Ag-Mart Produce
NEWS

For Immediate Release:
July 21, 2009

Contact: Noah Lightman
(973) 799-0200
nlichtman@winningstrat.com

Ag-Mart Produce Joins Greater Philadelphia Green Business Program

(Cedarville, N.J.) – Ag-Mart Produce, a leading tomato grower with a farm in Cumberland County, N.J., announced that it has joined the Greater Philadelphia Green Business Program for companies in the Philadelphia metropolitan area who express a commitment to a series of environment friendly business practices.

By joining the Green Business Program, Ag-Mart is pledging to promote sustainability initiatives through their day-to-day operations.  To participate in the program, Ag-Mart will complete a checklist indicating what steps the company has undertaken to reduce its carbon footprint.  The Green Business Program has seven mandatory measures, such as performing an internal energy audit and promoting sustainability initiatives within the company, along with numerous elective green practices that determine a company’s membership level.

“The Greater Philadelphia Green Business Program is a natural fit with Ag-Mart’s ongoing commitment to socially responsible agriculture and overall corporate social responsibility principles,” said Kevin Delaney, Director of Sustainability and Productivity at Ag-Mart.  “Given our daily work with the earth and environment, we understand as well as anyone the importance of working today to ensure that our natural resources survive and thrive long into the future.”

Among its sustainable practices, Ag-Mart has impacted its conventional growing methods by giving farm managers strategies so that 90% of the pesticides applied are Organic Materials Review Institute-approved.

The Greater Philadelphia Green Business Program is endorsed by the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the PenJerDel Council, and is overseen by an organizing committee of business executives throughout the metro area.  More than 75 companies have joined the program to date.

Ag-Mart Produce, based in Plant City, Fla., is a grower and shipper of both organic and conventional tomatoes, specializing mainly in the grape tomato and heirloom tomato varieties.  It operates in multiple growing regions, including three in Florida, one in North Carolina and one in New Jersey, in order to maintain year-round availability for its customers.  Ag-Mart operates with a focus on food safety and a commitment to continually develop better sustainable growing practices.