FOOD FOR THOUGHT: THINK LOCAL
Anderson-Erickson closed their local dairy operation because it costs too much to drive the raw dairy to Des Moines, process it into packaged product and send it back out to us hicks in foodland.
(As an aside, the trucks are probably burning FOOD--ethanol--to transport the milk to Des Moines and back out to the peasant consumer.)
Probably the same same thing could be said for bread from the mega-bakeries, Maybe honey, maybe eggs and some produce.
Here's an idea. Let's avoid the high cost of centralized shipping and transportation by having local folks direct market to the grocery and convenience stores. Teaspoons of petroleum distillate instead of barrels, minutes of delivery time instead of days, predictable delivery times instead of "When the Truck gets in", and accountability of the supplier because the store manager goes to church with the Baker/Dairy Operator.
Let's see, we could call the local Dairy something like "Deters" or the local baker something like "Bueter". They could hire local people and make a profit and build a brand name.
The 50's just called. They want to loan us their food chain/supply line model.
posted by UMRBlog @ 20:07
5 comments
5 Comments:
With due respect to the U of I Extension-haters in the crowd, I would observe that this is precisely what the Extension office is doing with its Locally Grown initiative, which is working pretty well, as far as I can tell.
What I'm thinking also involves some production capacity so it differs from produce-to-restaurant programs.
I don't disagree with you, I'm just using the recent AE announcement to suggest that gas prices may be opening up an opportunity for local enterprise.
TYFCB
1001
Can you explain briefly what you mean by Locally Grown Initiative, what U of I Extension does and what you see as evidence it is doing pretty well.
Great idea, UMR. It's that what's old is now new kind of thinking.
I attended the recent listening post put on by U of I re: locally grown.
A few good ideas, and a few terrible ones (one guy wants us to farm and travel with horses).
Proud to see that a County Market representative was at the meeting, and they already do buy from local farmers.
The trouble is that most of the farmers there want to what they want when they want how they want, with no regard for what customers need/want.
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