Why supporting local is difficult but necessary.
Two recent examples.
Spell Books - “Because a good book puts a Spell on you!”
My girlfriend and I were in downtown Littleton recently when we stumbled upon Spell Books, a small locally owned bookstore. We are both avid readers and when it comes to buying a book, we both prefer the in-store experience over the online one. So, it’s exciting for us when we find a local bookstore.
I went in looking for Greg McKeown’s second book, Effortless. I read his first book, Essentialism, back in 2019 when I first left my job and began overhauling my whole way of life. Essentialism completely shifted my perspective of productivity and allocation of time, and got me to start focusing on what was essential and eliminating what wasn’t. It had a big impact on me and I was hoping Effortless would be the same.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have it in stock, but the owner offered to order it for me. She said it would arrive in 5 - 7 days.
Almost three weeks went by, and I still hadn’t heard from them. So, Jen decided to call and find out what was going on. I assumed it came in and they just forgot to notify me or had misplaced my contact information which I had written on a sticky note.
But it turns out that they didn’t forget, the book just hadn’t come in yet. Effortless was on back order from the distributor and they didn’t know when it was coming in. She offered to cancel my order so I could buy it somewhere else. On Amazon it would have been at my doorstep in a matter of days or maybe hours. I decided to continue to wait.
Last week I got an email from Spell Books notifying me that the book had come in. When we went in to pick it up it was sitting there waiting for me with the same sticky note I had written my contact information on almost four weeks prior.
Overall, choosing to buy my book locally cost time waiting and driving to the store, and probably 10 percent on the purchase price, but it was worth it.
Chicken and the Egg
I’ve been getting my chickens and eggs from a local farm. They pasture raise hogs and poultry, treat their animals humanely, and use high quality, diverse, and organic feed when needed to supplement their diet. All characteristics of small farms that you won’t see in grocery store bought meat.
When I order, I have two options. For $5 they’ll deliver my order to a locally owned retail store that’s a 30-minute drive from my home, or for $10 they deliver it to my door. Orders are placed bi-weekly. If you miss the order deadline then you wait (although they’ll make every effort to squeeze an order in), or, conceivably, you could drive the 2.5 hours (one-way) to the farm.
A couple of weeks ago I placed an order for 3 whole chickens, 1 dozen eggs and 1 package of bacon (it was on sale 😀) and paid the $10 to have it all delivered to my house. I ordered on a Sunday with a Tuesday delivery date.
Tuesday morning, I got an email letting me know that the delivery driver wasn’t available to make deliveries, so my order would be delayed to the following week. At the time I had been in the habit of slow-cooking a whole chicken every week, and I had timed my cooking schedule to align with this delivery. So, when it didn’t come I drove 5 minutes to the grocery store and picked out the best organic free range bird I could find, knowing that it was mostly lies and I’d be eating an inferior and sickly bird. But I didn’t want to wait.
The next Tuesday rolled in and with it came a huge snow storm. I knew immediately more delivery delays would be in my future. I got an email from the farm that morning informing me that the winter storm had shut down the roads out of the mountains and they wouldn’t be able to deliver.
On Thursday my order was delivered to my doorstep.
The Impact.
Since local shops and farms have been pushed out by big box retail and mega farms, it’s made buying local inaccessible and expensive when compared to the big boys. The big box stores have swallowed up all the convenient locations, and their large purchasing power has driven down their cost of goods (which allows them to undercut small business owners) and allowed them to stockpile inventory, while local shops struggle with back orders.
Our neighbor told us that when she first moved into her home more than 20 years ago, she was surrounded by ranches on every corner. Now, those same corners are occupied by a gas station, a Costco, and a parking lot. She said when Costco was first built, she was so mad that she boycotted them for 2 years. But she eventually caved when she got a coupon in the mail. She’s been shopping there ever since.
The book experience came a couple of weeks on the heels of a similar one my buddy and I had when we went into a local gaming shop looking for two board games. We were told the games were on back order from his distributor. Two days later Amazon delivered the games to my buddy’s doorstep.
Mega farms jam hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of animals into factories to reduce the cost of raising meat. Pasture raised chickens (like the ones I’ve been ordering) cost 100 percent more per pound to raise than a factory farmed chicken you’ll find in the grocery store ($3-$4 per pound versus $8-$11). If we can agree that pasture raising animals is the right way, then what kind of conditions must the factory farmed chickens who are half the price be living in?
In the last 20 years the only contribution to society by big business is cheap, low quality, and fast. That’s the business model for Amazon, Walmart, Costco, McDonalds, Starbucks that has allowed them to accumulate insane amounts of wealth (collectively worth almost $3 trn) and power and control nearly every market.
But cheap, low quality, and fast is the reason that our health and local economies continue to decline at a rapid rate.
Whenever a Costco opens where a ranch used to be. Whenever an Amazon warehouse stocks books to the ceiling. When McDonalds and Starbucks open in your neighborhood selling fake food and artificially sweetened beverages, it is a sign of societal decline. The long term impact of these stores is what we’re seeing play out all over the country. Millions of people suffering from chronic disease and mental health issues that are the results of poison in our food and low paying and unfulfilling jobs.
Not everyone I understand has the time, capacity, resources, or accessibility to choose local over big business. But, for those amongst us who do, then we really need to do a better job of spending our dollars appropriately.
Mid-term elections are every two years. Presidential elections every four. But everyday we can vote with our dollars. And the more we can re-direct dollars into our local economies, the more accessible and affordable we will make it for everyone.
Let us practice patience and be willing to spend a little more money to support our local farmer, grower, baker, and shop owner.