Ever noticed how the term local gets tossed around lately?
Everyone use it, but no one defines it.
Safeway advertises Northwest Local or locally grown produce, politicsrespun.org/2010/09/safeways-lies-about-bc-produce/, which presumably means that if I live in Boise and my produce is from Seattle, 405 miles away, Safeway considers it local.
What about Wal-Mart? They’re so big Mexico might be local since most of their products are from China. Although the new regime is embracing a buy in-state “local” program, www.npr.org › News › US, that has some Locavores questioning distance. Afterall, what could be more local to Clarkston than Lewiston? Oops your out of state!
Albertsons, while northwest owned, has become a cumbersome corporate monster, http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Albertsons-Inc-Company-History.html. With all of their acquisitions Albertsons now require produce managers to buy from distant warehouses, this keeps their sourcing through corporate headquarters and eases paperwork. Of course, it’s anyone’s guess just where their produce is wheeling in from. http://bikeacrossamerica.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/mippy-got-grass/.
Costco focuses on corporate organic, they don’t even try to play the local game. I admire their honesty, if not their handling of local growers.
It always amazes me this flip use of English, having grown up here, I AM local. I didn’t necessarily want to be. As a teenager I found the continent furthest away to escape to, misguidedly hoping my family wouldn’t know anyone and I would finally be free from the weight of being known (turns out they did know people and it was helpful…). Local was my childhood curse.
Now every two bit salesman with a gimmick and a fast car claims local status before you sign and they dive off the edge of the horizon with your cash. If I sound cynical – I am.
Our farm has been here over a century. My great grandfather caught the Pullman car, after ferrying across the river, with his deliveries to the Palouse in the early 1900’s. My Dad and Uncle helped create the Moscow Farmers’ Market as a way for local farmers to sell direct to the public. My sister and I grew up going with dad on deliveries to all the local Greek Houses and college campus cafeterias in Moscow and Pullman. I remember sitting in the back of the first Moscow CoOp licking peanut butter off a spoon next to the bulk barrels while Dad talked business; that was 35 years ago. Last season we delivered to the CoOp, Rosauers, WINCO, Family Foods and Dissmores (check our website listings). Their sales managers and staff worked with us to incorporate local produce into their line-up. We’ve been selling and servicing our customers in the greater Quad cities area for over one hundred years. We try to pick and deliver the same day. When we tell people we are fresh and local, we are.
Same family, same farm, same place, since 1888; try getting that defined any more simply. Local; it’s who we are.
Don’t be afraid to ask your produce manager where their produce is hauled in from; when it was picked; who the farmer is. You’re eating it. You deserve to know. If they can’t answer you; take your business elsewhere and let them know! There are places locally to buy good produce. Support them, and more good food will follow. Check our website for retail store listings or quality local produce establishments and farmers’ markets. Recognize that not all vendors at farmers’ markets are local – some markets allow anyone to show up, others are very strict.
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