Fellow Growers,
I think that Steve's conclusion about the gullibility of consumers is a
little misdirected. I have found that what consumers (people) really value
and desire in America is personal relationships. Certification may well
serve and be necessary for the 900 mile local model as well as the box
stores but I believe that it has been born out of the realization of these
retailers that they must somehow compete with the consumer desire to have a
personal relationship with a person that they trust. I view the situation
as being similar to having a physician. One generally chooses a personal
physician not based on the fact that they have a PhD from a prestigious
university and scored well on their finals, but rather on the recommendation
and endorsements from others who have established trusting personal
relationships with that physician. Defining consumer trust may be mostly
subjective, but it is very real. To a retailer, it manifests the bottom
line. I feel much more confident building our retail farm business on our
ability to create, build, and maintain personal relationships with the
consumers that we serve (and we do this successfully with 10 of thousands of
customers) as opposed to trusting our future business growth to a
bureaucratic regulatory certification program. Indeed, as growers we must
always endeavor to do our job correctly in order to produce safe and
nutritious food, but it is the personal relationship that people really want
and desire. And it is this reality, I believe, that will solidify and grow
the retail farm market consumer spending share that is being aggressively
sought after by the box stores and supermarkets.
Kurt W. Alstede
General Manager
Alstede Farms, LLC
P. O. Box 278
Chester, New Jersey 07930
United States of America
Tel. 908-879-7189
-Original Message-
From: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Steve Demuth
Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 2:34 PM
To: Apple-Crop
Subject: RE: Apple-Crop: Time article
People often do trust things they are familiar with. Unfortunately,
they do this without much analysis of whether this is wise. That
people trust locally grown and marketed produce says nothing
whatsoever about the nutritional, economic or ecological bona fides
of such product. That can only be done by well enforced
certification programs. And that, whatever the faults of organic
certification (and there are certainly many), is the real benefit of
the organic label.
So, while I am a great proponent for consuming locally grown produce,
I think that Kurt's endorsement below points out mostly the
gullibility of consumers, not anything virtuous about local
production. Even the petroleum miles benefit claimed in the Time
piece is not necessarily as obvious as it seems. If one hauls
30,000lbs of apples cross country (say, 3,000 miles) in a
semi-trailer, that can easily burn 600 gallons of fuel. But, suppose
2000 consumers drive out to their local U-pick an average distance of
10 miles round trip to get an average of 15 lbs of apples
each. That's thte same 30,000lbs of product. Want to bet which uses
more petroleum? In fact, the consumers would have to average 33+
miles/gallon to beat the truckload - highly unlikely with today's
cars. And if the local producer is delivering to local markets,
rather than running a U-pick? The economics probably favor the local
produce in this case, assuming an efficient and truly local route,
but the margin will whither rapidly if they are delivering partial
loads with 200+ mile round trips.
And, as for the certainty a consumer may feel that a local grower
from whom they buy personally will be attentive to safe use of
pesticides and sound land use - a clean farm storefront, firm
handshake and welcome smile no more assure this than good manners
make used car salesmen honest. Most local growers do pay attention
to these things, of course, but then so do most organic growers
(particularly as they need to worry about inspections to assure that
they do). Again, the advantage to the consumer of the local grower
is more about perception than reality.
My favorite analogy in this department is airplane travel. I don't
really care whether I know personally the mechanic who services the
next AirBus or Boeing that I get on. I do care that there are
certification programs for the mechanic, the airframe, the pilot, and
basically everything else to do with my flight. So too with
food. Again, organic has gone directions that I sincerely disagree
with, but I think the notion of certification is at it's core, a lot
more valuable to society than a farmer you know and trust.
At 08:42 AM 3/11/2007, you wrote:
Hello Jon,
You are right on as was the Time Article. In the final analysis, people
trust the face and the person that they can see and touch...their local
farmer. We have seen this to be the case in all of our direct marketing
and
have
