Connect with the Source at Jupiter Foods, Your Go-To Local Grocery
PHOTOS: PAIGE GREEN
The San Francisco North Bay Area is bountiful with farm fresh produce, but venturing to the farmers’ markets every week just isn’t always possible for many people. Luckily, Jupiter Foods Grocery Store in downtown Petaluma does all the legwork, and lovers of locally grown produce can enjoy the farmers’ market freshness all week.
The intimate grocery store is dedicated to Bay Area farmers’ market-sourced produce, locally made artisan foods and grocery items, and additional selectively sourced and curated products. SNAP EBT (food assistance benefits) is accepted at Jupiter, and one can even shop online for local delivery or pickup. Find everything for dinner and even the kids’ lunches, including olive oils, bread, dairy, nut butters, jams, chocolate, beans, grains, beverages, snacks, and more.
The food is presented beautifully in European-style open-air displays with everything from fresh, tender greens and intact clusters of unusual mushrooms to fragrant bunches of cilantro and piles of kabocha squash. But the tasty proof is really in the cooking.
“We have a small space so we only have room for the good stuff,” says Jupiter Foods owner Dan Bleakney. “We focus on the produce as our primary local draw—the price tags describe the item, the farm where it was grown, and how far that farm is from our front door. Full disclosure is our model, letting you decide how local the produce is.”
Know Your Farmers
It’s so local that customers will likely meet one of the farmers in the store while shopping. Their Petaluma vendors deliver produce directly throughout the week, with dairy products and freshly baked bread arriving on Fridays and Saturdays.
Bleakney and his team also shop at the regional farmers’ markets throughout the week to source produce.
“Sundays, we make our way to the Marin Farmers’ Market to collect fresh orders and replenish our produce for Monday. Tuesdays are dedicated to gathering orders from the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, sometimes picking up pasta, olive oil, vinegar, anchovy, miso, or even some OCHO candies. Thursdays take us back to Marin to secure the produce that will sustain us through the weekend,” he says.
A Guiding Principle
Bleakney left his position as general manager at Napa’s beloved Oxbow Market’s Hudson Greens and Goods local grocery and opened Jupiter Foods in Petaluma three years ago. Growing up on a farm in central Iowa, where his family raised most of what they ate, his understanding of the importance of local food started early. It was the 1960s, just before the factory farming model started picking up speed. Bleakney fondly remembers grocery shopping as a “trip to town” and a special treat where they would run into friends and neighbors at the small family-owned stores.
“The experience was more than filling a cart with the items we needed to supplement our meat, vegetables, and canned goods in the root cellar, it was about finding out about the victories and trials of those we knew,” Bleakney reminisces.
Jupiter’s socially responsible sourcing philosophy is a guiding principle in buying decisions based on the producer’s ethics, practices, and consciousness.
As a store employee, MacKenzie Brown explains, “Jupiter considers the impact of the food they provide at every step of the food supply chain. Everything from how the water and environment are being cared for at the supplier level, to how low-plastic and pollution the delivery process can be, to how nutritious, fresh and rewarding the food will be for our families to eat.”
Sonoma County enjoys an abundance of good food that is accessible to the people who live in the area, and the easy task of eating it can go a long way to caring for our ecosystems.
“Agriculture changes the landscape more than anything else we do and changes the composition of species,” says Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “The food system is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gasses. So to the extent one cares about the natural world, one will attend to eating, food and farming.”
Grocery shopping at places like the farmers’ markets and Jupiter Foods is a delicious way to contribute to the resiliency of our home foodshed and contributes to a seasonally tuned agricultural economy that doesn’t deplete the land we depend upon but supports and even regenerates it.
“Seasonal eating,” Bleakney explains, “is all about the pauses as much as the plenty.”
100 Petaluma Blvd N., Petaluma jupiterpetaluma.com