Real Pickles, MA

Greenfield, MA. Tamara McKerchie helps run Real Pickles, a worker-owned cooperative transforming local produce into fermented goods--grown, fermented, and sold entirely within the Northeast. Real Pickles operates out of a solar-powered warehouse in Greenfields, MA, and strives to pay fair, living wages, produce an entirely organic product, and contribute to the economy of the Northeast US.

Get in touch with the Real Pickles crew: tamara@realpickles.com

Tell us about your organization, what do you do?

Real Pickles is a worker co-operative working to change the food system by making pickles! We are committed to promoting human and ecological health by providing people with delicious, nourishing food and by working toward a regional, organic food system.

We aim to produce the highest quality, traditional pickled foods available using natural fermentation. We buy our vegetables only from Northeast family farms and sell our products only within the Northeast. Our ingredients are 100% organic.

How did you get interested in working with food? What introduced you to and made you passionate about what you do?

It all started when Dan, our founder, began making traditional pickles after attending a workshop at a Northeast Organic Farming Association conference in 1999. Excited about the benefits of locally grown food, he started pickling cabbage, turnips, greens, and other vegetables as a way to eat local produce through the winter. Dan was inspired by the work of Dr. Weston A. Price, a researcher who traveled the world in the 1920s and 30s studying the diets of indigenous peoples. Through this research, Price found that those eating traditional diets enjoyed a high level of health completely unknown in industrialized societies. Dan quickly became devoted to the craft of traditional pickling and, two years later, decided to go into business.

Dan's vision was a small company focused on building a better food system. As one of a tiny handful of businesses producing raw, fermented vegetables, Real Pickles would offer an important and nourishing food that was largely missing from the food system. This new business would also be committed to local/regional food and organic agriculture. Real Pickles would buy its vegetables only from Northeast organic farms and sell its products only within the Northeast.

Real Pickles launched in 2001, purchasing 1,000 pounds of certified organic pickling cucumbers from Chamutka Farm and successfully selling its inaugural batches of Organic Dill Pickles to a couple dozen local stores. The following season, Real Pickles began operating out of the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center in Greenfield, a business incubator kitchen created to boost the local agricultural economy by providing a venue for making value-added foods with local ingredients. At the Food Processing Center, Dan (joined by Addie Rose) was able to steadily grow the business, adding products like Organic Sauerkraut and Organic Ginger Carrots and expanding sales to stores in the Boston area and then elsewhere around the region.

By 2009 Real Pickles had outgrown the incubator kitchen and was ready to make the leap to their own home. We purchased a century-old industrial building in Greenfield, MA and transformed it into a solar-powered, energy-efficient, organic pickling facility. The move allowed us to expand significantly, tripling our purchases from local farms in the years following. We look forward to staying here for many years to come.

Meanwhile, we’ve demonstrated that there is a real and growing demand for raw, fermented vegetables and that a business as deeply committed to social responsibility as ours can work! In 2013, we turned to preserving our social mission for the long term and--following a successful community investment campaign--took the exciting step of transitioning Real Pickles to a worker co-operative. We are proud to join the ranks of other co-operatives that are supporting local ownership, workplace democracy, and contributing to the co-operative economy!

What are you working on right now? What are you most excited about? What's your mission or long-term goals?

We are committed to offering wages and benefits that meet the cost of living for the entire Real Pickles staff. In 2014 we set about implementing a multi-year plan to reach this goal, and we're proud of the progress we've made to date. This year we increased our base hourly wage to $13 which puts us halfway toward our goal of offering a $15 per hour wage to all entry level staff. Additionally, we joined Business for Fair Minimum Wage in calling for increases to the Massachusetts minimum wage to reach $15 per hour by 2021.

We operate Real Pickles out of a solar powered, energy-efficient, 6,500 square foot organic pickling facility on Wells Street in Greenfield, MA. We are always striving to become more efficient and reduce our carbon footprint. This spring, we surpassed 100,000 kWh in electricity generation from our 17 kW photo-voltaic system. Installed in April 2011 by our neighbor and fellow worker co-op PV Squared, our 80 solar panels have provided over 75% of our electricity needs since that time. We are especially pleased that 65 tons of carbon dioxide to date have been kept out of the atmosphere thanks to the clean, renewable power generated by the solar array atop the Real Pickles roof!

What frustrates you most about your work or the current food culture at large? What do you wish to change the most?

We work to support a regional and organic food system, which means we want to see:

1. Fresher, healthier food, raised with an emphasis on flavor and nutrition, rather than shelf-life and transportability.

2. Strong rural communities with profitable, sustainable family farms and plenty of green open space.

3. Vast reductions in fossil fuel use for long-distance transport, resulting in less pollution and a more stable global climate, strong local/regional economies, with more money circulating within our communities and regions, and more jobs created.

4. A more democratic food system, in which people have more power to decide what food is available and how it is produced, resulting in a cleaner, safer, more diverse food supply and cleaner, safer food, free of pesticide residues, growth hormones, and genetic engineering.

5. Living, fertile soil, which leads to higher nutrient levels in our food and is essential to agricultural sustainability.

6. Healthy ecosystems, rich in biodiversity and with clean waterways unpolluted by pesticide and fertilizer runoff.

Any recent moments of optimism? Things you see changing for the better?

Every jar of Real Pickles works to support this mission, and sales are strong. People care about their health, communities, environment and economies. This is a good sign!

All photos in this interview belong to REAL PICKLES and were used with permission.

What's your favorite vegetable to eat, grow, or wear?

Right now we're all about cucumbers. Cucumber season in the Northeast is passing and fermentation is under way to preserve the bountiful harvest. We are celebrating this tasty vegetable in every way possible!

Anything else you want us to know? Anything you want us to help you spread the word about?

Turmeric! Turmeric has been getting a lot of attention lately for its health benefits, and what many people may not realize is that it can be grown in the Northeast! We have an amazing farm right here in the Pioneer Valley, Old Friends Farm, who grows fresh turmeric root (and ginger!) for us to use in our Turmeric Kraut. So for those of you looking to use turmeric in your diets, look no further than your regional farmer!