Vermont Quince & Food Miles

Sustainability has been part of Vermont Quince's social mission since our 2012 business formation. Basically, our growth strategy has been to develop channels to get quince to New Englanders in the form of a line of condiments and preserves featuring locally grown quince. In 2019, 95% of Vermont Quince's sales were to customers within 150 miles of where the quince was grown.

In addition to our commitment to sourcing quince from within New England, we have done our best to buy other local ingredients including maple syrup, ginger, sour cherries, crabapples, rhubarb, cabbage, and habaneros.

In 2020, a team of business students studying sustainability leadership at Landmark College in Putney VT took on the project of identifying metrics that Vermont Quince might use to ensure that future growth continues to be as gentle as possible on the planet. We already are changing our sourcing of key ingredients based on this effort and the interesting concept of "food miles" as developed and shared by the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program.

We'll say more about this over time. Meanwhile, we welcome learning about YOUR sustainability-related efforts!