Local Food Movement

The local food movement is growing rapidly — rural farm market is competing with supermarket shelves. Many people come to buy fruits and vegetables while there are people who are small food producers; they sell their small stocks in Oak Park. Just like Oak Park there are many spots around the globe where you can find grocery shoppers returning to their root. They look forward to buying local food, which is grown in one local’s land and is served directly on plate after a few hours of harvesting. This supports local farmers and offer fresh produce to the world and it also reduces the time that is taken to transport food from one place to another; that’s the sole reason why it is called Local Food Movement.

Many big retailers and large grocery chains around the globe are noticing the changes that are impacting the world in the form of organic food as more people are interested in buying premium for local food because it is more trust worthy and is more sustainable. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer and has included local food in its list for the long term strategy. This retailer giant has promised to double the amount of local food sold in U.S only. Chicago’s green market was founded in 1998, its ultimate goal is to increase the variety of food in Chicago by supporting and managing local farms. For them this will help in creating a more sustainable environment. In South Korea, the Seoul Farmers Market opened its way in the Gwanghwamun Plaza which is located in the heart of the city. They produce a variety of hand-pressed tofu, dried seaweed and fresh greens. The local food movement is spreading even in Bangladesh; they produce Shokti doi which is translated as “power yogurt” is the result of a microfinance. This food was produced to help provide the nutrients to the children in the rural parts of Bangladesh. It costs around 10 cents per package.

According to our findings, people prefer to buy local food rather than natural or organic grown food. This is because they find local food to be more sustainable than the other types. However, purchasing local food is not possible for most of the grocery shoppers because of reasons such as availability, local food being expensive to buy on a regular basis or the selection pool is simply not good. Customers are themselves willing to pay for local food instead of the food that is shipped if the retailers or sellers were educated enough to know about locally grown food and know how to present their products

. To employ an effective strategy for selling their products this is what grocery chains can do:

Local food has the potential to have much higher quality than the shipped ones because they are harvested just before they are fully ripe and it doesn’t take long to transport them. By the time they reach the household of the customers, they will be fully ripe. Local groceries can convince the customers with this reason. Alternatively they can try giving it attention by allotting it enough shelf space or tags when placed next to the shipped ones.

To overcome the customer’s suspicion about local products, it is important to show authenticity.Most groceries have opted to advertise local products by putting up signs and displaying them in a separate special limelight. Another expensive option is that they create a separate brand for local products, with all new packaging and marketing. A less expensive alternative is to co-market with local suppliers which will enable the customer to take samples. This will build up trust and will be very beneficial for farmers and providers alike.

This implies we set up bodies so that local farms can select and start their own assortments of products to sell. It is also necessary that the supply of local products stay fresh so that the relationship between the providers and sellers remains strong and most importantly, the customers remain satisfied. The customers are paying a premium price for this exclusive product so measures should be taken to maintain quality.

Adding local food providers and farmers to the structure of the supply chain of the groceries will prove to be troublesome. The entire structure needs to be redefined to accommodate them. Since the grocery stores and supermarkets have dedicated network and cross dock facilities, the same should be done to help create a local chain.

Local food is leading in the preference of customers but food retailers have still a long way to go in order for it to succeed. The expenses are worth it because the customers themselves are willing to buy local products and switch competitors, utilizing their preference we can have a long-term growth advantage for our future.

Related posts:

Always finish what you start, right? Well, not always. One must keep in mind the sunk cost fallacy, where someone spends excessive amounts of time trying to fix or resolve something simply because…

I never wanted to kiss anyone As much as I want to kiss you; I considered it disgusting And I was repelled by it But I dream of our French kiss! It’s not a sin; It’s nature’s ceremony Of love’s…

Queer Joy in the Spotlight is a new charity NFT Collection sponsored by QueerCoin. It features art from LGBTQ artists and 50% of all proceeds from sales will be donated to The Trevor Project to…