When we travel we always try to find interesting food items. Our Vermont cheese tour is an extreme example of that and my recent trip to Bali was no exception. My best “find” was Big Tree Farms–and the funny thing is that I had already discovered their products at my local Whole Foods.

Big Tree Farms was founded by an American couple and started out as a tiny organic farm on borrowed land. The founders were interested in encouraging organic farming and sustainable practices in Bali. The farm became very successful, but in order to keep up with demand they would have had to turn it into a much larger operation. Instead, they decided to look at how they could help sustain traditionally produced Balinese food items. The traditional methods for producing salt and palm sugar are in danger because of competition from mass produced commodities.

You can find many different Big Tree Farm products in stores across the U.S. and online. I am going to do a write up on the different products I brought back. Ironically, there is only one place to buy Big Tree Farm products in Bali and I will do a little write-up on the cafe where they are available.

There is a short Food & Wine article on Big Tree Farms, which does a much better job describing them than I did.

They also have a great website that not only has there products for sale, but also describes the process used to make them: