Locavore

 Listen to the words of wisdom emanating from Food Network Star Robin Miller: “The food tastes better when it’s so fresh like that. When it comes straight from the vine or the tree or the bush or the ground. And then supporting your local farmers is so key. And if you’re shopping at these local markets and you’re keeping your local economy going, the shorter distance from where you purchase your food to your plate, that’s the best way to go always.”

OK. That sure makes sense to me but if I’m a consumer where do I look in the Yellow Pages?  Under fresh, locally grown foods. Under organically grown tomatoes. Under delicious, locally raised lamb?  I don’t think so. But thanks to the computer age and local produce expert Dan Sutton, I can go to LocavoreNetwork.com to find local producers of fruits, vegetables, meat, wine and dairy products. LocavoreNetwork.com has compiled information on about 15,000 farms from more than 200 existing databases. Also on the site are 3,000 wineries.

Here’s webmaster Dan Sutton: “The purpose of LocavoreNetwork is to link local growers with people who want to buy from local growers. It makes them easy to find, it makes it easy to communicate with, and the goal is to provide a low cost marketing tool for growers to communicate with consumers.”