On Monday afternoon, since I had the day off work, I headed over to Blue Goose Produce in Loomis, CA. My reason for doing this was not to get fresh, locally grown produce as you may expect from a store with such a name, but rather to pick up some of their grass-fed beef. While there, I had the opportunity to pick up some pork from another local producer – Coffee Pot Ranch. I had the good fortune to run into Bob from Coffee Pot selling his wares at the Foothills Farmers Market yesterday afternoon. I asked him if it was a regular occurrence and he confirmed that it was. Pickings were a little slim due to the late hour, but I did score some pork fajita meat for a nice price. There was a little over a pound in the package and about half of it became my breakfast this morning.

This particular farmers market is held in the same parking lot as Whole Foods, who have started to promote a new supposedly healthy eating initiative. Unfortunately, it’s the same old low-fat nonsense that has made Americans fatter and sicker over the last 20 years. This is a shame, because Whole Foods is one of the few places I can find grass-fed beef and other high quality meats. In fact, it’s where I got the bacon I ate for breakfast with the pork. Hopefully their new found enthusiasm for the way of eating they’re promoting doesn’t stop them stocking the good quality meats they carry. If they do, Bob and I will get much better acquainted, which is probably a good thing.

I read an article a while back about how major corporations are trying to get in on the recent “buy local” trend. Even though these corporations may have stores in your area, shopping at them is not shopping locally, unless of course you happen to live near their corporate headquarters. Shopping at one of these stores instead of online does indeed mean that your tax dollars stay locally, but it also means that the profit goes elsewhere. Shopping at locally owned companies means that the profits also stay in the area.

Take, for example, retail grocery. I split my time, for the moment, between Fresno, in California’s Central Valley and Roseville, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. I will be moving to Roseville full time shortly, but that is another story. In these areas, the major players in the grocery arena are Safeway (Roseville)/Vons (Fresno), Save Mart (Both), Raley’s/Bel Air (Roseville). There are other stores, such as Whole Foods, Nugget Markets and Trader Joe’s, but I would class those in a separate category. The big box stores, Target and Walmart are also making their way into the grocery market.

If we examine, for a moment, where these companies are headquartered, we can see where the profits are going. From a Roseville perspective, the most local company is Raley’s/Bel Air (they also operate Nob Hill Markets in the San Francisco Bay Area), which is based in West Sacramento. Next to that would be Save Mart, based in Modesto, but with a major distibution point in Roseville, and Safeway, based in Pleasanton. From a Fresno perspective, the winner is SaveMart, with Vons, owned by Safeway, coming in second. With all of these stores, the profits stay in Northern California. Contrast this to the big box stores, headquartered in Minnesota and Arkansas.

Once we start talking about speciality stores, it gets a little more complicated because of local purchasing. For Roseville, going by my earlier position, Nugget wins, being based in Woodland, Trader Joe’s comes in second, being based in Southern California, followed by Whole Foods in Texas. As far as locally sourced products, Whole Foods seems to come off a little better than the others. Nugget Markets don’t have a presence in Fresno, but the other two do. Of course, none of these stores are quite as good as shopping at local farm stands or farmers’ markets. This is something I have been trying to do more of recently and will likely feature more heavily in the future.