Carolina Farmin’
Location 2101 Market Street for more visit www.carolinafarmin.com
The impetus behind opening
Lovey’s Market
Location Landfall Center (1319 Military Cutoff Road) for more visit www.loveysmarket.com
For the last ten years, Marie
Montemurro and Karen Stewart
have carved out their own unique
niche in Wilmington’s health foods and
organics market.
“We saw there was a need for really
healthy, organic, delicious foods that
made it easy for people to make good
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decisions,” Stewart says. “To that point
there really weren’t enough places like
that around.”
A full health foods market and natural
supplement shop, Lovey’s has recently
expanded its café area. Now, in addition
to its long-standing organic salad
bar, customers can find an assortment
Carolina Farmin’, says
general manager Ben Long,
was to bring local produce to market,
while helping the farmers he
and his father met while farming
their family’s land.
“About three to four years ago,
we began to retail some of the
items grown on our farm at the
farmers’ markets and started noticing
a very big gap between the
farmers and the consumers,” Long
says. “People started asking where
they could get the same quality
products seven days a week, 365
days a year and our awareness of
that demand really sparked the
Carolina Farmin’ idea.”
Long says some of the issues
he and his father, CEO Wayne
Long, faced in the beginning were
the tasks of vertically integrating
the different foods local farmers
had to offer into one store, as well
as convincing farmers that there would be enough demand. The biggest trend the
Longs are witnessing today is the consumption of natural, local produce.
“When times are tough I think people want to know that their money is staying
in this area,” Long says.
The café at Carolina Farmin’ features all foods made with locally grown or
caught produce and meats. In addition to the prepared sandwiches — like the
Greensboro, Asheville or Durham — other prepared items include BBQ tofu,
falafel wraps, sesame noodles and black bean hummus. Also available is a fully
stocked salad bar; a hot bar with fresh, wild-caught pistachio-crusted salmon,
spiced shrimp, grilled veggies and more; an extensive granola and nut bar; and
numerous options for gluten free and vegan diners.
Carolina Farmin’s Greensboro Sandwich is
made with artichoke hearts, fresh basil, feta,
creamy ceasar dressing, green leaf lettuce,
sliced mozzarella, sundried tomatoes, roasted
peppers paired with a quinoa salad.