Sustainable and Local

I just love food.  I love restaurants.  I love places where food can be purchased.  I never really applied my business values to food, well, just because.  But recently I've been reading about sustainability, local food, and "slow food."  While I agree with many of the basic principles, there is so much, well I don't know, - Off-The-Deep-End-ness. 

The whole Save The World Thing goes right over my head.  Responsibility for my actions, I get.  I'm just that kind of gal.  But can I Save The World by re-using my bath towel the second night I stay in a motel?  No, my dears, this is called Marketing.  It saves the motel money, which isn't a bad thing.  The environmental impact must be just minute.

No, I'm not into Saving The Planet.  I'm into saving my own little piece of it, my business, my household, my small community, my fellow small business owners, my family and friends.  And yet, the ideas of sustainable, local and real food, which sounds so fresh and pithy, so new and cool, so hip and trendy, would make perfect sense to my old Grandpa, the farmer who could barely read the paper and lived through the Depression (the one in the 1930s). 

Buying locally, keeps your hard earned dollar in your community.  It allows local business people who risk everything to be in business, who hire employees, who buy products, to stay in business.  It is these folks I want to support, because I want my business supported.  It is the web of life.  The people I employee have wives and children.  They keep households, make mortgage payments, and yes buy food.  If I can not keep them working and can not make my payroll, they can't keep doing these things.  The providers of food and other necessities see less revenue.  Sound like anything you've seen recently?

So I've determined to find local food products to buy.  I want best quality and modest prices.  We can do this.  And you know what I found?  My area of Northern Oregon/SW Washington produces a lot of food.  Yes, I already knew that.  I grew up in a farming family.

But really.  Did you know there is a family owned business called Don Pancho, out of Salem, OR which produces tortillas and chips and the like?  And I can buy them at my local grocery store?  I'm finding local sources for so many things.  More about this later.