Local Food Club and the New Sobeys Dartmouth

Have you been participating in Local Food Club?

Now in its second year, the Local Food Club encourages Nova Scotians to attempt to eat 50% local in the month of September. It’s run by Farmers’ Markets of Nova Scotia, and was designed to get more people thinking about local food while shopping for their weekly groceries. You can learn more about it here.

We get a lot of our local produce from the market, and our other household and grocery items from the store, but more and more I’ve been noticing how many of my favourite local products and local seasonal produce has been popping up at Sobeys.

So when Sobeys invited us to shop on them at the grand re-opening of their Panavista store in Dartmouth, I was excited to see how much of my Local Food Club purchases I could find there. It didn’t take long to check items off my list. This is what greeted me:

Sobeys Dartmouth

In fact, almost the whole front of the store was filled with local produce – apples, pears, carrots, herbs, root veggies, and more, all bearing big Atlantic Produced signs to make it easy to spot.

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I also saw these signs scattered around the store:

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The new store layout is different from my home location – the dark wood shelves and carefully arranged produce made everything look extra delicious. Just look at this pepper display!

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Pure Infused Maple Syrup was being sampled at the front of the store. If you haven’t tried this NS made maple syrup, seek some out. I love local maple syrup for cooking and coffee, and Pure Infused makes their syrup in a range of flavours like Chipotle & Lemongrass and Vanilla, Cinnamon & Star Anise. I could eat the Lavender & Chai by the spoonful, but apparently it’s also great on ice cream, in smoothies, coffee, and drizzled on salad. I’ve also seen a ton of blogs using it in fun desserts and preserves.

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Speaking of desserts…

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The new store seems to have put a big focus on prepared foods, sautéing, slicing, and cooking as you wait.

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We’re in the final week of Local Food Club. Our menu has consisted of mostly Mexican-inspired dishes, perfect for all the fresh local corn, tomatoes and peppers available now. We’re also trying our hand at preserving this year – peaches, salsa, and eggplant.

Last year at this time we were eating 50% local on just $4/day and, while having no imposed budget this September has made it easier, we’ve found that lessons learned from last year combined with what feels like easier access to local food at farmers’ markets and at Sobeys has meant that we aren’t spending much more this September.

This year, as with last year, it’s been interesting to hear the varied reactions to attempting to eat more local, and what assets or challenges might stand in the way. I’ve seen those who are eating 90% local, while others still have extremely limited access to local food based on their location in the province, and for whom 50% is a tough, or sometimes impossible request.

Are you participating in Local Food Club? Do you think that 50% Local is easy or difficult in September? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Tweet me @GillianWesleyNS.

We have received consideration from Sobeys’ media partners in exchange for this content. Sobeys has not reviewed these claims, and is not responsible for the content.

About the author

Gillian Wesley

Since getting together six years ago, we have given away our television, begun weekly DIY nights, experimented with urban homesteading, challenged ourselves to drive less (100 days car-free in 2013), and have learned more about food security. We have experimented with a range of budgeting strategies, all of which involve consuming less stuff. We buy food with reducing packaging in mind. We got a dog. We have been doing these things for a variety of reasons: financial, social, environmental, to achieve a better work-life balance. It has resulted in us enjoying an increasingly simple and satisfying lifestyle. We’ve been influenced by a lot of people we’ve encountered and things we’ve read about along the way, notably the Transition Movement, the Antigonish Movement, and, more recently, traditional Acadien living. And we’ve learned that we are by no means alone. There are many, many people who are taking steps to downshift their lives. Sign up for our eNewsletter, and we’ll send you a round-up of our new and upcoming projects once a month.