advertising, but for us to appreciate, and teach our kids to appreciate, that healthy food can taste better than junk food and is better for you. Then perhaps kids will be eating carrots long after the fad fades away...

In case any of you were wondering, I got my information (and pictures) for this post from these sources:
www.babycarrots.com
Home website for the new marketing campaign. They have 3,000 likes on facebook!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130321785
NPR story on new baby carrots marketing campaign. Also includes links to these USDA sources:

http://healthymeals.nal.usda.gov/hsmrs/NJ%20Quick%20Steps/NJ_Qk_Steps_Participant/Carrots.pdf
Quick history and info on carrots.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/vgs/2007/03Mar/VGS31901/VGS31901.pdf
Detailed report on carrot consumption in the US.

http://www.wisebread.com/baby-carrots-the-frugal-idea-that-isnt
Interesting blog post on baby carrots.

Ronnie and Roxie

Many of you may not know this, but we have a true, honest-to-goodness old-fashioned multi-generational Virginia farmer in the Relay family. Ronnie Crickenburger and his wife, Roxie, from Meadow Run Farm, are not out at the City Market every week, they don't get stories written about them in Flavor, Edible Blue Ridge or Albemarle Magazine (some of our favorite publications over here at Relay), but like most farmers, they are up before the sun and work 'till it goes down just so we can have fresh Virginia produce on our tables.

I believe that all of farmers are heros, but some are more "un-sung" than others--Ronnie and Roxie are the perfect example. Ronnie's grand-daddy and his grand-daddy before that have been farming in this region for years--he knows the land, he knows his crops and he knows the community. Ronnie's knowledge about the land doesn't come from books or the internet, it comes from the wisdom passed down from generation to generation of trial and error, old-fashioned farming. One of our customers once asked how to know when her rhubarb was ready to harvest--I called Ronnie immediately. He rambled on for a good 15 minutes telling me all about how "now, ya got yur green varieties and yur red varieties...if it's the red variety ya gotta wait till it gets good an red but don't wait too long, ya dont want it to get spongy on ya"

Ronnie runs both Meadow Run Farm and Fishersville Farm Market, which means, if Ronnie doesn't grow it himself, he has a friend in the area who does, he always finds whatever we need and always keeps prices more than fair. Did I mention that he picks fresh for Relay in the morning and drives over the mountain in the afternoon, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

While he's picking and driving the freshest produce over here, Roxie is taking care of her kids on her daily school bus route. She is by far one of the sweetest, most gentle women I've ever met--I'm sure all of her kids love her. Once both Ronnie and Roxie get back to the farm they gather up all of their grandkids who are around for the day and work the land until the sun starts to set. On top of all that, Ronnie works odd hours several days a week at Wal-Mart in Waynesboro.

These are people who haven't forgotten what it means to work hard for what you love, to put family first and to work together for the community and for the land. They are more than heros in my book.

Here are some photos of the farm and the family:

We're on TV!

Check it out!