Everybody says they want to support small family farms but the truth is there are precious few ways for the typical city dweller to do this. Farmers Markets are great but can be inconvenient or impractical for producers and expensive for consumers. In the past, farmers markets represented a way to get products cheaper directly from the farm but nowadays it's common to see prices as high as they are in the stores. In addition, farmers markets typically exclude all but locally grown products. This is understandable given that their allegiance is with the producers, but from the consumers' standpoint it limits product availability. Farmers Markets are also seasonal, which means in some areas farm-fresh food is unavailable for 9 or more months out of the year.

Other venues that small farms formerly used to get their products to market, like small, independent grocery and health food stores, are disappearing as well, in favor of mega chains like Whole Foods and Wild Oats.

There's a lot of very special food going to waste because the food distribution system is geared toward mega corporations and huge producers. We want to create a marketplace for part time farmers and hobbyist growers, and we want to make it feasible and even profitable once again to grow food on a small scale.

Certified vs. Uncertified Organic

As organic products become more prolific in the marketplace, prices are starting to come down but it still common for organic to cost 2-3 times as much as conventional. For this reason, organic products typically do not turn over quickly in the stores and many times when we choose organic over conventional, we must sacrifice freshness and other qualities.

At least a portion of the inflated cost of organic food is due to the protracted, complicated and costly certification process. The official organic certification process is cost prohibitive for many small farms that produce sustainably grown, high quality foods. More and more, the organic label is becoming the domain of the mega producer. Even the word "organic" is being misused, overused and misrepresented as marketers discover its almost magical ability to sell products. Eventually, the word organic won't mean anything at all.

RawTreasure ensures that the products we sell are sustainably and naturally grown by visiting the farms and developing close relationships with our suppliers. The farms which supply RawTreasure care as much about sustainability as we do. They are raising their families on their properties and they are committed to not using poisons to grow food. Because our methods involve less cost than the official government-sanctioned certification process, we can sell products at a price point near or slightly above conventionally grown products. And, in many cases, the products we sell go beyond organic. They are not only unsprayed, unfumigated and unprocessed, they are sometimes of heirloom quality or even grown voluntarily (meaning the plant or tree itself chose where to grow).