A Corn Fueled RAGBRAI

As part of our Iowa Corn Summer Roadtrip, we made a few stops throughout the week on the famed RAGBRAI trip across Iowa, but this time instead of fueling our cars with corn-powered ethanol, we fueled the bikers with over 8,000 ears of homegrown sweet corn. Oh, how we love the delicious one percent that feeds our summer hunger. The bikers seemed to enjoy it just as much as we do.

We made numerous stops across Iowa including Soldier on Sunday, Templeton on Monday, Newton on Wednesday, Deep River on Thursday, and Riverside on Friday. Every stop was packed with gleaming smiles and plenty of thanks to our county farmer-leaders and volunteers who stood over the hot roaster and the butter pots to serve cyclists and talk about all things corn. The Biofuels Mobile Education Trailer was also a hit with those that stopped as long lines snaked through the trailer and down the hill to the tent where the sweet corn was being served.

RAGBRAI cyclists Mark, Drew, and Andrew from Riverside, Iowa took it upon themselves to stand outside of our sweet corn stand and yell to the tops of the rolling Iowa hills how much they truly love corn in all its forms. They explained the difficulties they had convincing people that the corn we were giving out was free. “How could it possibly be free?” some said, but the men persisted telling all about the joyous stop ahead for free sweet corn.

“We love corn, we love free corn, we love Iowa sweet corn.” They said.

Iowa corn farmer, Scott Te Grootenhuis says this is what it’s all about.  “There’s nothing like showing our consumers what Iowa Corn is, what we work towards, and how we feed our communities, our Iowa, our country and our world,” says Te Grootenhuis. “It’s fun to see people from across the country enjoying something grown right here in Iowa, but it’s even more enjoyable to see their faces light up when we explain that sweet corn is only 1% of the corn we raise here.” 

The free will donation collected during the week will be given back to grassroots efforts. Thank you to all who worked, donated, or even stopped by to say hi. We hope you enjoyed your homegrown sweet corn!