Eat Local Does Not Mean Big Box Retailers

Local farmers, community supported agriculture (CSAs) and local co-op stores provide many benefits to our world, beginning with supporting local farmers. When a farmer sells his products through these channels as much as 90% of the sale may go to the farmer, ensuring that he will be able to purchase seed or feed, equipment, and supplies to continue to operate even when the weather is occasionally uncooperative. This is particularly important for natural and organic farmers who do not have the benefits of mega-conglomerate buying power to drive down costs.

When these sales channels are shifted to larger food chains and mega-stores the portion of each dollar spent on food drops considerably. In 1997 this share had fallen to 21%¹. This means greater hardship on farmers, imposes a need to produce larger quantities, and can encourage cutting corners and mistakes.

Local food offers many benefits to everyone, even those who choose to not purchase locally. Local dollars stimulate local economies and encourage local innovation. Local food can be readied for sale just before it is time to sell it, meaning that it need not be picked days before it ripens or treated with chemicals to preserve it from rot and decay. Local foods and particularly natural and organic foods also have a much smaller carbon footprint. This smaller carbon impact is due in part to not needing to travel thousands of miles to reach their destination store. They also benefit from the availability of much simpler natural and locally available fertilizers and require fewer other chemicals. For a commercial operation, fertilizers and other chemicals may need to be trucked in from great distances. Since many diesel trucks get 6-8 miles per gallon, trucking in a single truckload of produce a thousand miles may generate over 3,000 pounds of carbon.

Natural and organic foods also offer much healthier, more nutritious products than those typically sold at chain stores.

All of which makes the recent trend toward big box retailers selling "natural" and "organic" food very troubling for a few key reasons:

Larger chain stores are able to absorb greater losses for an individual store, meaning that they are able to put smaller stores out of business, particularly niche stores that cater to healthy shoppers.
While larger stores are often able to find natural and organic growers to purchase from, many of these providers are themselves mega-farms, and much of their produce is trucked thousands of miles to individual stores, increasing their carbon footprint.
The cumulative effect of the above two impacts means that smaller local farmers are again squeezed out of the equation and often forced to deal with large food conglomerates.
Big box retailer green marketing claims have historically been misleading or false. A 2007 study by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing² of 6 category-leading big box retailer stores found 1,018 products bearing 1,753 environmental claims, all but one of which were demonstrably false or risked misleading purchasers.

Many local co-op stores offer prices that are in fact lower than big box retailers. In addition, they employ staff that are trained and knowledgeable about health benefits. In today's economy, Many of them also offer help with and even classes for how to save money with healthy food. Every co-op is also locally based, meaning that they have an investment in the local community, support local businesses, are involved in local causes, and have personal concerns for their customers and neighbors.

It is our opinion that purchasing "natural" and "organic" foods from a big box retailer is a mistake for anyone with concern about local economies, personal and familial health, or the environment.

Please support local co-ops, CSAs, and farmers, and do not purchase so-called "natural" and "organic" foods from a big box retailer.

^{1. Barriers and Opportunities to Local Agricultural Purchasing by Restaurants and Institutional Food Buyers. Colorado State University, Department of Sociology. April, 2002}
^{2. Terrachoice Environmental Marketing 2007}