2010 EAT LOCAL! Campaign

2010 Campaign Focus: 10% EAT LOCAL! Food Shift Challenge

Our primary push in 2010 will be the launch of the 10% EAT LOCAL! Food Shift Challenge. Building on the growing national sentiment toward preferring local, organic food, the need to create jobs and bolster our local economy, and our three years of education and awareness initiatives in Colorado, this campaign will invite individuals, companies, schools, restaurants, and institutions throughout Boulder County to shift 10% of their food purchases to locally grown, organic producers.

Stategic components of our campaign include:

• Develop a 10% EAT LOCAL! Food Shift Challenge web site, where individuals, businesses, and institutions can sign the 10% Local Food Shift Pledge. Integrate social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) into a web campaign to maximize campaign visibility.
• Highlight the 10% EAT LOCAL! Food Shift Challenge in the 2010 print and online editions of the Boulder County EAT LOCAL! Resource Guide (distributed for free throughout Boulder County), which features a comprehensive directory of Boulder County food producers, restaurants, and organizations.
• Produce visually enticing posters, flyers, and window decals that pledged growers, restaurateurs, and grocers can display at retail locations.
• Produce desirable bumper stickers, t-shirts and other promotional items targeted at individuals to rapidly spread the positive message of eating local throughout Boulder County.
• Work with local restaurateurs and grocers to develop 10% discount coupons for those who sign the 10% EAT LOCAL! Pledge.
• Develop a visible coalition of support for the campaign including local government, like-minded organizations (LSBA, BIBA, Slow Money, Slow Food Boulder), local chambers of commerce, local banks and credit unions, farmers' markets, etc.
• Spotlight local farmers, restaurateurs, and entrepreneurs who process food products within Boulder County in the monthly 10% EAT LOCAL! Food Shift Challenge newsletter, on the 10% EAT LOCAL! Food Shift Challenge web site, the Boulder County EAT LOCAL! Resource Guide web site, and on the Colorado Edition of Transition Times.
• Encourage particularly adventurous individuals and restaurants to explore growing 10 percent of their food needs in their own gardens, and to learn how to can and preserve what they grow to make it available year-round.
• Bring together a second and larger Boulder County Food Summit, composed of governmental policy makers, local/organic food business leaders, farmers, restaurant owners, and concerned citizenry to discuss the state and direction of the Boulder County foodshed.
• Organize and host community educational events and celebrations that feature local food and local agriculture.
• Work with Boulder County public and private schools to develop or further local food purchasing policies for school lunches, food educational programs, and promotions of farm-to-school lunch campaigns.
• Spearhead a Boulder County EAT LOCAL! Restaurant Association (ELRA), composed of restaurants devoted to sourcing an increasing amount of their menu from local food growers.
• Work with ELRA members to institute and promote monthly EAT LOCAL! Nights, where they offer special progressive prix fixe meals made from 100% local ingredients.
• Establish and promote an EAT LOCAL! Week in September during the harvest season, where a special push is make more people aware of local food and make the 10% EAT LOCAL! Food Shift Pledge.
• Organize a spearheading committee to begin development of a shared Boulder County EAT LOCAL! Food Hub, which will provide food processing facilities within Boulder County to local farmers (reducing unnecessary food transport costs and associated carbon emissions), provide needed marketing and distribution services, and offer a commercial kitchen for production of value-added goods.
• Encourage people to reduce their meat consumption by 10 percent replacing those calories with locally grown produce.

Close this window

EAT LOCAL! Campaign Background

The overarching intention of the Boulder County EAT LOCAL! Campaign is to create a more resilient local food system, based on deep ecological principles and a more connected populace, with less dependence on fossil fuels and petroleum-based inputs. Transition Colorado launched the 10-year EAT LOCAL! Campaign in 2007, with a multipronged focus:

• Increasing public awareness through
• Publications (e.g., EAT LOCAL! Resource Guide — print magazine and website; Transition Times Colorado Edition)
• Events (e.g., EAT LOCAL! Celebration, EAT LOCAL! Days)
• Classes, courses, workshops (e.g., The Great Reskilling)
• Speakers and Panels
• Documentary film screenings
• Involving businesses, farmers, and local government in discussions about the resilience of our local foodshed through community forums and dialogues (e.g., 2010 Boulder County Food Summit)
• Forging strategic relationships to accomplish key projects, such as creating a Boulder County food hub.

Strategic Objectives

To meet our ultimate goal of creating a more resilient food system in Boulder County, we have adopted the following strategic objectives.

• Support Boulder County existing growers in rapidly expanding local food production capacity.
• Catalyze the rebuilding of local infrastructure for food storage, processing, and distribution systems.
• Educate the public about the health and sustainability benefits of transitioning to a local, organic, and meat-reduced diet.
• Create local jobs by increasing support for the local food economy.
• Grow the local food economy, keeping food dollars spent in Colorado.
• Educate local governments about the economic and job creation benefits of investing in local organic agriculture.
• Develop plans and strategies to revamp local agriculture for wide adoption of sustainable food production, bringing to the forefront models of innovative bio-intensive agriculture that are far less dependent on fossil fuels, petroleum-based fertilizers, and herbicides/insecticides.
• Promote reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through curtailing long-distance food shipping and processing costs, naturally sequestering carbon in croplands, converting crops for animal feeds to produce for human consumption.
• Increase the number of small-plot organic farmers in Boulder County through education, training, and policy changes.
• Promote local laws and policies that support local food production, including chicken-raising within city limits, rainwater catchment and gray water processing systems, and other innovative practices.
• Increase support for CSAs and farmers' markets throughout Boulder County.
• Strengthen connections among local farms, food producers, restaurants, caterers, institutions, and the public.
• Work with the Boulder County government to develop a visionary plan and policies for its 17,000 acres of Open Space agricultural land, focusing on conversion to food production for local consumption and gradual phasing-in of organic growing methods.
• Train and empower county residents to grow at least some of their own food and learn the arts of seed saving, food preservation, season extension, and soil fertility.
• Strive to channel local investment funds into projects that directly strengthen the local foodshed and the local economy.
• Promote replication of successful strategies across Colorado, and make them available to groups throughout the United States.

Close this window

A major reason for the large impact of
Boulder County’s Eat Local! Campaign.

Download our
Sponsorship and
Advertising brochure

Close this window

Sponsorship Opportunities

Download our
Sponsorship and
Advertising brochure

Close this window