09/01/2026
The weather looks a little stormy for tomorrow. But, get your veggies from Glacier Colony they will be snuggled in under the trees!
It feels like you can't read the news without reading about yet another food recall these days.
While it might feel like this is the first year food recalls have existed, they are not new. There were 162 recalls by mid August, which is about half of the 320 recalls reported for all of 2025. The data for 2026 captures a little more than half of the year so far.
Why do we have so many recalls?
In the U.S., much of our food moves through an incredibly complex and long network of farms, processors, distributors, warehouses, trucks, grocery stores, restaurants, and other businesses before it reaches our plates.
That scale gives us a large variety of food year-round. But it also means that there are more places where contamination can occur, and that it can move through the system and affect people hundreds or even thousands of miles away before the source is identified.
On the other hand, local food typically has an incredibly short, simple path to your plate, which reduces the number of places where contamination can occur.
Furthermore, our local food system has something our industrialized, centralized food system doesn't: Accountability.
When you buy local food, your farmer isn't hidden behind a long chain of companies. They're your neighbor. They are either selling it directly to you at the farmers market, or they're selling it directly to a grocery store, farm stand, restaurant, or value-added business (a jam company, for example).
Farmers growing food for their family, friends, and neighbors have a very personal stake in the health and well-being of their customers and therefore put a great deal of care into making their products safe to eat.
That doesn't mean contamination can't happen locally. But with the care our farmers give to their operations, and because it's a shorter, more transparent food chain, it's FAR less likely.
So be sure you're supporting local, not only while food recalls are highly visible, but always!
Every time we buy from a Montana farmer, rancher, or food business, we're building the infrastructure for a more reliable and resilient food Montana system.
That matters when the next disruption comes.
Maybe it's a foodborne illness outbreak. But it could also be a wildfire, a pandemic, a fuel shortage, a transportation breakdown, or something we haven't anticipated yet.
We can't prevent every disruption. But we can build a food system that's better equipped to withstand them.
