Farm Fresh Rhode Island blog

Creamy enough for mashed potatoes, rich enough for chowders, and crisp enough for fries and chips. Vastly superior and freshly dug. Farmers have teamed up with Farm Fresh RI, RI DEM Division of Agriculture and WJ Canaan Produce Co. so that the best potato out there is now at your favorite RI grocery store.

We’re calling them RI Royals
Whether you prefer your potatoes, mashed, fried or scalloped, RI Royal potatoes are up to the task! The RI Royal potato is a creamy, white flesh potato. These potatoes are a favorite of local chefs and consumers alike.

Not too long ago, the fields of Aquidneck and Sakonnet bustled with potatoes that fed New England and beyond. The Ocean State’s coastal climate and soils still are fertile ground for spuds. Our participating farmers have hundreds of years of family farming experience between them.

Where can you find RI Royals?
Look for the purple bags with the Narragansett label in the produce aisle at:

• Belmont Grocery
• Dave’s Marketplace
• Eastside Marketplace
• Ruggieri’s Market

More local groceries coming! E-mail Jen for more info about these superior spuds.

Read all about the RI Royal potato growers

• Ferolbink Farms in Tiverton (circa 1870; 275 acres)
• Lacerda Farm in Portsmouth (circa 1923; 120 acres)
• Quonset View Farm in Portsmouth (circa 1915; 140 acres)
• Sampson Farms in Westport (circa 1850; 75 acres)
• Young Family Farm in Little Compton (circa 1997; 180 acres)

“Just as successful cooperatives like Rhody Fresh Milk and Rhody Warm Blankets, local potato growers have teamed up to cooperatively market fresh local potatoes that are just days from harvest. Buying local keeps family farms viable and ensures a fresh product, and saves on the energy costs farmers would need for storage.  It is good for the economy and environment, and the taste of locally raised spuds can’t be matched”
– Ken Ayars, Chief, RI DEM Division of Agriculture

“We think revitalized farm-to-grocer connections will be a foundation for more secure farms and more secure food that will benefit Rhode Island’s farmers and eaters for generations to come.”
– Noah Fulmer, Executive Director, Farm Fresh Rhode Island

Read more about the RI Royal effort in our previous blog post.

Join Farm Fresh RI and Local 121 for a screening of the humorous documentary King Corn this Wednesday 9/24 at 7pm in the Local 121 speakeasy:

In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most- productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

If you’re hungry, come early for a delicious $15 dinner buffet at 6pm. The movie will be followed by a trailer for the Greenhorns, a forthcoming documentary about young American farmers and what inspires them to grow food for our country.

A day after we got a call from Warren Cook about an overabundance of corn at Cook’s Valley Farm, a volunteer gleaning crew trekked out to Wrentham to pick some ears and deliver them to the RI Food Bank. Warren showed them the patch and in just two hours, Lindsay and Emilia harvested 750 lbs!

Lindsay is our food systems intern and she’s been analyzing the distribution of food as it travels from local farms to eaters. Her project has also highlighed the food waste in local vs. industrial food systems. There’s a lot of waste in both, but local food systems present an opportunity for people to put extra food to good use while it’s still super fresh.

Volunteer! At this time of year there’s plenty to be gleaned at most farms, but most farmers don’t have the time to harvest and drive to the Food Bank themselves. Gather some friends, family and a truck for a gleaning day on a farm, and help make a farm-to-food-bank connection that will address local hunger! Local farms are an important resource in making sure everyone can enjoy the seasonal bounty. E-mail Lindsay for some leads or talk to your favorite farmer.

Also, consider that now is a great time to can, freeze and pickle! It won’t be summer forever. So take advantage of the wealth of tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cukes and corn we’re currently amidst!