One of our first stops after getting here in Bangor Maine was to go shopping for groceries at Hannaford, the largest grocery chain in town. It was another piece of evidence towards my conclusion that Maine is just masquerading as a state. My suspicion is that Maine is secretly another country. The true evidence is in the picture above.
What you are looking at above is a photo of the produce section in Hannaford and it is huge. Let me spell that for you, h-u-g-e! It is unlike any produce section in any store I have ever seen in Florida. Jean and I eat a mostly raw vegan diet (80% or so) and we were in heaven. We used to shop at Wild Oats in Melbourne until that closed and now shop at Paradise in Palm Bay and the produce section in this store, just the produce section, is as large as Wild Oats and twice as large as Paradise. We’re talking twice as large as the entire store.
There is almost every kind of produce you can imagine here and we came all the way to Maine to find it. Not only does the Hannaford produce section feature stuff we simply can’t find in Florida, it has the freshest fruits and vegetables that look they came right from the garden behind the store. Just a quick look around and we found about 6 different kinds of lettuce, 11 different kinds of mushrooms, a huge organic section and an assortment of veggies that we will need to get out our produce encyclopedia to figure out exactly what they were.
This is all pretty amazing because Bangor Maine is not anywhere near the size of Melbourne or Palm Bay in population, yet at first glance, they have completely blown us away in shopping for quality produce. Another thing that we found kind of interesting is that when you walk into the main entrance at Hannaford, you walk right into the produce section. It’s not like most grocery stores in Florida where the produce is hidden in the back, you simply cannot avoid it, walk in the door and here you are, you are going to go through produce whether you like it or not. Hmm, that sounds like a pretty good start to a better healthcare system, doesn’t it?
The Maine vacation adventure is just beginning.
Tags: Maine
A lot of that beautiful produce comes from Florida and Georgia, afterall. Rosemont Farms, of Boca Raton, FL, has been a vendor partner of Hannaford in South Portland for over 10 years, providing countless varieties of eastern and western vegetables, year round. We’re proud of our great relationship with Hannaford and are just as proud the produce is doing a good job “showing off” in the produce department.