Food City names Tony Slaughter ‘Grower of the Year’ at annual appreciation luncheon
ABINGDON, Va. (WJHL) — Food City hosted its annual Growers Appreciation Luncheon on Tuesday to celebrate regional growers and to name Tony Slaughter the winner of the Wayne Scott Memorial Grower of the Year Award.
The luncheon was held at Food City’s Corporate Support Center in Abingdon, Virginia and featured a lineup of speakers who praised area farmers.
Food City CEO Steve Smith told News Channel 11 the event aimed to honor regional growers and producers while gathering them all under one roof.
“To get to meet the farmers and know their families, and know the work that they put into the product that we get to sell,” he said. “And we gather once a year to have a big celebration and honor a particular farmer. That’s our farmer of the year. But it’s my favorite event of all the events I get to be part of.”
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Tony Slaughter owns and operates a farm in the Colonial Heights area of Kingsport. He was named the winner of the Wayne Scott Memorial Grower of the Year Award. He spoke to News Channel 11 about why he thinks locally sourced food items are vital to Food City stores.
“Well, I think there’s several factors for local growth,” Slaughter said. “Certainly the transition alone, the fact that it’s in the store within a matter of hours versus maybe a matter of days or a week is one thing. Plus putting the dollars right back into the local community … because the products we sell are my neighbors’ or my family and your neighbors’ and your family’s [products].”
Slaughter said the fulfillment he gets from growing things he later sees in Food City stores is immeasurable.
“I think what I like most about being a farmer, is seeing things grow and working from start to finish. And [to] start with nothing and at the end of the season, producing a crop; and I guess working for myself, too, would certainly play into it. I enjoy that, and always being outside and never being confined in an office building or something of that nature, which I never have been.”
Slaughter said he’s thankful that he’s been able to do a job he truly loves for so long.
“My whole life I never thought of doing anything else other than doing this,” Slaughter said. “It’s not been the most lucrative career, by no means, but it’s been a very rewarding career.”
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