Observations on Shopping and Eating Local

I’ve been buying fruits and vegetables at our local farmers’ market for awhile now, and enjoy the experience. It’s great getting out early, chatting with the sellers (who more likely than not, are the owners of the family operations), running into friends, and having a breakfast pastry and tasting lots of vendor samples while strolling around. I really love the heirloom tomatoes, especially sliced up with some burrata, basil and olive oil. They’re much better than any I could grow, though my farming skills are pretty dicey, so the cards aren’t exactly stacked in my favor.

My wife Jan loves farmers’ markets more than I do, and she really goes out of her way to buy local products–she’s really “loco for local”. Last night she happily reminded me that the tuna in the Salad Nicoise was bought from a fisherman in Eugene, from one of our trips visiting our son at college. And the olive oil is from Corning, a stop on the way back from Eugene. Local in a roundabout sort-of-way.

Of course, not everything can be local. A lot of my shoes and clothes are made in Italy, though I know there are a lot of local clothes designers in the Bay Area–at least for women. My favorite sport is baseball, and Rawlings MLB baseballs are made in Costa Rica. (Interesting aside–a typical Major League game uses about 100 baseballs). And I‘m not a nutcase about local–it’s just interesting to know where the things you use and eat come from.

Speaking of good food, I recently noticed a burst on the front of my Lay’s Potato Chip bag (their regular potato chips rank as one of the world’s great snacks) and realized that even Frito-Lay, the world's biggest snack-food maker, is getting into the locally-made act. “Discover where your Lay’s chips are made” it proclaimed. (Don’t you just love to see bursts get noticed?).

They are focusing on 80 “local” farmers from 27 states who grow the potatoes used to make its chips. Want to know where your chips come from? Grab your bag and go to

http://www.fritolay.com/lays/chip-tracker.html

and then enter your ZIP code and the first three digits of the product code from the bag and up comes the location of the plant from where they were made. Intrigued, I checked my potato chip bag and found out they were made in Modesto. The site goes on to say that Lay’s bought 283 million pounds of potatoes from California farmers last year. Which I’m sure helped out the local economy in the Central Valley tremendously.

"Knowing where food is made and grown is important to consumers," says Dave Skena, vice president of potato chip marketing at Frito-Lay. "Sharing with consumers how regional we are is relevant and compelling."

OK, Dave, calm down. It’s not that compelling. But it is interesting to see how very big companies can take a trend and run with it. And sometimes with weird twists–I’ve read of spas advertising “farm-to-spa” by integrating locally grown fruits and herbs into skin treatments and massage therapies. At least Lay’s is still taking the potatoes and frying chips. And though rabid locavores would probably insist on frying their own chips (I’ve done that–they’re tasty but pretty time consuming), the Lay’s ingredients are very straightforward: “Potatoes, Sunflower Oil, Salt."

My business partner, Francine Pinoni, is from Michigan. One of the Lay’s TV spots features Michigan farmer Brian Walther, who appears with his brother, Gary, in a spot that aired in that state and tells viewers: "Next time you grab a bag of Lay's in Michigan, think of us." Considering how many people Francine knows in Michigan, she may even know these guys.

"Lay's Local" was the brand's biggest 2009 campaign, and it seems to still be going strong. It doesn’t claim that its products are locally grown, but, rather, it’s “celebrating the contributions people and communities across the country have made to the Lay's brand."

And to their credit, the campaign reminds us that Frito-Lay is an American brand that supports American farmers in tough times. Just like I do, when I pick up my heirloom tomatoes each Sunday at the farmers’ market.

Bon Appétit!

Jim Walcott-Ayers
Partner