Local Food: What Is Your Definition?

More and more markets seem to be jumping on the local food bandwagon, selling produce that is prominently labeled as "locally grown." But with no official certification process or legal definition, what does "local" mean when we are talking about food? How do you define it for yourself?

The Boston Globe recently wrote about the problems that have come up as locally grown food has become more popular. Big companies want in on the profit, but don't necessarily feel the need to come up with ethical guidelines for what can legitimately be labeled "local." One farmer in the article mentions a chain supermarket that sold his produce under a sign touting “Fresh, Locally Grown Produce”:

“Each store would usually buy one or two boxes of most of the items that I had available that week,” he says. Behind those displays there would be more peppers, a lot of them from farther away, but it wasn’t clear that the banner was referring to only certain produce. “They weren’t exactly lying,” he says.

Even states like New Hampshire and Vermont — which do have legal guidelines for use of the word "local" — run into problems. Food grown even just a couple miles over state lines cannot legally be called local, while food grown 100 miles away but still within the state can.

The burden lies on consumers, who must figure out which claims they trust and which purveyors use guidelines they agree with. Not even farmers markets get a free pass; last fall a Los Angeles farmers market seller was caught repackaging Mexican produce and selling it at farmers markets around town.

Read more:
• The legal of local - Boston Globe
• Market Watch: Farmers market cheating alleged - LA Times

What do you think? Do you have a personal definition for "local" as it applies to food? Are there independent markets or chains in your area whose claims you trust?

(Image: Walmart Stores, licensed under Creative Commons)

Comments (17)

That the person who grew it is a member of my community.

Ooh, I really hate that. I live on the northern end of Chicago and my local Whole Foods always has signage toting "grown locally!" but it'll be from California. Yeah, real local.

However my local market, which is Super ethnic, doesn't claim things to be local unless they're from the Chicago area. Other than that they call it regional if it was grown within the Midwest and then tell me what state and farm grew my produce/milked the cows for my dairy.

I live in Northern California/Sacramento Valley which is a very fertile landscape for all types of produce, dairy, meat, fish, etc. My definition of local is most definitely anything grown within a 100-150 mile radius but yet also think that anything with a "California Grown" label on it qualifies as well. The majority of my perishable shopping is done at the farmers market from farmers, ranchers, fisherman I have come to know over the years and trust. As a result, I rarely have to question the issue of "locality".

100 kilometer radius of my city, although, if were anywhere in my province, I don't think I would mind it being called local.

I accept any food grown in Britain as local.. It helps that it's not that big of a country (compared to the US)

@MaryWynn, that's a lovely idea, but I don't think it's really practical. I live just outside the city limits of Philadelphia. I joined a CSA for this season, and I'm really excited to support a "local" farmer--one who lives over an hour away near Lancaster. There is no "in my community" source for me.

anywhere in Virginia is local enough for me. Nothing from North Carolina or anything outside the state

I am happiest when places put up a little sign saying where the item is from. Solves all the issues! If it is from IttyBitty Farm in X then just tell me.

For me, it's local if I can get there and back comfortably in a day.
This varies with certain products, of course. I'm perfectly happy to call wine made 5-7 hours away by car "local," especially in light of where most wine sold around here comes from. Om the other hand, the mangoes, figs, pecans and pistachios I buy had better come from the large orchards just outside of town.

:) Portlandia- love it Moxie the Maven!

I don't think it matters how a market defines local, as long as they are upfront in sharing their definition of local with the consumer so we can decide.

I live in central Missouri, so I can easily consider anything 'in state' to be local without dealing with the possiblity that some bordering states might be closer than some regions within my own.

But my grocery store is pretty good about identifying not just 'in state' products, but specific towns for many things. My milk comes from a farm 10 miles away, my beef and pork comes from a farm 2 miles away, and the CSA I'm considering joining is 3 miles away. But some things just can't be had locally, and that's life.

To me, local is anything from within my state, but I live in Hawaii, so the issue is more clear-cut. I really like when stores identify the name and location of the source - that seems like the best solution for people who live near state lines. It also gives you another level of connection with the product - your tomatoes are not just "local tomatoes" but "Kamuela tomatoes," and now you know there is a tomato farm in Kamuela.

The grocery store we use (in Seattle) has signs on the produce, bulk foods and meat/seafood that fall into a few different categories: Grown in/Product of USA, Grown in/Product of X country (usually Mexico or China), and NW Producer (meaning that it's a product of Washington or Oregon). Sometimes it'll list the farm or company on the label as well. We try to stick to the items that are tagged as NW Producers, but if we're really trying to go locavore, we'll go to the Sunday Farmer's Market and meet the producers ourselves.

We're lucky that Seattle and Portland are surrounded by farmland - it's relatively easy to get produce from within 150 miles, but our biggest producers are in the eastern parts of the states, where orchard fruits, grain, and livestock are huge.

There's a gastropub in Seattle called Local 360, where everything from the food & beverage to the building materials is sourced within a 360 mile radius. Sounds like a decent gauge for locality to me!

AFAIC, local means within a 4-hour drive. I don't care if it came from two states over, if the farm is less than 4 hours away.

Lol @becster.henrich. I wonder what the C in CSA stands for in Philly then!

I do know that several of the farmers that I buy from regularly come from outside of my county, but as many of them have been vending at our markets since I was in diapers, they're members of my community too.

@MaryWynn, many of the vendors at my local farmer's market (where my CSA farm sells weekly and I will picking up produce in two weeks!) are members of the community, and the market itself has becoming a gathering place for many people from surrounding neighborhoods. In that way, I do think it's COMMUNITY supported agriculture!