My mother loves stores like BJ’s Wholesale Club and Costco. She will come home with giant containers of olive oil and enough ketchup to last a thousand summer barbecues. The produce she buys there is always so pristine and BIG. Enormous apples, large cellophane packages of bright red peppers, and oranges as big as my face. I can’t help but think this is unnatural. The produce is too glossy, too perfect. So when my brother told me BJ’s will offer members a “Farm to Club” program, I didn’t think much of it. (We’re talking about a store that sells TVs, furniture, mouthwash, salmon and baby wipes all at once. I don’t think “local” when I think BJ’s.) Then I saw this in a copy of BJ’s Member Journal I inexplicably received in the mail:

Farm to Club Logo

Apparently, the local trend is catching on! BJ’s defines local as “grown within the state.” So that means in June, bins and crates marked with the Farm to Club logo will offer shoppers Delaware produce such as zucchini, tomatoes, corn, green peppers, yellow squash, and cucumbers.

I know my mom will never give up her BJ’s membership and the ability to buy ginormous vats of butter and spaghetti sauce tri-packs. But now I can rest easy because come June, she can add local produce to her over-sized shopping cart. Thanks, BJ’s!