The wife and I have been proponents of buying local since we were in high school, but in 2009 we re-committed to supporting local businesses as a way to make our dollars work harder for Indiana in a recession. Our first priority is moving as much of our grocery budget as possible from regional supermarkets and giant food conglomerates to local retailers and regional producers. Buying local food hits a “values trifecta” for us; keep dollars local, reduce our carbon footprint, and eat damn good grub.

We have been shopping together for a couple of years and we are on auto-pilot in any Kroger or Marsh, walking zombie-like through the aisles to the stuff we know and like. We weren’t sure what options we had to replace items on our regular shopping list so our first stop was Goose the Market. After explaining our plan, co-owner Mollie Eley took time to help us find replacements for our usual groceries, going as far as to slice samples of meats for us to try. We picked up lunch meats, dairy, eggs, bread, and ice cream, most of it locally raised and/or processed. The bill was significantly more than we would have spent on a comparable amount of groceries at a supermarket, but our experience with Gooses’ sandwiches led us to believe that smaller portions of whole, local foods are more satisfying (physically and emotionally) than a heaping Midwestern helping of mass produced and processed meats and veggies.

Our next stop was Edibles, the small grocer around the corner from our crib in Irvington. We picked up a few more things, made mental notes about the products available, and checked out. We picked up a few staple items at Kroger later and ended up spending about as much as we would in an average week but only coming home with 60% of the groceries. But we also came home with a lot less packaging to throw away/recycle and the hope that our food dollars will support living wages for food producers and retailers.

Do you eat local? If not, what are the “barriers to entry?”