How local is the food you eat? A pilot study called "Localize Your Food" is being tested in ten grocery stores in and around Edmonton.
Meghan Dear is behind the program and says the goal is to highlight local food and Alberta based producers.
"What we've decided to do it look at local on a spectrum. The most local products in our project are from Alberta businesses that are using Alberta ingredients and doing all their production and processing in Alberta." says Dear.
Products have shelf tags which show a rating out of ten. Ten being the most locally produced item. The tags can be scanned with your smart phone to instantly see where and how a product was made.
"It goes to a unique page about that food producer and about that product." says Dear adding, "It'll tell you why it scored a certain number and also tell you the story about that local food business."
Dear says it isn't just about About 800 products represented by almost 100 companies are involved including items such as perogies and honey.
One example is Baba Jenny's which is a Ukrainian food company based out of Vermillion.
"They score a nine out of ten. The reason they score that nine out of ten is because some of their ingredients are not grown in western Canada." says Dear.
Sobey's grocery store in Leduc is one of the stores involved in the project. Manager Brad Bromley says customer feedback has been positive.
"We get asked all the time if we have any local foods or which ones are local and (customers) tend to migrate towards that." says Bromley.
The pilot project runs until the end of the month. To see which stores are involved in the pilot project, visit www.localizeyourfood.com
With files from Kendra Slugoski.
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