Sweet Clover Market - Why Local?

In short, local food is the real choice for top quality taste, freshness, and nutritional variety.

As one example, the produce we offer from Clay Brook Farm is delivered just hours after it is harvested by hand in Jericho, Vermont. Local food is fresher and tastes better than food shipped long distances from other states or countries. Compare local food to the average trip for produce traveling 1500 to 2000 miles from farm to table. Most fresh fruits and vegetables produced in the U.S. are shipped from California, Florida, and Washington. This produce can spend as many as seven to fourteen days in transit before it arrives in the supermarket. Varieties sold in supermarkets are chosen for their ability to withstand industrial harvesting equipment and extended travel not taste. This results in little variety in the plants grown. Local farmers can grow varieties for taste and interest rather than for shipping and long shelf life.

Knowing where your food comes from and how it is grown or raised enables you to choose safe food from farmers who avoid or reduce their use of chemicals, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, or genetically modified seed in their operations. Buy food from local farmers you trust.

We make food choices every day. It is one of the most fundamental and intimate ways we connect with our physical and cultural environment. We believe that useful economic activity springs from personal trading relationships. We want to invest in strengthening local relationships.

Local food doesn't have to travel far. This reduces carbon dioxide emissions and packing materials. Buying local food also helps to make farming more profitable and selling farmland for development less attractive.

Vote with your food dollar. Help family farms in your community thrive and insure that healthy, flavorful, plentiful food will be available for generations to come.