Learning About Fermentation and Pickling at Pitchfork Pickle

The City Market produce team recently toured Pitchfork Pickle, a Burlington-based pickles and ferments maker that uses local Vermont produce. Our team is always interested in visiting and learning more about farming and production processes, especially when we sell their products at the Co-op.

About Pitchfork

Pitchfork Pickle makes fermented krauts, kimchi, hot sauces and vinegar brined pickles using as much locally sourced produce as possible. While Pitchfork Farm is their primary source, they have expanded to work with many other local farms before considering further sourcing. Several of their items are seasonal as a result, though products are available year-round as well.

Tour Experience

The City Market team heard from Pitchfork Pickles staff about how, historically, fermentation and pickling were ways of preserving food for survival and utility. Now there are ways to enjoy food in new and tasty ways. The team saw a variety of tools used to process vegetables into ferments and pickles. We also learned about how they experiment with new products, manage production flow, and how food safety is managed during the production process.

Part of the passion behind Pitchfork Pickle is the creative utilization of crops in the development of their product line to maximize use and minimize waste, extending the crop storage life.

Pitchfork Pickle uses as many local vegetables as possible, including but not limited to cabbage, carrots, squash, beets and scallions from Pitchfork Farm, Bear Roots Farm, Diggers’ Mirth Farm Collective Farm, Hallow Herb Farm, Honeyfield Farm, Intervale Community Farm, Burnt Rock Farm and Pomykala Farm.

The company distributes locally at farmstands and specialty food stores in the Burlington area as well as the Upper Valley in Vermont. Additionally, products are shipped to Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Coming Full Circle

City Markets’ commitment to supporting local vendors and honoring long-term relationships supports the local economy through purchasing power, which defines, strengthens and creates vibrancy in the Vermont agricultural community. Ingredients used to ferment are purchased through City Market’s new wholesale ordering platform Provisions, which saves local businesses – and Co-op Members—money and time ordering in bulk. This is our co-op and community—local supporting local.

Thank you to Julia Irish for showing us around!