Native Maine Customers Join Governor Baldacci on a

Tour of Backyard Farms, the Tomato Capital of New England!

Maine Gov. John Baldacci along with a motor coach of Native Maine employees and customers picked several tomatoes off the vine on Tuesday at a celebration of the first harvest at a huge new greenhouse in Madison. Backyard Farms recently completed construction of an 18-acre glass-covered greenhouse, giving them two greenhouses covering a total of 42 acres with 450,000 tomato plants!!! Backyard Farms first harvested tomatoes in 2007 and has now sold about 40 million pounds to stores across the Northeast. Native Maine Produce & Specialty Foods was one of the first wholesalers to distribute Backyard Farms’ produce and today distributes tens of thousands of pounds of Backyard Farms tomatoes annually. We love their Local Flavah!

“Backyard Farms is the kind of business Maine wants to attract – responsible operations, good paying jobs, local investment and community involvement,” Baldacci said in a statement. “Backyard Farms has created 200 jobs over the past three years and has made significant investments in the local economy,”
--Governor John Baldacci

Click on thumbnails for larger photos.

Click here to watch the video from WSCH6.

Following the tour of Backyard Farms, and our time hob-nobbin’ with Governor Baldacci, our motor coach headed for Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, where Mark Whitney, Head Cheese Maker and Creamery Manager welcomed our group with a private tour of Pineland’s cheese making process and plenty of samples of his award winning cheeses.

Thank you to everyone who came along for the day to experience firsthand what some of the state's best producers are doing to provide us with Local Flavah!