The Locavore Movement

What is a "Locavore"?

• A "Locavore" is simply someone who seeks out locally produced foods as opposed to mass produced grocery store goods

Eating Local - Proven Benefits

• Keeps money in local economy
• Quality produce

The Goal

• Determine the environmental impact from transportation of produce to local markets and grocery chains

Hypothesis

• Local eating will prove to be substantially less harmful to the environment in its transportation than produce transported to a grocery chain

Methods

• Interview local farmers from L&G Farms and Penny's Produce and Food Lion produce managers

The Math

• # miles traveled/mpg = gallons used
• quantity/gallons =
• TOTAL LBS YIELDED PER GALLON USED
• The higher the total yield/gal, the better the environmental impact

Meet the Farmers

• L&G Farms - Meadow NC
• Penny's Produce - Willow Springs NC
• Both family operations run locally. They travel out to the NC State Farmers Market on a regular basis

Local Produce

Meet Food Lion

• Produce comes in from as close as Faison NC and as far as California
• About as local as Kudzu

Not So Local Produce

Transportation - L&G and Penny's

• L&G travels about 40 miles to get to the State Farmers Market with a van getting 20 mpg. The van holds 1750 lbs worth of produce in one trip.
• Penny's travels 22 with a truck clocking in at 13 mpg holding 750 lbs of produce.

Transportation - Food Lion

• Eighteen wheelers (7mpg) travel as far as 2696 miles to deliver produce to the Food Lion Distribution Center in Dunn. The trip from Dunn to Garner's Food Lion is another 28 miles. They carry 5000 lbs of produce.

Shared Products

• I picked 4 products shared by both farmers and FL - Red Potatoes, Yellow Squash, Broccoli (L&G) and Strawberries (P'sP)
• Through interviewing the farmers and produce manager, I gained the information necessary to input into the equations outlined in the previous slide
• Here are the results...

Yellow Squash - L&G VS FL (pounds yielded per gallon used)

Red Potatoes - L&G VS FL (pounds yielded per gallon used)

Broccoli - L&G VS FL (pounds yielded per gallon used)

Strawberries - Penny's VS FL (pounds yielded per gallon used)

Discussion

• Based on the data presented, it is easy to see that local foods are substantially more environmentally friendly in their transportation, producing a higher yield per gallon used as opposed to the grocery store competition, thus proving my hypothesis correct.

Areas of Further Study

• There are a lot more aspects of the Locavore movement that could be studied. Particularly, I'd like to see how the Locavore movement stimulates the local economy.

Potential Error

• There was some estimating in order to get average mpgs and distances from places like Maine but the minor discrepancies of estimating are not enough to affect the overall calculations.
• If Food Lion had been able to give me more specific information, I am sure this could have been avoided.

Overall

• Hopefully this study can prove to local consumers that eating local can attribute to a nice and green footprint while encouraging trips to purchase from the State Farmers Market

Works Cited

• Boehrer, Katherine. "Locally Grown Food Businesses Thrive, Expand From Farmers Markets." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 July 2014. Web. 31 May 2015.
• Rushing, James. "Buying into the Local Food Movement." Buying into the Local Food Movement. ATKearney, Jan. 2013. Web. 31 May 2015.

Special Thanks To

• The Farmers of L&G Farms, Penny's Produce, Gary, Alexis and Alisha from Food Lion and Betty Harris