Redmond Heritage Farm Store — Restaurant in Orem

What did Utah do before Redmond Heritage Farms (or what was previously known as Real Foods Market)? This small chain of stores has completely changed the climate for natural foods in this state, and dramatically overshadows their competitors in almost every regard. The commercial availability of raw milk here alone is massively valuable, but that's only scratching the surface of what makes Redmond so important.

The Redmond farm system produces not only raw milk, but also provides pastured eggs, beef, poultry, and pork (exceptionally uncommon), as well as some staple cheeses made from their own dairy. To stock these items is one thing, but to sell foods of such high quality at such low prices is almost unheard of. We're not trying to suggest that Redmond's stuff is dirt cheap by any means, but it is substantially lower than you might expect if you're used to buying similar products elsewhere – a bonus for buying essentially direct from the producer(s).

The café and refrigerated prepared foods are top-notch, from their soups made wholly from scratch to their chicken salad made with excellent house mayo, all again at prices that make unnamed competitors look practically like highway robbers. Though it isn't all perfect (the quinoa salad we got was just okay, and our Caprese sandwich was drowning in balsamic), most of the time you're getting well-prepared food made from exceptionally good ingredients.

From the chocolate to the body care, every aisle is almost disarmingly well curated, with many familiar brands conspicuously missing due to their quality not meeting Redmond's noticeably higher standards. Likewise, there's a lot of brands here you won't see most other places.

The produce aisle has ample local offerings, including some less common items like sorrel and lavender. Prices vary widely in this section, from confusingly high to very reasonable, perhaps reflecting real market value as opposed to the 'averaged out' prices many groceries adopt to keep consumers from balking at out-of-season produce costs.

To top all this off, the staff here are on average incredibly well-educated and amenable. They know a lot about the farming practices that produce their products, about the grain that goes into the locally baked breads, and when they don't know something they can get you in contact with whomever can best help you out. This is unfortunately rare, as many 'natural' groceries churn through uninterested cashiers like butter, but Redmonds clearly understands the importance of having a passionate staff that practices what they sell.

A truly exemplary establishment on almost...

Most health food stores will stock any passing fad, but I am 100% convinced that Real Foods will only stock it if they believe in it. They won’t just stock any essential oil, probiotic, honey, or whatnot, but what they consider to be those of top quality ingredients and processing. This is what I love about this store. I feel I can walk in, and anything I find in there is trustworthy and more likely to do me good than be a waste of money and just “snake-oil,” which is something I constantly worry about in most health food stores. That being said, there are only certain things I will buy here, because if other stores carry it, they typically carry it substantially cheeper (for instance, I almost never buy produce from them). HOWEVER, there are certain things I can only seam to find here. Raw Milk, Kolona Supernatural cottage cheese ( only kind I like, and Harmon’s only has the ehhhk low-fat version), cream that has been vat pasteurized at a low temperature, Strauss Ice cream (yum), and some hard to find supplements. Before my babies I attended several of their free classes (a few have fees). The quality varies depending on the presenter (just as with school teachers), but generally I enjoyed them and found them helpful, informative, or at least interesting. At the time (I don’t know if they still do) they would offer 10-20% discounts on related products after the class (so milk if it was on cheese making, or salt if it was on minerals), so if you want to explore a concept and try something out, the classes are...

I’m not one to usually leave reviews, but our experience this afternoon needs to be noted. We came during lunch and it wasn’t too busy. We waited almost 40 minutes for our food. It was only my husband and I so it wasn’t a lot of food. Staff were sitting in the back talking while we were waiting for our food. No communication as to why our food was taking so long. When our order was ready, they didn’t even let us know. They set the bag on the counter and walked away. We had sat down at this point because the wait was taking so long and we would’ve had no idea our food was even finished if we weren’t watching. When we asked for fry sauce, we were told they were out after we had already ordered. I specifically asked for my food to be without sprouts and to have my egg cooked all the way through because i am pregnant and have been told by my doctor to keep those out of my diet. When we got home and opened our food, it was not made the way i had asked and everything that i couldn’t eat was mixed in my food making it almost impossible for me to eat. The sauce that was supposed to be included, wasn’t. The fries were also completely burnt. Extremely disappointing especially for the cost of the food. I had a very good experience during my first visit, but after today i will probably not be...