All across the United States, the day after Thanksgiving is renowned for the hordes of shoppers that start lining up outside stores in the early hours of the morning. This day of shopping represents millions of transactions but it also accounts for much more. Think about how many people hop into the...
The Shop Local, Buy Local food movement appears to be losing steam, as smaller stores close-up shop.
Would you pay ten cents more for an apple grown locally? Maybe not, and that's what "locavores" are trying to change. Locavores, are people who shop locally, and they say you need to change your min...
Can ordering a locally sourced, grass-fed steak and an expertly made cocktail in a trendy restaurant actually combat climate change?
That's the goal with the Perennial, a Mid-Market restaurant experiment due in the spring that's the first of its kind in the Bay Area, if not the country.
It's the b...
There are ways to connect with your community beyond food.
You’ve probably heard about community supported agriculture (or CSA) — a program where you pay up front and every week, a box of fresh, locally grown produce appears on your doorstop. Since its initial conception in western Massachusetts in...
Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer and outdoor cooking season is right around the corner. Unfortunately, outdoor cooking is too often connected with a tremendous amount of waste. Make this year's summer the "summer of green" with these eco-friendly alternatives for a low-impact summer barb...
This is the time of the year when you see endless summaries of 2013. The ones about sustainability can usually be characterized as a bag of mixed news, filled with both good and bad news from the past year.
And it can be quite depressing, right? After all, mixed news means that at best we...
Most produce in the US is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. And this is when taking into account only US grown products! Those distances are substantially longer when we take into consideration produce import...
Video - Buy Local
A short animation of the importance of supporting locally owned, independently operated business.watch the video here...
If the people of an average American city were to shift 10% of their spending from chains to local businesses, it would br...
How to Shop Smart and Buy Healthy
Now that organic produce and healthier food options are more readily available than ever before, it has made grocery shopping that much more confusing in the process. With the availability to buy everything from out of season fruit to fair trade chocolate to T-shir...
According to the 2012 survey by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, when you choose to do business locally, you are indeed making an impact. And that impact is happening at its best in the communities like ours that have embraced Local First.
65% of respondents reported revenue growth in ...
