Filed under: Dollars and Sense
The Onion River Co-op, blogged here in August, stunned me with the sheer quantity of its local products. Vermont local signs were posted throughout the store. I was wowed. But was it an illusion? Just good marketing? Is this really a model of supporting local farmers and vendors or was I just excited about how easy it was for me to eat local when I was hungry? Was it the plethora of signs in the store describing the local vendors that made me think the store had a lot of local products, but in reality, was no different than stores here in Minnesota?
The vision statement of the Onion River Co-op states:
Enhance the local and Vermont economy by promoting the products of local businesses
Ah….and the web site’s About Us page also states that 73% of the vendors they do business with are located in Vermont, resulting in 60 cents of every dollar in sales staying in Vermont.
What if we did this here? What if our co-ops sold 73% local products? Could they do it? Are there enough Minnesota products to fill the store? And if there are not, would the products eventually fill the shelves? And finally, if the Minnesota products filled the local co-ops, would the community shop there? Well, would they?
I think that the market for local goods would increase — more people would value it. With the news filled with e.coli contamination in beef (note the recent stories about Topps ground beef, now out of business) and other recent stories about bagged spinach, as well as probably too many stories to list here, maybe people are ready to try exerting their purchasing power in another direction. Maybe they will feel safer cooking their foods, knowing what every ingredient on a label means, supporting the Minnesota grower, and supporting not only our own communities but our state.
What if.
Thoughts, friends?
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