Eating local: Sudbury food co-op poised for expansion.

• Author: Lindsay, Kelly
• Position: NEWS

Amongst the crisp veggies, homemade sauces and fresh-cut meat, there's another commodity doing brisk trade at Eat Local Sudbury: pride in, and demand for, locally produced food.

Since its inception in 2004, from its retail outlet in downtown Sudbury, Eat Local has sold locally grown produce. meats and value-added goods from farmers and producers operating within a 150-mile radius of the city. Eat Local deals with more than 100 vendors, 90 of whom are primary producers.

Recent funding from FedNor, the Greenbelt Fund, and the Local Food Fund will now allow it to expand its operations, something Eat Local's managing director, Peggy Bailie, said is needed to meet demand for local food across the northeast region.

"We've been scaling up our operations here, but knowing that in order to really fulfill the needs of both the producers and the people who are interested in purchasing local food, there's a big next leap that needs to be taken," she said.

The goal is to make Eat Local Sudbury a regional hub for local food distribution with the added offshoots of increasing awareness of local food production, supporting local farmers, and boosting the economy. The funding will be used to develop a three-part business plan to expand both its retail facilities and its programming to accommodate a much larger volume of food.

Part one of the plan will focus on streamlining the food aggregation and distribution process, Currently. Eat Local travels to producers and farmers to pick up food and bring it back to Sudbury to distribute the food to consumers.

"This is a really important service because farmers, they just don't have time to be able to leave the farm to do distribution, and it's not cost-effective either," Bailie said. "So. as a co-op. we're able to offer that service where we collectively aggregate the food, which is a much-reduced cost to the producer and enables them to access markets that they otherwise wouldn't be able to access."

The second part of the plan calls for expanded retail space, along with an expanded offering of products. Options for a new physical space will be considered upon completion of the business plan. Bailie said.

The third part of the plan involves education and food literacy: for consumers, so they know how to process and cook food, as well as institutions to learn how to process large volumes of food while controlling costs. There is also a business education component to train farms and food-related businesses for...