2022

S4.E1 ∙ Still Farming Like It's 1699

Thu, Oct 05, 2023

Back in the third ever episode of Where The Food Comes From, we visited a remarkable farming family, the Bradfords of Sumter, SC. Then, they were still growing the same crops their ancestors had for 200 years, from the same seeds, on the same land. Dad Nat, Mom Bette and their five kids formed the work force. We thought Season 4 would be a great time to check back in with the Bradfords and see what's changed. The two oldest kids are now off to the military and school. The farm has grown from 10 acres to 24 - a focus on supply high-end restaurants in big cities makes it work. There are some new crops in the mix. But they're still farming like it's 1699.

0 /10

S4.E2 ∙ Sunsational!

Thu, Oct 12, 2023

Remember old-school Florida? It's still alive at Sunsational Farms in Umatilla. The farming's all modern, including hydroponic veggies. But the vibe is classic Florida Old School. Two generational Florida citrus families banded together to create a place for family fun that harks back to days gone by. Sure people come for the best-ever fresh-squeezed juice, they come to take home fresh fruit and veggies - but mostly they come just to pass away a pleasant day, from the kids on the playground to the families enjoying a bite to eat in the shade. Even though it sounds old-school, it's actually part of farming's modern wave of agritourism. When farming alone won't pay the bills, farmers get creative.

0 /10

S4.E3 ∙ Robot Dairy

Thu, Oct 19, 2023

The machines do all the work at Hickory Hill Milk in South Carolina and the pampered cows get on-demand service. They make a premium creamline milk you still have to shake. It's so good it's used in world-famous Clemson blue cheese. The Dorn Family are multi-generational dairy people in South Carolina. They were once part of the conventional dairy system, selling their milk to a co-op like most farmers. But they made the bold decision to try to do something better. They did, it worked, the results are marvelous. And in the next episode, we'll follow Hickory Hill milk from Edgefield, SC to Clemson University, where we'll turn it into famous Clemson blue cheese.

0 /10

S4.E4 ∙ Clemson Blue

Thu, Oct 26, 2023

In the last episode, we took you to Hickory Hill Milk in Edgefield, SC to show you their robotic dairy and tell you about their super-premium creamline milk (you still gotta shake it up!). Now we'll follow that milk from Hickory Hill to Clemson University where we'll turn it into amazing blue cheese. No, it's not some new college course - Clemson has been making blue cheese since 1941 and it's developed a world-wide following and won some pretty big awards. With good reason - it's fantastic stuff. It's also fascinating to see how it's made. And we jump right in alongside to help get it done.

0 /10

S4.E5 ∙ Splenda's American Dream

Thu, Nov 09, 2023

American family farmers are dreamers. They're do-ers, too, of course. Nobody works harder than farmers. But in the world of modern agriculture, it's getting harder and harder for Mom and Pop farms - the backbone America was built on - to get ahead. Enter Heartland Food Products Group, makers of Splenda brand sweeteners and many other products that help make it easier to reduce sugar intake. What does Splenda have to do with farming? Sweeteners like monk fruit and stevia are plant-based - they're just not sugar. And those plants are grown on farms. Historically, stevia hasn't been an American crop. It's almost all from other countries, primarily China. If you notice the American flag motif in some versions of the Splenda logo, you probably understand Heartland is an America-first company. Chairman and CEO Ted Gelov put his money where his mouth is to establish the nation's first stevia farm in central Florida. Even better, the Florida location is just a mother farm - that's where Heartland will grow the millions of stevia plants needed to fulfill the ultimate vision: Partnering with small American family farms to grow that crop.

0 /10

S4.E6 ∙ A Day Without Sunshine

Thu, Nov 23, 2023

We made the pilot episode for Where The Food Comes From four years ago, telling the stories of how Florida citrus growers have tried to stand their ground against a lethal disease called greening that's wiped out half of Florida groves in the last 20 years. We focused not on the loss, but on the innovation that's transforming the industry - and the Sunshine State. We went back to the exact spot where we filmed the first frames of the pilot to see what had happened in the interim. The answer was mind-boggling. In a quarter-mile stretch, we went from gnarled, infected citrus trees that were being knocked down and burned, through a lunar landscape that will soon be home to something new, to the staggering sight of hundreds of acres of citrus growing in giant screened enclosures. They're not only safe from greening, they're also producing 2.5 times the fruit of typical groves - and it's all perfect. It's as modern as citrus growing gets. Which makes it even cooler that Dundee Citrus also has a classic holiday gift fruit program that's as old-school as it gets. It's a heartening example of farmers working to keep the best of the past as they build the future.

0 /10

S4.E7 ∙ Cooking With Fire

Thu, Dec 28, 2023

We discovered barbecue before we even discovered how to tame fire. And once we figured out how to make fire on purpose - and control it - nothing changed the world more. That happened about 750,000 years ago. Astonishingly, even though we had all the ingredients, we didn't perfect the process until about a century ago, when the good folks at Fresh Air Barbecue in Jackson, GA first fired up the pit and opened their doors. Now how we cook is changing fast - some cities are banning wood-burning ovens in restaurants, BBQ joints and home chefs are fast converting to electric or propane fired cookers. A future where we cook without fire is foreseeable. We thought we better get the story down right before it fades away. And nobody does it better than Fresh Air.

0 /10

S4.E8 ∙ Simple As Corn, Part 1

Thu, Jan 11, 2024

There are three fundamental crops that sustain the world. Wheat and rice are everywhere of course but nothing shows up in more different forms on more different tables than corn. So why did we make 44 episodes of this show before we finally talked about it? Simple: We were waiting to meet the right people to tell it - and we found them. We traveled to Wisconsin where we met at 12-year-old farmer, a 95-year-old farmer, and a seed company that works with both of them amongst thousands of others. When you hear their stories, we think you'll agree, corn was worth the wait.

0 /10

S4.E9 ∙ Simple As Corn, Part 2

Thu, Jan 18, 2024

Corn is one of the world's staple crops, so important it sustains about half the world's population. So why did we wait until Episodes 44 and 45 to talk about it? We wanted to do it in the most impactful place possible. And there's nowhere in America they know more about sweet corn - the kind you eat on the cob or from a can - than in the great state of Wisconsin.

0 /10

S4.E10 ∙ A New Moo

Thu, Jan 25, 2024

Milk. It does a body good. Got milk? How's your milk moustache holding up these days? Those are all familiar images from past advertising campaigns when milk was unquestionably something everybody used pretty much every day. Or so we thought. Turns out a lot of folks have problems digesting milk. So we all started talking about lactose intolerance. Now it looks like that might not be the issue either, as we learned at Florida dairy operation M&B Products, which bottles milk in Temple Terrace, FL, from its herd in Lecanto, FL. Dale McClellan and family are multi-generational dairy people. Things weren't going too great when Dale took over - the bottling plant had shut down, finances were iffy. Some bold gambles soon had M&B flying high, producing milk that's sold in several states and servicing multiple school systems as well. And now there's a whole new generation of McLellans onboard. (And another coming up right behind...)

0 /10

S4.E11 ∙ There's No Such Thing As The 5-Second Rule

Thu, Feb 01, 2024

You've heard it your whole life - if you drop food, it's still clean and edible as long as you pick it up within 5 seconds. ACK. Nope, not true. Not even remotely, as we found out at the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety, which is part of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences - Ag Dawgs, they call 'em. People have no idea the lengths the ag industry goes to doing the best possible job of keeping food safe - and that happens across the supply chain. Despite what you'd think from the headlines, most foodborne illnesses are our own fault. And that all starts here in the lab.

0 /10

S4.E12 ∙ Beans Ahoy!

Thu, Feb 08, 2024

Everything old is new again. South Carolina's Josh Johnson grows classic favorites like purple hull peas and speckled butter beans at his Old Tyme Bean Co. But it's how he farms as much as what he farms that makes him special. Johnson is part of a new wave in farming called regenerative agriculture. Rather than rely on a guidebook to say when it's time to spray or prune or anything else, you rely on common sense. A mixture of molasses and simple elements like boron keep the pests away - Johnson hasn't had to use pesticide on a crop in four years now. The gist of regenerative farming is simple - these folks do things the way their great, great grandaddies did. Everything old is new again.

0 /10

S4.E13 ∙ Fruit Or Vegetable?!

Thu, Feb 15, 2024

Welcome to everybody's favorite gameshow, Fruit...Or...Veggie. Okay, it's not a real gameshow, but as you'll see, it could be. We all know what we think is a fruit and what's a vegetable. Pretty clear, right? Wrong. Sure you probably know about a tomato - everybody knows that even though it seems like a veggie - it's actually a fruit. But did you realize there are dozens to hundreds of others in the same boat? We went to the University of Georgia Durham Horticulture Research Farm just off campus near Athens to meet with Dr. Tim Coolong, who knows what's what when it comes to fruit and veggies. And then to prove a point, we headed on-campus to play our show. Turns out almost nobody knows what's actually a fruit and what's a veggie. It's a fun way to end Season 4... and we've got a lot more surprises in store for Season 5, including a return to UGA.

0 /10