Piggly Wiggly Expands Selection of Organic and Local Foods

THOMASTON, AL—In the past few weeks, customers at Black Belt Piggly Wiggly stores may have noticed some changes on the shelves. At the urgent behest of a few customers from California and New York, local Piggly Wiggly stores have expanded their offerings to include locally grown, gourmet, and organic items. "We expanded our inventory in response to many requests from missionary home builders and folk art dealers who claimed that our store's selection was unhealthy and part of what was holding everyone in this area down. I'm not sure what that means, but we did expand our selection to take advantage of local producers. We had to get rid of one of the aisles of fried pies, honeybuns and Faygos to stock this stuff, but we want all of our regular customers to know that we will still have two aisles of those products to choose from," says night manager Dale Mailer. "Thanks to our recent improvements we are excited to announce that we now have three bins of fresh produce. That quadruples our previous offering."



In these new produce bins, adventurous customers will find organically grown poke salad greens and crabapples alongside locally-picked mushrooms. Even though the fried pie and aisle is reduced in size, discerning shoppers will spot a few new flavor offerings, including ripe persimmons and sweet potato. Among the tasty new offerings from Faygo are scuppernong and sorghum. There are some changes at the meat counter as well. In an attempt to reduce carbon footprints, Piggly Wiggly butchers have started to exploit local sources, offering flavorful free range chicken feet from heirloom Black Belt breeds, wild-caught snapping turtle fillets, and richly-textured wild turkey neckbones. On a recent Thursday, Californian Bruce commented on the new selection, "Um, yeah, it's local, but I wanted them to get stuff like Trader Joe's. I still don't really know what any of this stuff or how to cook pecan-fed wild boar tails."

Meanwhile, Mailer attempted to hand out samples of catfish roe on Captain’s Wafers. Reports Mailer, “Well, I don’t know how well this is going to work. The Yankee art dealers keep telling me catfish isn’t kosher and those west coast builders or whatever keep saying catfish isn’t vegan. Me, I say if it's good enough for Sunday dinner, it's kosher enough. And everybody knows that catfish ain't vegan. They'll eat anything you grind up small enough."

Others were more optimistic. New York folk art scout Ingrid Stein recently raved over the local bounty, “These quaint new selections are beautiful expressions of the rustic cuisine of authentic South! I could sell these packages of chicken feet in a Manhattan gallery tomorrow!”