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 Papa's got a brand new bag
Some major supermarkets have recently started advertising that they support local farmers, making it clear that they are aware of the consumer's desire to eat local food. While it is wonderful to see that these supermarkets are aware of our wants it would be even better if they delivered on what they advertised. I was very impressed with the marketing I saw in a few stores around me but wholly unimpressed with the actual food, which turned out still to be mostly from outside the region. I visited two supermarkets in the Washington, DC area this past week (both in Arlington, VA). The first was Whole Foods. As you can see above, Whole Foods is now advertising on their shopping bags their commitment to supporting local farms. I'm not sure how they support these farms since most of the produce section is still from California. In fact the only thing that I saw in the produce section, which claimed to be local was asparagus from New Jersey. I guess New Jersey is only a couple hundred miles away, so that's not bad. Of course there's also asparagus grown on farms in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, which are closer than New Jersey. My complaint isn't really about the New Jersey asparagus, though. It's about the lack of anything else in the produce department from anywhere near by. We are entering the heart of the growing season around here, so there's no lack of local produce. Looking around for other changes I explored the meat, seafood and dairy departments at Whole Foods. Each department had a few local items, but were mostly stocked with food from elsewhere. The meat is now labeled "naturally raised", but that just means no antibiotics or growth hormones without consideration of whether or not the animal was raised in confinement. The only things that seem to have changed at Whole Foods are the shopping bags. The next supermarket that I visited was Harris Teeter. After viewing a recent Harris Teeter television ad promising local food, I had to take a look. What I saw there was more great marketing. Firstly they call their produce department the "Harris Teeter Farmers Market" and their seafood department the "Harris Teeter Fishermans Market". Pretty clever, huh? They also have large signs around the produce department which highlight their farmers. The signs look nice and send a positive message, which I was excited to see at first. Unfortunately they are very misleading since they seem to be dispersed in the produce section in no particular order. The first sign I saw in the "Harris Teeter Farmers Market" featured a North Carolina farm. The farm apparently grows melons and berries. The sign was placed over a display of strawberries, so my first thought was that the strawberries were from the farm in North Carolina. However, upon closer inspection, I discovered that the strawberries were from California. I never did find anything in the store that was grown on the North Carolina farm or anywhere else in the region for that matter. The rest signs in the produce department featured farms in California and South America. The meat and seafood departments didn't seem to have anything local either. In the dairy department my eyes immediately met a quart of milk in a glass bottle advertising to be growth-hormone free. This looked like a good sign to me as my delicious, delicious milk comes delivered to me straight from the farm in a glass bottle. Of course when I looked closer I noticed that the milk was bottled in Texas. The glass bottles, instead of being reused as are those from my local farm delivery, just make for a very heavy cross-country trip. On a good note Harris Teeter did offer some locally bottled milk. These grocery stores have made a commitment to advertise local. And they have the knowledge of consumer desires and marketing know-how to pull it off. Let's hope that consumers force them to fill their bags advertising local food with actual local food. |
