Farm tour stop 3: Crown Orchard
By Walmart Green Room on July 25, 2012 4 comments
Judy Chiles, Jack Sinclair, Ron McCormick and Tres Bailey checking out peaches at the Crown Orchard packaging plant.
As part of Walmart’s commitment to locally grown produce and healthier foods, today Jack Sinclair, Andrea Thomas and others are making a series of visits to a few farms in Virginia. The Walmart Green Room is there, too, and over the next several hours, we’ll share some insight into what we learn.
At Crown Orchard and Carter Mountain Orchard, the final stops on our local farm tour, we met Huff and Judy Chiles. The Chiles are fifth generation farmers, celebrating their 100th anniversary growing peaches, apples, nectarines, cherries and various vegetables. The Chiles have seven major orchards over a 15-mile radius and have been partnering with Walmart to sell their produce for more than 20 years.
Delivering on our commitment to locally grown produce is a key part of Walmart’s sustainability efforts. It’s a natural opportunity to bring the “save money” and “live better” portions of our mission together. Buying locally grown not only supports farmers and local communities, but it helps us provide healthier, fresher, more affordable food to our customers.
And for the Chiles family, there’s an even more obvious benefit: extending simple joys like a juicy, homegrown peach.
Crown Orchard fruit packaging
Carter Mountain Orchard, one of several owned by the Chiles family, is located in Charlottesville, Va.
Jack Sinclair, Huff Chiles the eighth, Andrea Thomas, and Huff Chiles the ninth
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1.
Lindsay @ Laughing Lindsay | July 26, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Yay! I love seeing farms in my home state of VA.
2.
Walmart Green Room | August 3, 2012 at 6:38 pm
We’re glad you enjoyed the post, Lindsay!
3.
Cori | July 27, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Buying local is important, but how about buying organic/no-spray fruit and things like getting rid of plastic bags and soooo many items that are manufactured overseas?
4.
Walmart Green Room | August 3, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Hi Cori, thanks for your comment. We carry many organic products in our stores, as well as strive to offer produce that is also locally sourced. This is good for the surrounding communities and helps generate savings on distribution costs that we can then pass on to our customers. As for plastic bags, we’re happy to report that in 2010 we reduced the plastic bag waste across our global operations by 47.95 million pounds, or approximately 3.5 billion bags. Be sure to keep checking the blog for more updates on our progress and look out for one of our reusable bags next time you are in store!