‘Buy Local Week’ starts today
Posted December 1, 2014 10:12 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Today is not only the start of a new month but also the beginning of “Buy Local Week,” which encourages you to think about where your food comes from.
One such business is Vancouver’s Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery or SPUD for short. CEO Peter Vanstolk says this week is important simply because food is a key part of our economy.
“It’s one of the largest things that we have a choice over every day. Where that food comes from impacts so many people within our communities. So Buy Local Week really focuses our attention on sourcing, acquiring and looking for local products. It’s amazing what that can do to our economy.”
“As an online grocer who focuses on local items, we just wanted to bring the attention to local products through the Internet on Cyber Monday,” he adds.
Vanstolk says to realize the economic benefit, you simply need to look at where the money that you’re giving goes. “Is it going back into the community or is it going somewhere else? When you buy local… about 2.6 times of the money goes back into the [local] economy.”
“It just makes perfect sense. It really does. If you think about it, McDonald’s is owned by a US corporation. So, when you buys a McDonald’s hamburger, those proceeds are going back to the States. That’s a reality; that’s just part of the game. That’s the same with a lot of these things. But when you buy local, you’re buying a product from someone you know or a local farm, you know that dollar is being recirculated into the community.
He adds SPUD lets you filter your choices to only see local items.
“These are choices we can make. It’s really not that challenging; it’s not more expensive. It’s just a conscious choice that we can make that on this Monday for this week, we can make choices that will benefit our community and better ourselves in the long run.”
