Locavores Bemoan Their Own Success

An article in the NYT today reports, big food manufacturers, such as FritoLay, are beginning to ‘co-opt’ the locavore food movement. They suddenly have the gall to, say, make Florida’s potato chips from Florida’s potatoes.

Many locavores are ready to throw pitchforks at them.

I don’t get it. FritoLay’s new local bent is unlikely to make me snuggle up with a large bag of Ruffles, but I think this is something to celebrate.

Sure, it does not resonate with the Eat Local Spirit. I agree with the reaction of blogger and chef Jessica Prentice (who coined the term locavore in 2005):

“The local foods movement is about an ethic of food that values reviving small scale, ecological, place-based, and relationship-based food systems… Large corporations peddling junk food are the exact opposite of what this is about.”

But what’s wrong with junk food being local?




picture by Dmitry Maslov