2020 was a crazy year for many of us. As demand for regional food increased, Food Connects had the opportunity to expand our network of high-quality New England producers. Check out 20 that became part of the Food Connects family in 2020.

Atlantic Sea Farms - Saco, ME

Atlantic Sea Farms, created in 2009, is the first commercially viable seaweed farm in the United States. Their goal is to diversify how coastal waters are used, providing communities with a domestic and fresh alternative to imported seaweed products.

Featured Products: Fermented Seaweed Salad; Sea-Beet Kraut; Sea-Chi; Kelp Cubes; Ready Cut Kelp Slaw

Blue Ledge Farm - Salisbury, VT

Blue Ledge Farm is a first-generation, family-owned and -operated goat dairy and cheese-making farm just outside of Middlebury, VT. Owners Greg and Hannah now milk over 100 different goats and produce 11 different types of cheeses on their Animal Welfare Approved farm.

Featured Products: Camembrie; Crottina; Fresh Chevre; Lake’s Edge Mini; Marinated Chevre; Middlebury Blue; Richville; Riley’s 2x4

Champlain Valley Creamery - Middlebury, VT

Champlain Valley Creamery produces handcrafted, Certified Organic, award-winning cheeses. They make all their cheeses by hand, from the 100% grass-fed organic Jersey milk of Severy Farm in Cornwall, Vermont. They are handmade using traditional techniques and small-batch pasteurization in a net-zero solar-powered building.

Featured Products: Organic Champlain Triple; Organic Champlain Truffle Triple; Cream Cheese; Queso Fresco; Pyramid Scheme

Grateful Greens - Brattleboro, VT

Grateful Greens, located in downtown Brattleboro, VT, uses creative, low-impact, indoor farming technology that utilizes solar, rainwater, and eco-friendly systems. They grow nutrient-dense sunflower greens and strive to strengthen local food systems and relieve our dependence on resource-intensive farming or shipping produce from distant lands.

Featured Products: Sunflower Greens; Sunflower Greens, Maple Dijon Vinaigrette Grab and Go; Sunflower, w/Buttermilk Ranch Grab and Go; Sunflower, w/Mixed Dressings Grab and Go; Sunflower, w/Sesame Ginger Grab and Go

Ground Up - Hadley, MA

Ground Up is a family-owned operation that offers a range of whole and bolted (or sifted) flours proudly milled to order from Northeast farms. Ground Up’s goal is to look back in another ten years and see more acres of grain, more thriving farms, more fresh and nutritious flour—all-important signs of a more sustainable and resilient food system.

Featured Products: All Purpose Flour; Bolted Bread Flour; Malted Barley Flour; Organic Rye Berries; Pastry Flour; Pizza Dough Flour; Wheat Berries; Wheat Bran; Wheat Middlings; Whole Rye Flour 

Hall Apiaries: Plainfield, NH

Hall Apiaries is an apiary producing chemical- and treatment-free honey with hives in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Owner Troy Hall considers his queen breeding program to be the heart and backbone of his apiary. All potential breeders are hardy stock who are at least two years old and have persevered through two New England winters without any chemical treatments.

Featured Products: Raw Honey, chemical- and treatment-free

Heiwa Tofu: Rockport, ME

Founded in 2008, Heiwa Tofu is a small family business committed to creating pure and wholesome foods that they feel good sharing with their community. Their tofu is handcrafted in small batches using organic, non-GMO soybeans grown on Maine and New England farms.

Featured Products: Organic Tofu

Maine Grains - Skowhegan, ME

Maine Grains is a grain mill located in a repurposed jailhouse that serves bakers, brewers, chefs, and families freshly-milled, Organic, and heritage grains sourced from the Northeast. Their traditional stone milling process ensures nutrient-packed products full of flavor and perfect for natural fermentation, baking, and cooking.

Featured Products: Organic Cornmeal; Organic Farro; Organic Heritage Red Fife Wheat Flour; Organic Polenta; Organic Rolled Oats; Organic Rye Flour; Organic Sifted Wheat All-Purpose Flour; Organic Whole Wheat Flour

Maine Sea Salt - Marshfield, ME

Maine Sea Salt is a family-owned operation that sells sea salt in health and specialty food stores and restaurants throughout the U.S. They’ve been creating sea salt that is solar evaporated and non-processed, with no additives, for over 20 years.

Featured Products:  Atlantic Sea Salt, Coarse or Full Crystals

Maple Meadow Farm

Maple Meadow Farm, owned and operated by the Devoid family since 1946, produces fresh shell, cage-free eggs. By Vermont standards of egg production, Maple Meadow is a large farm. By national measures, they’re tiny. Staying small allows them to remain family-owned and operated, and to focus on the needs of their birds, their product and their customers.

Featured Products: Large Chicken Eggs

Mi Tierra Tortillas

Mi Tierra Tortillas is the first authentic tortilla bakery in New England that creates tortilla chips from 100% Organic non-GMO local New England corn, ground limestone, and water. Owners Jorge Sosa and Michael Doctor came together in 2014 to create a delicious product for the community, featuring corn grown in Western Massachusetts.

Featured Products: Fresh Corn Tortillas (Organic or Conventional); Fresh Corn Tortillas, Thin Chip Style (Organic or Conventional)

Old Friends Farm - Amherst, MA

Old Friends Farm is a Certified Organic farm that grows food and flowers with integrity. They are widely known for pioneering Northeast-grown ginger and turmeric and their award-winning specialty products made with these powerful roots. Old Friends Farm manages its business with integrity, balance, and harmony, prioritizing their employees in their business decisions, including paying their employees a living wage and creating schedules for employees to thrive at work and in their off-farm life.

Featured Products: Ginger; Turmeric; Ginger Honey; Turmeric Honey; Organic Ginger Syrup

Parish Hill Creamery - Putney, VT

Parish Hill Creamery is a family endeavor focused on preserving traditional cheesemaking culture, collaborative farming, and contributing to their community’s overall health. These use raw milk from Elm Lea Farm at The Putney School, and they process all their cheese by hand.

Featured Products: Cornerstone; Hermit; Humble; Idyll; Jack’s Blue; Kashar; Reverie; Suffolk Punch; VT Herdsman

Rhapsody Natural Foods - Cabot, VT

Rhapsody Natural Foods is a family-owned business that produces high-quality Organic and natural artisan foods and supports local and regional sustainable food systems in the process. They purchase their ingredients from farmers close to their facility and other small, family-owned farms.

Featured Products: Organic Miso; Non-GMO Natto; Organic Tempeh; Tempeh, Ready to Eat (BBQ and Teriyaki) 

Schoolhouse Farm - East Calais, VT

Schoolhouse Farm thoughtfully raises their livestock in a pasture-based system, providing the community with pastured eggs from hens raised on Organic feed. Their chickens live out on pasture in mobile hen houses. Moved daily, they eat a wide variety of grasses and legumes and forage for insects in the soil.

Featured Products: Pastured Eggs

Smith’s Country Cheese - Winchendon, MA

Smith’s Country Cheese is a family-owned and operated working dairy farm and creamery. Their 200 Holstein cows live a happy life on 43 rural acres in Winchendon, MA, to produce their award-winning farmstead Gouda, cheddar, and Havarti cheeses. They use traditional recipes and fresh, raw milk from their farm to make delicious, artisanal cheeses.

Featured Products: Baby Swiss; Cheddar Cheese Sticks; Cheddar; Farmers’ Cheese; Gouda Spread; Gouda; Havarti

Starbird Fish

Captain Tony and his crew at Starbird Fish trek to Alaska every season to harvest wild salmon and white fish from “the most sustainable fishery in the world” using modern, low-impact techniques. They transport their fresh catches from the boat directly to an on-shore processor, where the fish is frozen and then shipped to Burlington, Vermont. Starbird produces all its smoked fish in Burlington, VT.

Featured Products: Alaskan Coho Salmon; Alaskan King Salmon; Alaskan Rockfish; Alaskan Sockeye Salmon; Smoke Alaskan Coho, Smoked Alaskan Sockeye

Sunnyfield Farm - Wilmington, VT

Sunnyfield Farm is a family-owned and operated farm located in Western, VT. From chickens to goats, their love and care for their animals produce high-quality products. And to top it off, they run a sugar-house, Sprague & Son Sugar House, making delicious Vermont-made maple syrup, candies, and more!

Featured Products: Pasture Raised Chicken Eggs

Vermont Cranberry Company - Fletcher, VT

Vermont Cranberry Company is Vermont's first and only commercial cranberry grower. They grow cranberries for wholesale buyers, and their products are available at markets, coops, and farm stores throughout the state.

Featured Products: Frozen Cranberries

Vermont Shepherd - Westminster West, VT

Vermont Shepherd is a 250-acre farm with 300-700 sheep (depending on the time of year), 2 Border Collies (who herd the sheep), and 8 Maremma (who protect the sheep from predators), and shepherds of all ages. At the farm’s northern edge is a cave, home to over 20,000 lbs a year of our artisanal farmhouse cheeses. This human-made cave is over 4 feet underground and is naturally damp and cool, the perfect conditions for cheese ripening!

Featured Products: 2-Year Aged Invierno; Fromage Blanc; Invierno; Smoked Invierno; Verano