Through the Eat Local WNY initiative, University at Buffalo researchers aim to foster community investment in local food, businesses and people by encouraging residents to pledge to purchase at least 10% of their food from local producers.
Western New Yorkers pride themselves on their loyalty to local businesses. This pride is prominently displayed in a national real estate company’s report that ranked Buffalo as the second-best pizza city in the United States, boasting 17.8 locally-owned pizzerias per 100,000 residents. Yet, this fervent support hasn’t fully translated to purchasing food from local farmers — a gap that the University at Buffalo (UB) researchers intend to bridge with the Eat Local WNY initiative.
With funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Eat Local WNY initiative, in collaboration with FreshFix, the Massachusetts Avenue Project and UB, aims to create a thriving local food ecosystem. The project received over $700,000 in federal funding, announced by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer last year, which supports the FreshFix Food Hub among other initiatives.
The FreshFix Food Hub, based in the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal, links small farmers with local food businesses and nonprofits, offering wholesale food at reduced prices and boosting farmers’ wholesale capacities.
Principal investigator Lucia Leone, an associate professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior in UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions, emphasizes the power of consumer choice in shaping the local food system.
“As consumers, every time you purchase food, you are voting with your wallet as to what type of food system you want to see,” said Leone in a news release. “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.”
Leone and her husband, Joshua Bowen, co-founded FreshFix, a Buffalo-based service delivering locally grown produce to customers’ homes. Despite Buffalo’s preference for local food chains over national ones, this allegiance hasn’t extended to grocery shopping.
“We prefer our local places over the national ones. For example, Anderson’s over Arby’s and Mighty Taco over Taco Bell,” Leone added. “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.”
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of local producers, but post-pandemic inflation has shifted consumers’ focus away from local options, explained Kristie Chamberlain, FreshFix’s business development partner.
Changing the perception that farmers’ markets are only for higher-income shoppers is another challenge this initiative aims to address.
The initiative’s cornerstone is the food pledge, encouraging shoppers to buy at least 10% of their food from local producers.
The Eat Local WNY website provides extensive resources, including farmers market locations and farm-to-table restaurants, to help consumers make informed choices.
Additionally, participants will fill out surveys and track purchases to help researchers compile comprehensive local food purchasing data.