A note on our support of sustainable practices...
When we talk about specialty food, it is easy to find yourself distracted by the political nature of your choices and struggling to appreciate the essential simplicity and beauty of the products you are consuming. At Formaggio Kitchen, our primary goal is simple: to provide a range of high quality food products which appeal to our sense of what is exceptional and at the same time what is reasonably affordable.
We find that the most exceptional products typically offer an expression of both the terroir of their provenance and the traditions of the region. It turns out that most of the products we find that have this expression are produced in small quantities by people who practice some form of sustainable production.
To us, the sustainable production is the result of having a respect for the environment and community that are the source of the ingredients and materials that make up the product. This respect is manifested in terms such as organic (whether certified or not), biodynamic, integrated pest management and sustainable. We are proud that many of the exceptional products we offer are produced in this manner and we hope to continue to support artisan producers both in the U.S. and abroad.
As a retail store, we can also make decisions that attempt to respect our environment. For this reason we compost all of the organic waste material produced at the store. We recycle any incoming packing material for packages that we ship out for our mail order or wholesale customers. We are also happy drivers of a hybrid car which we use for our daily deliveries to local restaurants and for our frequent trips to Formaggio Essex, our New York store. We continue to research additional ways of reducing our environmental footprint and we look forward to inspiring other small business owners to do the same.
While you might not think that website design has much to do with sustainable practices, we are proud to have worked with Tugboat Creative, a small design firm that is commited to working with those organizations that have a strong sense of support for organic, biodynamic and sustainable operations. In this sense, they are helping to promote the concept of this mission running throughout every aspect of a business rather than as a sign posted on the outside of a building.