The Wise Family Farm
Gary Wise of Wise Farms in Mt Olive, NC
Gary Wise runs Wise Farms in Mount Olive, North Carolina. The land has been in his family for 4 generations dating back to the 1920s, and he currently farms about 150 acres and grows a wide variety of crops year round.
Gary and his family have sold their fresh vegetables at farmers’ markets, in grocery stores statewide, to restaurants, and to the local food distributor, Farmer Foodshare. It’s through Farmer Foodshare that Good Bowls(Equiti Foods) and Weaver Street Market get cases of Wise’s fresh produce every week that we include in our Good Bowls. Weaver Street Market uses the produce to make its healthy prepared foods and for the hot bar.
Glenn Lozuke, Executive Chef at Weaver Street Market examines the Kale crop with Gary Wise.
Glenn Lozuke is the Executive Chef at Weaver Street Market and also oversees the production of Good Bowls at the Weaver Street Food House. Glenn and the Good Bowls team recently got the grand tour of Wise Farms and spent the morning going from field to field learning about not just the crops but also the soil and unique aspects of farming eastern North Carolina’s sandy landscape.
It’s still early spring so some kale was just getting ready to pick. The snap peas were beginning to come up, some dino kale was starting to get sweet, and a few varieties of cabbage were getting big and leafy. And of course, since it’s North Carolina, they were harvesting and processing some sweet potatoes and getting ready to ship out a few pallets.
As we examined and learned about the crops, Glenn was busy brainstorming some new,interesting dishes for Weaver Street and some new possible Good Bowls based on what Wise Farms is planning on producing in the coming years. Good Bowls and Weaver Street share the common mission of supporting local farmers and the local food system as a whole. Touring the farms and building personal relationships is a vital part of this mission.
And is any farm visit complete without saying hello to the old farm dog that’s been dutifully guarding the crops for 15 years?
Good Bowls is growing quickly. Our Healthy Opportunities Pilot program currently serves over 2,000 meals a week in 6 counties in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. The program has proven to be very effective in achieving better health outcomes for the population and has been approved for statewide expansion in the coming years. Good Bowls will have to dramatically increase our bowl production throughout the growth of the program. We’ll be ordering quite a bit more produce from Wise Farms and from other NC farmers, so building these strong personal relationships is essential for creating a vibrant statewide food economy while providing healthy, good tasting meals featuring North Carolina’s bounty.
