Around The Sound Local Food Market – “Sneak Preview”

December 16, 2008

marketshot There’s a new store opening that is part of a rapidly growing local food movement. The store is to sell fresh fruit and vegetables in season as well as poultry, eggs, beef, lamb and fish. It is located at 972 First Ave. W. in Owen Sound. The “Sneak Preview” is scheduled for Dec. 18 – 21, 2008.

Owen Sound’s first local food retail store is to open Dec. 18 for what proprietor Anne Finlay-Stewart describes as a three-day, “sneak preview” of a three-day-a-week operation selling a wide variety of locally-grown produce

It’s a sole proprietorship business because that’s the quickest way to get the business going, but Finlay-Stewart has partners who have contributed funds and store fixtures.

She has purchased a freezer and has a long and growing list of suppliers. It’s part of a rapidly growing local food movement that is growing by leaps and bounds.

There are all sorts of reasons why people are looking closer to home for food supplies. Ontario Green Party vice-president Shane Jolley, who is an Owen Sound bicycle retailer and investor in the new store, said people have become increasingly concerned about the security and health of the large international food supply systems behind major retail supply chains.

Both Jolley and Finlay-Stewart predict that local food will find its way eventually into area supermarkets. However, both say it will take the introduction of new distribution and transportation systems that have not yet formed.

“The distribution system will be reinvented,” Finlay-Stewart said. “It has to be because that’s what we need to have happen to make this work,” she said.

Finlay-Stewart also denied that her shop represents a competitive threat to the existing Owen Sound Farmers Market, which operates Saturday mornings in the city’s downtown core. It provides another outlet for growers and is a good example of how to expand home-grown businesses.

So get on over there and check it out… for all your locally grown/raised food! Come visit us for a sneak preview December 18, 19 and 20, Thursday and Friday 10 – 7 and Saturday 10 – 4. For more information visit www.aroundthesoundfood.com

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Downtown, Features, Food, Gardening, Innovation, theOwen