Going green isn't just about planting trees and picking up litter.
If Eat Local Sudbury has its wish, people will help by buying their food locally too.
Emily Trottier, coordinator of Eat Local Sudbury cooperative, said eating local is a smarter choice for the environment, for your health and for your wallet.
In terms of ecological impact, buying local will leave “a smaller footprint,” she said.
Knowing where your food comes from also leads to healthier eating, according to Trottier.
“Often, it seems when people know more about their food and they are more aware they often make better food choices. They eat healthier and take the time to prepare their food in healthier ways.”
Although people are becoming “more and more aware” of the Eat Local initiative, Trottier said she still finds people wondering “OK, now what do I do about it?”
She said it's about “getting the word out that Eat Local Sudbury is here,” and showing people, “this is what we've got and this is how we can help you.”
Trottier said buying local could also save consumers money.
“The packaged foods, if you add it up, they're a lot more expensive. If you get a head of cauliflower, for example, it's going to last you two weeks. Whereas, if you buy the packaged cauliflower it might last you one week. Portion-wise, you get a lot more for your buck.”
To Michael Cullen, director of the Greater Sudbury Restaurant and Foodservice Association, eating local is a way of boosting the economy.
“The advantage is in supporting local jobs, local agriculture. It gives everybody a feel-good attitude by helping locally.”
Cullen's job involves getting local product into local restaurants and to foodservice operators.
The key to doing that, he said, is “tightening up the network (by) educating them and introducing them to farmers and products they may not know of... That's the idea.”
Presently, local businesses rely on out of town sources, Cullen said.
“Right now the restaurant and foodservices industries rely on wholesale shipments from down South, from other places that are not necessarily local.”
“There has to be a demand for it. We need some of the restaurants and foodservice providers to maybe step up and start buying a little more.”
Cullen said eating and buying local is a trend Sudbury is lagging behind in.
“It's a trend, and I think Sudbury has a little ways to go to catch up to the rest of the country. There's a lot of (places) down in Muskoka and Toronto, bigger centers, pushing it, and we're going to push it.”
On Sunday, Oct.25, ELS in partnership with GSRFA and the National Farmers’ Union, held a “Meet Your Farmer” event at their store, located at 28 Durham St.
The cooperative put on the event to “put a face to the products we have in the store,” according to Trottier. “It will show people where their food is coming from when they can say 'yup, I shook that guy's hand. I talked to him.'”
Local farmers were on site giving presentations and giving out samples of their products.
Max Burt, from the Burt Farm, a farm which sells meats on Manitoulin Island, gave a presentation on how consumers can support their local farmers.
He said the benefits of eating local rest on accountability and transparency.
“You'll have a better knowledge of what the product is because you can ask questions,” Burt said. “I can't hide behind as many as a dozen labels like (large meat companies) can. I have to live by one brand. I will live and die with my brand.”
Burt owns the farm he grew up on.
Growing up on a farm allowed Burt to eat local.
“If you want to eat locally, you've got to eat what's local. If you want to eat kiwi, well then you can't eat local. I grew up on the farm that I live on and I ate locally all the time... Way over 90 per cent of our diet was local. It came right off the farm. People who don't have those opportunities may have to work a little harder at it.”
Eat Local Sudbury is a not-for-profit co-operative. It aims to increase the production, availability and consumption of local food in Sudbury.
The co-operative storefront is open Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.