Grocers Have to Leave the Chain to Offer Local Food

[c9]

Fascinating look at local food options and how the big chains can't/won't offer them due to cost, paperwork, cost, auditing ability, cost, and did I mention cost? Remember that your decisions in a grocery store are your vote: if a company is selling more organic stuff, more local stuff, less chemical stuff, they will react to that. Check out how the organic section has grown in your store in the past few years!

Buy-local push prompts Ontario grocers to go independent [CBC.ca]

Five Sobeys grocery stores in southern Ontario have left the Sobeys chain so they can offer local meats and produce -- I just wish they were closer to Toronto!



We do have an independent meat store a couple blocks from our house (Fresh From The Farm) which we're going to try visiting more often (and they do online ordering!) plus we just signed up for Front Door Organics which will deliver local produce right to our house on a schedule we set at a pretty good cost. Fun!

Comments

[quingawaga.livejournal.com]

I was so excited to hear that! I wish some stores in Kitchener-Waterloo would do it too, although we DO live really close to Central which is nice.

[1-2-ready-go.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that we have food growing RIGHT IN OUR YARD (ooh, ah). But I know you don't like tomatoes...

[c9.livejournal.com]

That's right! There's even food that I do like there! Well, there will be. Mostly it's just leaves right now.

[1-2-ready-go.livejournal.com]

We have one stringbean ready for harvest. Come home before I eat it.

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

So far we are loving our CSA, getting super-fresh organic stuff weekly grown by a farm only 15 minutes away. We aren't quite getting enough food like fruits from it to last the week so we have been checking out the local farmer's markets that have rules the vendors must be from within 100 miles and they only sell stuff they produce themselves. Good stuff, too bad it is so much more expensive than the grocery store.

I still don't understand why local food costs 1.5-2x as much to buy than stuff they trek half-way across the world with the relatively high fuel costs we have now (and especially last summer). I realize labour costs are probably a lot less elsewhere but geez...

[sarah-sosiak.livejournal.com]

Local farmers usually don't have the economies of scale that large corporate farms do, and large farms in South America have a much longer growing season than Ontario does.

I'm not sure if it's the same in Ontario, but I find here that fruit I get at the farmers' market is less expensive than what I get at my grocery store (even when it's from the same farm). I've heard good things about the new farmer's market in Ottawa -- I think in the Glebe -- might be worth checking out.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Sorry I'm late to this party...

We can't deal with all the lettuce we're getting. I mean, salads for breakfast is a little extreme? Midnight salad?

And if you get any beet greens or swiss chard, Jackie has a pretty awesome risotto recipe...

[skeezix1000.livejournal.com]

Fresh from the Farm is awesome. You live close to the Big Carrot too, which increasingly is where we get most of our groceries. Grassroots, a few doors down from the Big Carrot, is great because you can buy eco-friendly cleaning products in bulk. And if you haven't been, the Saturday morning farmers market at the Don Valley Brickworks is fantastic.