Local produce healthier for community ... and your wallet

Stefanie Hamblen was tired of walking into markets and watching customers pick up produce, look at it and put it back down; they didn't know what to do with it.

Determined to change that habit, Hamblen started Hogtown HomeGrown, a cooking newsletter dedicated to promoting locally grown food.

With gas prices surging in the past months, local growers believe consumers can benefit by choosing to buy produce locally.

Grocery stores have to absorb increased food costs, Hamblen said. But local farmers have less fuel charges to pass onto consumers.

For every cucumber and batch of strawberries customers buy, they pay for the item, gas charge, freight charge and the middleman who runs transportation.

When consumers buy locally, they pay the farmer directly and keep money in the community. For every dollar spent locally, 68 cents stays in the community; but only 34 cents remains for long-distance shipments, according to Hamblen.

Carlo Besozzi, manager of Book Lover's Café, has been promoting locally grown food for about 10 years. He tries to make sure the café buys as much as possible from local farmers.

With the right mindset, anyone can save money by purchasing locally instead of from chain stores, Besozzi said. A misconception is people believe local food is more expensive when higher prices are usually tagged on organic food.

Danielle Ward, general manager of Ward's Supermarket, has seen food prices rise due to increase in fuel costs.

There was no shipping charge for fuel five or six years ago. But as gas prices have risen, shipping costs have come into play, Ward said.

If food needs to be shipped, the farmers might raise a crate of produce by a dollar, for example, and supermarkets have to charge that to the customer, Ward said.

With the economy coming out of recession and environmental sustainability growing in popularity, more people and restaurants are starting to think local.

"The number of farmers' markets in the past five years has almost quadrupled," Hamblen said. "As gas prices go up and food security becomes more questionable, the consumers are going to demand more local produce."