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Canadian Redditors vs. $9 butter
How a grocery boycott is starting a local foods movement.
Lena Beck & Modern Farmer
May 19, 2024
Hello! Lena here, staff writer for Modern Farmer.
Once a week, I walk down the street from my house to my neighborhood farmer’s market. Like similar markets across the country, the booths are filled with the best local vegetables, cheeses, blooms and more. (My favorite weekly purchase right now is red spring onions from Alvarez Organic Farms.)
But I haven’t always lived near a farmer’s market, so I read contributor Steven Corso’s piece on farm stops with great interest. In the article, meet a handful of people who are creating businesses that make local food more accessible while supporting farmers directly.
Another piece we ran this week has a somewhat unexpected farmer’s market tie-in: a story about how a Reddit thread on exorbitant grocery prices led to a boycott of Canadian mega-chain Loblaws, and the resulting ways people are sharing advice, changing their purchasing habits, and pouring support into local producers and farmer’s markets instead.
“A really nice thing is happening where people are discovering these other places to shop and forming new habits and deciding, ‘You know what, even if this doesn’t make a difference, I’m still never going back because I found these new stores, the produce is fresher and the prices are better. I thought it would be difficult but now I don’t want to go back.’”
Subscribers to a Reddit thread organized a national boycott of grocery mega-chain Loblaws that grew into a community movement to promote farmer’s markets and local food.
Local alternatives are gaining ground thanks to community support during the boycott. Photo: Shutterstock
Also fresh this week
 Offerings from the Lakeshore Depot Farm Stop | A hybrid between a farmer’s market and a co-op store, farm stops are popping up across the country, helping customers access local food year round. |
 Connor Crickmore of Neversink Tools | Local farmers need locally-made tools. Here are just a few of the tool providers making it happen. |
Community Action Corner
In the course of our reporting, we come across great pieces of actionable advice from our community. Here, we are featuring an action each week that you can take to support a more equitable and resilient food system.
Weekly Action | Canadian readers: help populate AltGrocery’s database of local and indie food sellers. Based in the US and looking to localize your grocery shopping? Check out the USDA’s local food directory to find a CSA near you.
Hungry for more? Check out the Modern Farmer Solutions Hub for more actionable advice from experts.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you next week!
~Lena
P.S. If you made it this far, here’s a photo of those red spring onions I was talking about. Enjoy! |  |