I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, so I'm delighted to see this growing trend of producing and buying local.
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Demand mushrooming for food made or grown not far from homeThursday, May 13, 2010
By Karen Kane, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Darrell Sapp/Post-GazetteFreshly harvested green onions from Soergel's Orchard in Franklin Park.When Chris Toth decided several years ago to join a farm program that entitled her to a weekly box of whatever fresh veggies were in season, her decision was all about taste: the sharp flavor of spring greens picked that morning; the succulence of juicy tomatoes still warm from the sun.
The Cranberry mom had no idea she was at the leading edge of what has been whipped into a full-blown movement with a nickname it coined for its followers: locavores.
Fueled by eco-consciousness, food safety concerns and a desire for tasty, nutritious foods, what started a few years ago at the fringe of the local farm has been driven from suburbia smack into Downtown Mainstream. One Giant Eagle executive predicts the "buy local" trend could trump "buy organic" in no time.
Everyone -- from the local farmer to the specialty foods retailer to the chain groceries -- is taking notice.
"It's been building for the past five years to a point of being overwhelming. I don't know whether this is the crescendo or if there's more to come," said Don Kretschmann, who owns an 80-acre farm in New Sewickley. He said it's difficult to keep pace with increasing demand for locally produced foods. He believes that taste is the foundation of the movement. Time and temperature can take a toll on produce that travels long distances, while food that has been engineered to withstand those elements can lose some of its inherent tastiness.
In addition to simply taste, he said, his customers and the community at large are developing a growing environmental and economic awareness.
"There are costs to [importing beef from Australia and fruit from Chile], from protecting the sea lanes to procuring fuel," he said.
In equal measure, he sees concern for food safety.
"If something happens with the local [food] supply, the common thread can be quickly pinpointed, the damage contained and the problem resolved at the source," he said.
He noted the 2008 spinach scare and how it involved tracking in two dozen states and thousands of retail outlets, an unwieldy and time-consuming process.
Aaron Sturges, who grows specialty fruits such as highly perishable white peaches and white cherries on his 55-acre orchard outside Zelienople, said the locavore movement has validated his decision in 1989 to begin farming. He has a retail operation near Fombell and runs a farm market in Cranberry. His customers generally fall into two categories: the older person who remembers childhood days of buying from the farm or the eco-conscious consumer who demands bigger nutritional and flavor impact and is concerned about environmental stewardship.
Tom Logan, of the Logan Family Farm in Hempfield, is responding to the burgeoning movement by boosting his retail operations. For 35 years, he and his wife Joann have sold sweet corn and freezer beef raised on his 500-acre farm. Last year, he branched out to farmers markets in South Fayette, Green Tree and Mt. Lebanon and struck an agreement with Soergel Orchards in Franklin Park and Eden's Market in Mt. Lebanon to sell his dry-aged beef. Now, he's got a plan to build a retail store on the farm.
"We always had a steady supply of customers. Now, the demand is booming," he said.
Reed Soergel of Connoquenessing, one of the owners of Soergel Orchards and Garden Center, has watched the family farm grow into a 500-acre operation with a booming retail business. While they grow "a little bit of everything," their main products are apples, sweet corn and pumpkins. Their store sells everything from baked goods to locally jarred jams. And they participate in a Pine farmers market.
He said that Pennsylvania's "Buy Fresh, Buy Local" marketing campaign is coming at the right time.
"There's definitely been a big boost in interest," he said.
Customers at the retail operation can swell to 1,000 on a summer Saturday, packing the store and greenhouses and overflowing the parking lot.
"Whether it's a peach or a pea, it tastes better fresh-picked. You just can't compare a local strawberry to one from Florida or California," he said.
One pending marketing move at Soergel will be to create more pick-your-own opportunities for customers, many of whom are interested in making sure their children know that fruits and vegetables have seasons and don't "grow" in plastic bags, he said.
Farmers aren't the only ones responding to the eat-local movement.
Kim Wynnyckyj, marketing director for Whole Foods Market in Shadyside, which specializes in natural and organic foods, said the chain has made it a priority to respond to the drive to eat local.
In March, Whole Foods convened a customer advisory panel that said "loud and clear, eating local means something to them," Ms. Wynnyckyj said.
"Our customers are very educated about their foods. They want to establish a healthier standard of living. They want to know where their food is coming from, how it's grown and that it's local," Ms. Wynnyckyj said. "The carbon footprint issue is huge. They want the food they're eating to be produced as close as possible to the store."
The store has taken a number of steps toward that end, from hosting farmers markets in its parking lot to stocking and clearly labeling its shelves with local fruits, vegetables, salsas, mustards, cheeses, meats and baked goods.
Jennifer Darora, business development manager for longtime local specialty retailer McGinnis Sisters, makes it her business to ensure that locally produced foods are available for sale at the family's stores in Brentwood, Monroeville and Adams. And the numbers and varieties of those foods are always on the rise, she said.
"We've championed this cause since my grandfather opened the first store in Baldwin in 1946. I can remember going with him as a child to the farm to pick up corn," she recalled.
She said the effort has been redoubled again and again as the stores have grown and as more customers in the past two years have shifted their sites to their own communities.
"We have folks talking to farmers and making delivery arrangements daily. Logistically, it's very difficult. But, we're happy to do it," she said.
In the summer, up to 40 percent of all the produce in a McGinnis store can be local. Pork and chicken from Pennsylvania is available daily.
Even the larger chains are jumping on the bandwagon.
Craig Ignatz, vice president of produce for Giant Eagle, and Tom Eynon, produce manager for the chain, said that store produce managers are asked to aggressively pursue arrangements with local farmers. Mr. Eynon said more and more customers are asking for it.
The O'Hara-based grocery chain, which operates in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, has struck agreements with more than 140 farmers. Some of those agreements may involve only one product at one store.
"If blackberries are available for one week of the year from one farmer for one store, we want them," Mr. Eynon said. "If it's out there, we want it."
Mr. Ignatz said the system requires a lot of hands-on work by the individual store produce manager. He said the marketing team has helped craft a system for stores to improve signs --actually naming the local farm from which produce is obtained -- so the shopping public is aware of the offerings. He said the locavore movement appears to have so much steam it soon could "trump organics."
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