Eve Kaiser opened Local Organic Affordable Foods, or LOAF, in Chesterton last July because she was tired of running around to different places to purchase locally grown food.
“I decided it was time to do this,” she said.
She’s seen the local food movement take off for many reasons, in part because of the environmental conditions in the places where food has come from over the past few decades.
People find it’s healthier to eat in-season produce they can get close by, she said.
“That’s ancient, but people’s interest has only recently peaked again,” Kaiser said.
She will serve on a panel for the Local Food Summit, being held Friday at the Valparaiso University Law School and spearheaded by Nicole Negowetti, an associate law professor who was inspired to found the event because of a Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission study on local foods a few years ago.
The study, she said, noted a lack of local food sources; the fact that 17 percent of the area’s population was “food insecure,” or didn’t know where their next meal was coming from; that 20 places in the region, in both urban and suburban areas, were “food deserts,” with limited or no access to grocery stores; a declining number of farms in the area; the impact of industrial farming; and high obesity rates, including in preschoolers.
“The ultimate goal is to establish a food policy council and address these issues as they arise,” Negowetti said, adding 100 people registered for the event.
The summit brings together restaurants, government officials, food banks, consumers, those in the food service field from local schools, farmers and representatives of farmers markets, she said.
As national chain restaurants, including Chipotle, move to source food more carefully, Negowetti said there’s “a movement across the board” toward local food. “I’m hoping that’s evidence that’s because consumers are demanding it, they’re going to have to change.”
Kaiser hopes the summit raises awareness about local food, something that is not “just a far-fetched movement” or for the wealthy, since a lot of people can have a garden for fresh produce part of the year.
It’s good to take baby steps, she said, even if it’s eating at a restaurant that promotes locally grown food or buying one thing that’s grown nearby.
“I think people need to know this isn’t just a West Coast movement, because it isn’t. It is beneficial for us because it ends up being clean food and beneficial to the environment,” she said.
Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter.
