Research-backed initiative aims to encourage shoppers to buy more food from local farmers and food producers

University at Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Western New Yorkers are known for being fiercely loyal to local. Take, for instance, the fact that a national real estate company earlier this year reported that Buffalo was the second-best pizza city in the U.S., with 17.8 pizza restaurants — most of them locally-owned, independent stores — per 100,000 residents, more than any other city.

While Buffalonians may prefer their mom-and-pop pizza purveyors and local food chains, the same loyalty isn’t quite there when it comes to purchasing food from local farmers.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, University at Buffalo researchers hope to change that through the Eat Local WNY initiative. The project aims to create a thriving community through investment in local food, local businesses and local people.

The grant to the Eat Local WNY campaign was awarded to FreshFix in partnership with the Massachusetts Avenue Project and UB. The funding also supports the FreshFix Food Hub initiative. These projects received more than $700,000 in federal funding, announced late last year by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer.

Located in the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal, the FreshFix Food Hub serves as a connector between small farmers and small food businesses and nonprofits that can purchase wholesale local food at reduced prices, while helping small farmers increase their capacity for selling wholesale.

‘Voting with your wallet’

A core part of Eat Local WNY is a food pledge that encourages shoppers to start by purchasing at least 10% of their food from local producers. The Eat Local WNY website provides resources on where to find farmers markets, farm-to-table restaurants, farms that offer community supported agriculture (CSAs) and agrotourism, and what produce is currently in season. It also features vignettes with area farmers and consumers sharing why supporting local matters.

“As consumers, every time you purchase food, you are voting with your wallet as to what type of food system you want to see. Purchasing from local farmers and producers and the businesses that support them is a vote for fair wages for farmers, better stewardship of our farmlands, less impact on the environment, and of course fresher, more delicious food,” says Lucia Leone, PhD, the principal investigator on the UB subcontract and an associate professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior in UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions.

Leone co-founded FreshFix, a Buffalo-based company that provides locally grown produce through a weekly subscription service in which boxes of fresh produce are delivered to customers’ homes, with her husband, Joshua Bowen.

Leone points to the pizza ranking as an example of the disconnect over local food purchasing. “We prefer our local places over the national ones. For example, Anderson’s over Arby’s and Mighty Taco over Taco Bell,” she says. “There’s a lot of local pride here and yet, that connection isn’t as strong in terms of where we are buying our groceries.”

That connection was stronger during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people began to see just how vital local producers were as supply chain issues strained the availability of some goods and services, says Kristie Chamberlain, business development partner with FreshFix. Then, post-pandemic inflation hit, and many shoppers became more price conscious and their focus shifted away from eating local.

Another challenge is erasing the perception that only higher income people shop at farmers markets.

“We want to change that perception by helping people see the connection with our area farmers,” Chamberlain says.

Leone adds that buying food that’s grown or produced here doesn’t just taste better. “From a financial perspective, it’s keeping those dollars in the region, with local farmers and restaurants, rather than sending them to big agri-food businesses in California,” she says. “There are also so many great programs, like Double-Up Food Bucks, that help subsidize the cost of eating local for lower-income consumers.”

In addition to keeping money here, the benefits of eating local include knowing what is — and, just as important — what is not in your food, and eliminating long-distance shipping and packaging needs.

Plus, nothing beats taking a bite out of a peach plucked at the end of July, or a strawberry picked in June. “The quality of the food, when it’s fresh, is much better,” says Gayle Thorpe of Thorpe’s Organic Family Farm in East Aurora.

Food pledge has 10% goal

The food pledge seeks to encourage shoppers to purchase at least 10% — or higher if they’re already achieving that — of the food they buy from local farmers and producers. After signing up, participants will receive a short survey about what they typically buy, and from where. Then, each week for three months, participants will track their food purchases, providing researchers with data that will be compiled into a report on how much food is purchased locally.

Pledge participants will receive weekly text reminders to buy local, and will receive a regular email containing resources to help them find where to buy foods that are grown, harvested or produced in the region.

“Being a local food producer is an honor,” says Emily Savage, of Savage Wheat Project and Savage Wheat Bakery in Holland, New York. “It sounds obvious, but when you’re feeding your community, your community grows strong. Savage Wheat wouldn’t be able to exist without other local farms.”