Sequim Locally Grown Mercantile

SLG Update and interesting Commentary

Please find attached an updated product listing for your convenience in ordering thru Tuesday at 8PM. New listings include fresh Christmas wreaths and red delicious apples.

New products can also be added before Tuesday, so check back with us.
Local up! Sid

ps: Check out the following commentary! They are reflecting our efforts here.

Subject: CoordinatorHUB Local Food Grows in Central Texas
Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 8:58 PM

Author, Affiliation, Date:
Marcus L. Gitterle, Webmaster, 11/26/2008
It is with guilty pleasure that I write this blog entry, to update readers on our progress toward food relocalization. The Bountiful Sprout, our member-owned food buying association dedicated to ensuring a robust, diverse, organic, local, food and household goods economy in the Hill Country of Central Texas (near Austin), experienced a huge milestone recently, as we “went live” with our web-based store. Today marked our third “delivery day,” the day when members pick up their basket of local organic produce, dry goods, herbal products, locally made liquid and bar soaps, artisanal breads and other locally prepared food items.

The board of our food buying community began working toward the goal of creating a simple “food co-op” over a year ago, but I am thankful that they set their sights on a loftier goal early this spring; namely, to create a food buying community that didn’t simply provide an outlet for a national natural foods distributor, such as United Co-Op. Instead, they took the high road and built something new from the ground up around the premise that re-localization of our food and empowerment of farmers was vastly more important to our long-term well-being and community resilience.

What they created is beyond amazing in my opinion, and with each order cycle I marvel at what they have done. In one organization they have embodied the virtues of enhancing farmer and producer revenue, connecting producers directly to consumers (no middle-man needed to transport, warehouse or markup our food), taking much of the financial and marketing risk out of new farming enterprises (farmers startup knowing exactly how many families they will be selling to, much like a CSA), they made it easy for families to order just what they need, on a week-to-week basis (no wasted baskets of food, as with a CSA, when members go on vacation or just don’t need anything) and finally, and not least, they created a web-store that makes ordering easier than Amazon 1-click. Wow.

I get a food buzz just browsing the store. And while we don’t have a huge number of offerings yet, they are local, and they are growing weekly. Our sister food buying communities (ones who use the same, open source software: see http://www.oklahomafood.coop for details) in Oklahoma and Nebraska, have well over 1000 items available for sale during each weekly order cycle. Already, I hear there are lots of folks in the area thinking about “becoming producers.” How cool is that? Elsewhere in the country, people are pondering what they might do if they get a pink slip; well, we have a great answer for anyone looking to reinvent themselves or go for a “next career” here in Wimberley.

I encourage anyone interested in creating their own, local food project to read more about The Bountiful Sprout’s progress here: http://www.greenguru.org. And, if you are interested in becoming a member of our food buying community, please have a look around our website: http://www.bountifulsprout.com — and I hope to see you on delivery day!Marcus L. Gitterle, M.D.

It shouldn’t take an ER doctor to see that our food system is in critical condition….