Promoting Local Foods in Corvallis

1. Promoting Local Foods in Corvallis Alex Humphrey Charlie Nairn Michael Sheng

2. Goal • To encourage the consumption of local foods in Corvallis.

3. Why Shop Local? • It is environmentally friendly. • It keeps tax dollars in our community. • It creates culture. • It creates jobs. • It makes Corvallis unique.

4. The Benefits of Local Food • It’s fresh. • Many smaller local farms operate more sustainably than large farms. • It encourages variety in our diet. • It is usually more nutritious due to reduced amounts of transport and storage.

5. 1st Semester Accomplishments • Surveyed students to determine what percentage shop local already and why those who don’t don’t. • Created a brochure on the benefits of local food. • Created a presentation on the benefits of local food. • Contacted and joined the Food Action Team

6. Survey Questions • How often do you shop at locally owned food markets (eg;. the Food Coop, Farmer’s market etc.)? • All the time – This is where I buy my food • Once or twice a week • Once or twice a month • Once or twice a year • I never shop at any of these places • What factors influence you to shop at Winco Foods, Safeway, Fred Meyer, or any other of these large chain stores over local food markets? • Because I believe the prices for produce are cheaper • Because it is closer to where I live • Other reason • Never really thought about it • If you believed that locally produced foods were more nutritious and better for the environment would that influence your choice of where to shop? • Yes • No

7. Survey Results • Only 8.7% of people said they regularly shopped at local food sources. 24.4% said that they shop at local food stores once or twice a week, 25.9% said once or twice a month, 22% said once or twice a year, and 19% said never • 29.6% said that cost was the main reason they didn’t shop local. 46% said that shopping local was inconvenient. 15% said that they never thought about the issue. • 57.8% of people said that knowing that local food is more nutritious and better for the environment is not enough to make them shop local.

8. The Challenges of Buying Local • Buying local is sometimes inconvenient as there are often fewer places to go. • Buying local is more difficult as many stores won’t have everything you need. • One other major obstacle is cost. But buying local food can be affordable.

9. Inconvenience • Local food is not as readily available as we would like. • Part of the work of the Food Action Team has been to increase access to local food in restaurants. • Eventually the Food Action Team hopes to have local food labeled and sold in chain stores.

10. How to Buy Local on a Budget • Step 1: Buy in Season • The more easily something is grown in your area, the less distance it has to travel, and the cheaper it will be to buy local. • Buying in-season ensures not only that you will get the cheapest fresh produce year-round, but also that you will have variety in your diet.

11. How to Buy Local on a Budget • Step 2: Expand Your Palate • Often you won’t find the foods you are used to eating in-season. You can continue to buy locally and cheaply by purchasing those foods that are in season. • Try new things, it will let you eat locally, add variety to your diet and expand your palate.

12. How to Buy Local on a Budget • Step 3: Buy Lower on the Food Chain • All energy on earth originally comes from one source, the sun. It requires a lot more of the sun’s energy to produce a given number of calories of steak than it does to produce a given number of calories of grain because that cow has to be raised and fed. • By eating lower on the food chain you getting your energy in a more efficient way.

13. How to Buy Local on a Budget • Step 4: Buy Whole Foods • This is an extension of the previous point. Processed food wastes energy in the same way. All the energy put into the foods to process them adds to their price. • Step 5: Buy in Bulk • Step 6: Buy on Sale

14. How to Buy Local on a Budget • Step 7: Take it One Step at a Time • This isn’t an all or nothing thing. You don’t have to buy all your food locally to make a difference. Do what you can, and as you learn to follow these steps, you will be able to do more.

15. How we are Promoting Local Food • We are members of the Food Action Team, a subgroup of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition. • The Team is working on the Sustainability Coalition’s goal to have a significant percentage of food consumed in Corvallis grown locally.

16. How we are Promoting Local Food • The Food Action Team is using the local six logo, which you may have seen at the coop, to label foods on restaurant menus. • We are currently in the process of contacting restaurants to ask them to take part in this program.

17. The Corvallis Local Six Connection

18. 2nd Semester Work • Worked with the Food Action Team towards the launch of the Corvallis Local Six Connection. • Created a guide to buying local on a budget. • Presented a poster in earth fair. • Distributed our brochure at the earth fair and the library in order to raise awareness.

19. What Next… • You will be seeing these logos in many Corvallis restaurants in the near future. • We hope that you will choose to support those restaurants, and their decision to choose local food.

20. Next Year • Hopefully students will continue to work with the Food Action Team. • Working alongside the Food Action Team, next years students could focus on farm-to-restaurant connections, and labeling local food in stores. • We also need to continue to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of local foods. • We created a powerpoint presentation that we never got to present in schools due to time constraints and scheduling conflicts. Hopefully, those continuing this project will give presentations to help raise awareness.