Second Opinion Magazine
Sep 11, 20122 min
by Heather Hilleren
Eating fresh equates to eating healthy. To find fresh food, the solution is to find what is grown locally, which isn’t always an easy task. First, the health-conscious buyer has to find products that are produced in their area at a given time of year, and then they have to find where those products are being sold. If the buyer is able to find what is in season in his or her area and where to buy it, where can the consumer compare the farms producing the item, prices for the item and the locations where the item is being sold? With such obstacles facing the local food seeker the card is stacked against them, not only the local food consumer, but also the small farmer trying to sell their products to the consumer. Enter in “Local Dirt” and “Locavore”.
Locavore, similar to Local Dirt, also centralizes local food, but via your mobile internet device. Locavore is a mobile app that was created to fill the growing consumer demand for product information. How does Locavore do this? It uses GPS coordinates to map out nearby farms, farmers markets, and CSAs. It gives an “in season” listing, enables social networking, and provides recipe information for in season products. Local Dirt and Locavore provide local food consumers with access to options that didn’t exist before and provide an online selling option for farms, farmers markets, co-ops and CSAs. With the creation of Local Dirt and Locavore, the average consumer is given the ability to find and purchase local, fresh and healthy products. For more information on Local Dirt please visit localdirt.com; for information on Locavore please visit getlocavore.com.