LOY’All — now more than ever
Local Organic Y'All believes that supporting locally-grown organic food is key to solving our multiple crises together. Today, we face unprecedented challenges -- climate, clean water, animal welfare, racial equity and health. We see climate disasters in the news daily and know that food is a key driver. (Watch the video below, which also highlights refrigeration and food waste.). We see the devastation of CAFOs, poisoning our waterways and subjecting animals to extreme confinement. We see the disaster of COVID-19, killing our most vulnerable citizens -- including those who suffer from chronic diseases related to poor diet. And we know that race, poverty and poor health are all linked. These critical issues must be addressed in tandem, at scale and now.
Local Organic Y'All advocates at the macro scale -- with supermarkets and wholesalers who supply the vast majority of the food we eat. This project examines the largest players in the Carolina food distribution system. This includes supermarkets who sell billions of dollars worth of food each year and wholesalers who sell to our local restaurants, schools and institutions. Are the big players using best practices to support local organic foods? Can they commit resources to be part of the local food solution? What are they up to?
Bottom line, we believe that more people get access to fresh, locally-grown organic food when more supermarkets and wholesalers get on board with the food movement. And we solve these big problems when the biggest players get on board.
Until our new report is completed, check out our most recent supermarket slideshow and quick chart.
Here's our latest full supermarket report.
Our seminal 2016 report, "Many Miles To Go," is available here.
Both reports explore & rate the local friendliness of N.C. grocers.
LOYA'll and COVID-19
Due to COVID-19, Local Organic Y'All did not release a third industry report in 2020, as hoped. Retailers were too stressed and supply chains too disrupted to provide an accurate picture of the local-organic landscape. The project does have plans to resume and expand its ratings and scorecard work in in 2021 and 2022. Check back here for announcements about future work and our findings.
COVID did provide valuable lessons about our food system and we will be discussing those in future reports. Supermarkets did demonstrate that they could supply adequate food in a crisis and wholesalers were nimble as demand shifted overnight. Such professionalism and creativity now needs to be applied to the great food system challenges that lie ahead.
LOY'All and Black Lives Matter
This project believed from the start that racial equity is a key aspect of good food policy. Too often, the local and organic food movements have been led by white people with privilege and the results have been predictable. (My white male privilege is a case in point and worth noting.) Expensive farm to table restaurants and farmers markets in toney white suburbs do not further racial equity in our food system. Millions are left out of the benefits of healthy food. This is one key reason that the supermarket interests me so much -- it is where low to middle income people get their food. But quickly the troubling questions arise: who is to say what changes, if any, the grocery industry should make? Who sets the agenda? Promoting the sale of local and organic food in grocery stores could raise prices for low-income families. is that what they want, even if, in my opinion, it is good for our collective future? Local Organic Y'All will address these questions more directly as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement. Meanwhile, check out the video below about white privilege in food system work.
How We Got Started
This project began when one Saturday we bought some petite local carrots from the farmers market and gave them to our seven year old. He ate them like candy and asked for more. So sweet. A few weeks later, unable to get to the Saturday market, we purchased California organic baby carrots from the supermarket and gave those to our son. He spit them out in disgust. "These taste terrible," he said. (We tried them and frankly they were awful tasting.) "Why can't we get those other carrots?!," he asked Which leads to the obvious question: why can't we get those other carrots -- those tasty, local, organic carrots -- at the supermarket? For that matter, why can't we get all kinds of local produce which is growing here so plentifully? (On a typical Saturday you can find almost forty different varieties of produce at a good local farmers market.) If we could find this at the grocery store, wouldn't we all eat more veggies and wouldn't our children eat healthier? Not to mention all the many other important benefits....
So, we've been digging around and traveling around. And we've learned a lot. To see what we've discovered so far and what we specifically want to see happen, check out our 2016 and 2018 reports, explore the rest of the website and stay in touch.
Fred Broadwell
Project Director
++++++++++
And check out these two excellent videos. The first is from Duke's World Food Policy Center about white privilege in food system work. The second is from Project Drawdown and argues that making change in our food system is the most crucial way to fight climate change.
Local Organic Y'All believes that supporting locally-grown organic food is key to solving our multiple crises together. Today, we face unprecedented challenges -- climate, clean water, animal welfare, racial equity and health. We see climate disasters in the news daily and know that food is a key driver. (Watch the video below, which also highlights refrigeration and food waste.). We see the devastation of CAFOs, poisoning our waterways and subjecting animals to extreme confinement. We see the disaster of COVID-19, killing our most vulnerable citizens -- including those who suffer from chronic diseases related to poor diet. And we know that race, poverty and poor health are all linked. These critical issues must be addressed in tandem, at scale and now.
Local Organic Y'All advocates at the macro scale -- with supermarkets and wholesalers who supply the vast majority of the food we eat. This project examines the largest players in the Carolina food distribution system. This includes supermarkets who sell billions of dollars worth of food each year and wholesalers who sell to our local restaurants, schools and institutions. Are the big players using best practices to support local organic foods? Can they commit resources to be part of the local food solution? What are they up to?
Bottom line, we believe that more people get access to fresh, locally-grown organic food when more supermarkets and wholesalers get on board with the food movement. And we solve these big problems when the biggest players get on board.
Until our new report is completed, check out our most recent supermarket slideshow and quick chart.
Here's our latest full supermarket report.
Our seminal 2016 report, "Many Miles To Go," is available here.
Both reports explore & rate the local friendliness of N.C. grocers.
LOYA'll and COVID-19
Due to COVID-19, Local Organic Y'All did not release a third industry report in 2020, as hoped. Retailers were too stressed and supply chains too disrupted to provide an accurate picture of the local-organic landscape. The project does have plans to resume and expand its ratings and scorecard work in in 2021 and 2022. Check back here for announcements about future work and our findings.
COVID did provide valuable lessons about our food system and we will be discussing those in future reports. Supermarkets did demonstrate that they could supply adequate food in a crisis and wholesalers were nimble as demand shifted overnight. Such professionalism and creativity now needs to be applied to the great food system challenges that lie ahead.
LOY'All and Black Lives Matter
This project believed from the start that racial equity is a key aspect of good food policy. Too often, the local and organic food movements have been led by white people with privilege and the results have been predictable. (My white male privilege is a case in point and worth noting.) Expensive farm to table restaurants and farmers markets in toney white suburbs do not further racial equity in our food system. Millions are left out of the benefits of healthy food. This is one key reason that the supermarket interests me so much -- it is where low to middle income people get their food. But quickly the troubling questions arise: who is to say what changes, if any, the grocery industry should make? Who sets the agenda? Promoting the sale of local and organic food in grocery stores could raise prices for low-income families. is that what they want, even if, in my opinion, it is good for our collective future? Local Organic Y'All will address these questions more directly as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement. Meanwhile, check out the video below about white privilege in food system work.
How We Got Started
This project began when one Saturday we bought some petite local carrots from the farmers market and gave them to our seven year old. He ate them like candy and asked for more. So sweet. A few weeks later, unable to get to the Saturday market, we purchased California organic baby carrots from the supermarket and gave those to our son. He spit them out in disgust. "These taste terrible," he said. (We tried them and frankly they were awful tasting.) "Why can't we get those other carrots?!," he asked Which leads to the obvious question: why can't we get those other carrots -- those tasty, local, organic carrots -- at the supermarket? For that matter, why can't we get all kinds of local produce which is growing here so plentifully? (On a typical Saturday you can find almost forty different varieties of produce at a good local farmers market.) If we could find this at the grocery store, wouldn't we all eat more veggies and wouldn't our children eat healthier? Not to mention all the many other important benefits....
So, we've been digging around and traveling around. And we've learned a lot. To see what we've discovered so far and what we specifically want to see happen, check out our 2016 and 2018 reports, explore the rest of the website and stay in touch.
Fred Broadwell
Project Director
++++++++++
And check out these two excellent videos. The first is from Duke's World Food Policy Center about white privilege in food system work. The second is from Project Drawdown and argues that making change in our food system is the most crucial way to fight climate change.