Another Local Trend Needs An Internet Presence
It’s been long predicted that the internet is going local. I don’t know of anyone who disagrees with this. People are dumping their Yellow Pages and are increasingly gathering their info from the net. And the best part about it is that the quantity of local areas combined with infinite types of business, lets you have unlimited choices when you want to purchase a domain name, or start a local website.
Today I want to tackle something that has been around forever, but has grown in popularity in the past year or so. More and more people are taking responsibility for the food they eat. And this trend I have today sees the colliding of several trends that’s driving its popularity through the roof.
- The demand is high enough for organic food products that they have made their way out of specialty markets and into the big box Wal-marts and Krogers.
- People are conscious of their carbon footprint, and, perhaps more specifically in this case, food miles. This may be new to the U.S., but it’s going to be huge. They are conscious of the footprint of the products they purchase.
- People want local. Most people would prefer to support local businesses. The general thought is that your putting back into your local economy.
- People are increasingly disgusted with the treatment of animals at mega-farms both here in the U.S. and overseas.
- Fear. Fear is the most powerful motivator. And people are afraid of salmonella and e coli. And they are afraid of foreign grown foods.
Combine all of these and what you get is a great trend: local farming. I’m talking produce, dairy and meat all being grown in your own city being sold in… your own city!
Mega-farms did away with this quite some time ago. But local farming has made a comeback. People are finding that if eggs are grown by a local hatchery in Houston and sold in Houston, they can:
- Support a local business
- Receive fresher product
- Have a significantly smaller carbon footprint
- All with the knowledge that the chickens weren’t mistreated in a mega-farm.
You see, if eggs are grown in Iowa, which is the largest egg producing state in the U.S., then are shipped to a primary distributor in Florida, who then ships them to a local distributor in Georgia, who then sells them to local markets, they leave a pretty large carbon footprint from all the trucks that have to take them to their destinations. This also takes time. And never mind the fact that Florida has one of the largest hatcherys already, only this distributor has a deal with an Iowa hatchery.
None of this is necessary with a local supplier. The food miles of products in major supermarkets is 27 times that of a local market. Supermarkets are starting to realize this as some of them now offer local produce, dairy and meat. They are jumping on the bandwagon. Next time you visit your Wal-mart, keep an eye out for the signs. I was at one today and saw local produce and cheese.
The number of farmers markets have grown 50% in the past decade, according to this NPR article. I know the article is relatively old, but it gets the point across. Here is a more recent success story. People can literally buy produce that was picked that day or the previous day. On top of that, they can meet the farmers that grow them. And in many cases, can even visit the farm where their food is grown. You can’t beat that for customer service. It’s all part of making the consumer comfortable. And right now, they are growing more comfortable with local farmers than a beef rancher from New Zealand.
I recently visited a Houston farmers market to see what the hubbub was about. This one has been around for a long time, but I’ve never been there. We arrived at 10am on a Saturday and most of the booths had already sold out for the day. One booth still had apples, and others had some produce I’ve never even heard of, but most of the others were in the process of closing down. You have to admire these people. They grow this food AND have to spend the time to sell it. How could you not want to support them by buying what often amounts to be a superior product? Sure they may cost more, but wouldn’t you pay $.10 more per onion for that? That’s what I mean when I say that people want to support local businesses.
Here is a guide on how to buy local from, get this, Kraft!
I think this topic would make a great site, whether you want to cover the entire country or just a state or city. A directory of farmers markets and other places where you can buy local, as well as the farmers themselves, would be ideal.
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Comments
3 Responses to “Another Local Trend Needs An Internet Presence”
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Mistreating the Chickens? Arent we eating those same chickens? Seems a bit hypocritical for a person that is tearing the flesh of the chicken bone with his teeth to whine about big farms “mistreating” them.
Also, do you that that only big farms “mistreat” their chickens?
***EDIT***
Troy. In this particular case, I was referring to an egg hatchery… which doesn’t need to kill the chickens
But yes, there are a lot of people out there concerned about how chickens get treated in hatcherys since the chickens live their entire lives there, and are not just slaughtered.
Even so, there are still ethical ways to slaughter animals. Yes, in the end, the animal dies and we eat it. But there are more humane ways to do these things.
Mega-farms have a bad reputation for mistreating animals, especially overseas. Of course, local farms aren’t a complete exception as with anything, but I think that it is far less likely. Since these local farmers rely strongly on the locals that they may see every week, farmers markets and quality customer service, their farms are often open to the public for things like tours. And since they are local, it’s a lot easier to check them out as opposed to a farmer in… say… Vietnam.
Thanks for the comment!
-Scott
I totally agree - Local business should be looked after lets help them out and not let the big players take over in every industry.
Regards,
Robbie
Scott,
Great article! I had never even considered that local, organic farmers were ones to benefit from local online marketing. We’re in Boulder, so there are plenty of organic restaurants that source locally. And there are food ordering services that deliver weekly baskets for less than our supermarket shopping bill (I love this!).
But how is that farmer supposed to get the word out, especially when the supermarkets and walmarts are dominating with their huge budgets? I think that viral marketing via a combination of local farm sites and social networking will do it. If you have one or two farms you’d like us to help with, let us know– our specialty is local internet marketing.
Best,
Dennis