LORETTO, Pa.- A major retailer has decided to cut ties with Vale Wood Farms, choosing to no longer sell the Loretto farm's milk or products in their stores. But, now the family farm is turning to its customers for help.
Giant Eagle announced it would no longer be selling Vale Wood Farms products in their stores.
The company told the farm, they would only sell products from one local dairy in the county.
Director of Business Development Carissa Itle Westrick says, “We just found out today that the Corporate Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh decided to eliminate our products from the Johnstown stores.”
A spokesman for Giant Eagle responded to our media request saying;
“Giant Eagle is committed to providing a high-quality experience to the Johnstown community, not only to our customers but also to many local supplier partners. We proudly carry products from area vendors including Froehlich’s Meats, That Pierogi Place, Punky’s Tacos, Galliker’s Dairy and others.
Like all retailers, we continually evaluate the mix of products we offer to ensure that we deliver the best assortment of items at the greatest possible value within the space we have available in our stores. We recently made the difficult decision to remove Vale Wood Farms from many of our area stores. As we do in all instances, we will closely monitor the customer response to this product change and will keep the opportunity open to reintroduce Vale Wood Farms in the future.”
The family farm responds to the statement saying, there are two local dairies in Cambria County, and consumers should have the opportunity to support both on the supermarket shelves.
“We do so much to build our own brand milk our own cows, we do it all from moo to you.” Says, Westrick, “The next step is to have access to local markets where customers can chose our products we do want customers to be able to have that choice.”
Now the farm says, it's up to you to try to help put their products back on Giant Eagle shelves.
“We do have a number on our Facebook page to call the Corporate Giant Eagle to help us convince them that local customers want to be able to choose local products”
They ask you please call the Giant Eagle Customer line at 800-553-2324 and let them know you'd like to continue to buy Vale Wood Farms Milk at the Johnstown Giant Eagle Stores:
Goucher Street - #0046
Broad Avenue - #0019
Giant Eagle in Ebensburg will continue to sell the full line of Vale Wood Dairy products. This is because they are locally owned and operated.
Even though losing Giant Eagle as a customer does hurt the family farm, they say this is just a bump in the road.
“You know we are a family farm, with a long history and hopefully a long future as well so this will be a bump in the road but with our customers help we are going to get through it Says Westrick”
The end of the contract was effective immediately, what is on the shelves now will be sold and not restocked.
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