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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Supermarket Questions About Organic, Local? The Answers are "Written in the Stars"

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Wednesday, June 6, 2007   

A rating of "four stars" has a whole new meaning in Montana. The Bozeman Community Co-op realized that shoppers have a hard time telling where meat comes from and how it was raised. Mike Lang, the co-op's meat and seafood manager in Bozeman, worked with Montana's Corporation for the Northern Rockies to invent a four-star system to designate meat and produce that is organic, local, sustainable, or has "nothing added."

"This was an easy way that someone can come in with an armload of kids, look at a sign with simple stars and colors to figure out what that producer's doing."

Lang points out that shopping can be confusing with generic terms like "natural" all over store shelves. He says that's why the new "Sustainable Food Rating System" is more specific.

"All we're doing is laying the information out there, and then (consumers) can make the decision on their own as to whether or not that producer is worthy of their business."

Lang notes that local meats are the hottest consumer category right now at his store. He believes the system encourages shoppers to select local and sustainably grown foods, and encourages producers to change practices to earn stars. The Co-op is the only location using the system now, but the Corporation for the Northern Rockies hopes it will soon catch on in other stores, farmers markets, and in restaurants.

Under the new system, green is for organic, red for local, blue for sustainable, and orange for "nothing added," including hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides.

The system is part of the "Farm to Market Program," designed to provide better access to sustainably grown local food.


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