Back in December 2005 I had breakfast with the national leader of the then Federal Green party James Harris and local candidate Jim Johnston.   I had met Jim at one of the farm rallies held that December. I felt it quite an honor that he made arrangements for me to meet with the then federal leader James Harris.

I cannot remember whether it was James Harris or Jim Johnston who mentioned to me the 3000 km Caesar salad.  When they mentioned it to me I had no idea what they were talking about.  I was at the breakfast because I think Jim felt I could help James Harris with agricultural issues so not knowing what the salad was like was a bit of an embarrassment.

They told me that the 3000 km Caesar salad was about the distance that you needed to gather all the ingredients for a Caesar salad at that time in Canada.  What they were referring to was the large corporate food retailers buying produce in places like California while bypassing all the local options.  So that’s how they got the 3000 km Caesar salad.  Needless to say, I never thought about that before.  It was so true.

So with that as a backdrop, I was very interested to see a CBC news report about five grocery stores in southwestern Ontario who were dropping their corporate affiliation.  They have formed the independent Hometown Grocers Co-Op. Part of the impetus for forming this grocery co-op was because corporate policies forbid the franchisees from buying local.  Now these stores in Arthur, Durham, Lucknow, Palmerston and Chesley will be stocking their stores with as much locally grown products as they can.

When I heard of this report I thought it about time but I totally understand the challenges the grocery franchisees have. I have never made a secret that I have felt Canadian consumers are completely unaware of the food they eat.  My opinion has always been that Canadian consumers pay too much for food and their choices are not only limited but they are unknowingly provided with food choices from places continents away when there is no need to do that.  For instance, the previous franchisees from the Hometown Coop Stores when they were under the corporate label and forbidden from buying local because their corporate parent insisted on them buying meat from federally inspected meat plants such as Maple Leaf, Cargill and Tyson.  These are corporate giants whose total fixation is price, price and price again.

Now these stores of the Hometown Co-op will be stocked with local produce, provincially inspected from no more than 60 km away.  It reminded me of a story a local farmer told me about his fresh garlic he’d grown on a Chatham-Kent farm.  He told me he had taken some of the local produce to the big corporate Chatham Kent grocery store where he told the manager about his good quality.  The manager turned to him and said look over there that’s what I call good quality.  The local farmer looked over there and saw boxes of Chinese garlic stacked one upon each other.  That is how crazy our food-retailing world is.

Some of you might be asking why it is this way?  For instance why would that manager of that corporate retail food store here in Chatham Kent be so against the local produce?  The reason is Canadian consumers demand cheap food and when the truth is told 99% of them will trade local quality over price any day.  Canadian food corporate retailers know that and it is the chief reason why so much food is sourced thousands of kilometers away.

I am very aware of this and I try to make my food choices accordingly.  For instance I try to buy meat locally from members of the Ontario Independent Meat Processors, an independent group that represents Ontario’s meat and poultry processors, retailers and wholesalers.  At least that way I know it’s not coming from 1,000,000 miles away from some corporate nether land.

I learned a long time ago that the world doesn’t necessarily see things the same way as I do.  So I don’t expect Canadian consumer food purchasing criteria to change overnight.  However it would be nice if we started asking questions at our grocery store about where the food came from.  For instance it is not uncommon in Chatham Kent to walk into a grocery store and the first thing you see is US produce that can be grown in Ontario but it is being advertised from the United States like it was some type of premium product.  In Ontario farm country farmers call that shameless gall. However in the corporate retail food boardrooms it’s not even thought of.

There’s a lot more to this story.  As many of you know I could go on and on.  However, maybe lightning has struck just a little bit in our collective consumer minds because of something like the Hometown Grocers Co-op.  Simply put, maybe James Harris and Jim Johnstown were right about the 3000 km Caesar salad.  It’s preposterous!   Changing that paradigm needs to come.