Women behind the movement toward organic, healthy food in Washington

Through a personal exploration of local, organic food in Washington state, strong female leaders of businesses, farms, and more arose as a theme.

Female leaders at Puget Consumers Co-Op (PCC)

70 percent of the leadership team of PCC is comprised of women, including Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs and quality standards. As a local shopper, I feel her work is earnest, scholarly, and outstanding.

In their March, 2018 newsletter, PCC highlighted some female producers selling goods in their grocery stores. Included were Lisa Jacobs of Jacobs Creamery, a cheese company, home based in Chehalis, WA, and Julie O’Brien of Firefly Kitchens, a Seattle company selling organic fermented vegetables. PCC also works with Anne Schwartz of Blue Heron Farm, Karen Kinney of the Washington State Farmers Market Association, and Diane Dempster of Charlie’s Produce.

Local farm tours

On Father’s Day, I went on a great organic and sustainable farm tour, and enjoyed an excellent lunch, at Carnation Farms, a non-profit in Carnation. The tour was offered by a lead Carnation farmer with a degree in Zoology named Ashley who knew everything you ever wanted to know about pollinators, and cared for their apparently happy mason bees.

Speaking of farm tours, but even more off the beaten trail on beautiful Lummi Island: The Willows Inn is an attractive place to stay, and their farm-to-table restaurant has “high yielding small-scale organic farming” products from the Loganita Farm, which is staffed by women skilled in organic farming including Mary von Krusenstiern.

Know of other local women in the sustainable food business?

Do you know any women who are business owners or key decision-makers and contributors in producing sustainable, organic, locally sourced, high-quality food as restaurant owners, chefs, farmers, picklers, or caterers? Send us information about them and reviews about their products through our contact form, to help us build a list!