Find local food!
Locavore Foods is all about local food! We are working to make it easy to understand how much good food is available locally and where to find it.
Using the Local Food Wikibase, you can find details of food producers and providers in your local area, including restaurants and retailers that actively support and showcase local foods.
Local Foods
To source and share local food data, we facilitate a Wikibase accessible here:
You can search the Wikibase directly to find particular products or producers, or use a query tool to answer questions like ‘who are all the nut producers in Victoria, Australia?’ Further information on the Wikibase and how to query, or add to, it are also available there.
Locavore Foods uses four primary themes for classifying what we know about any given food product, and collectively they are what we call the ‘4Ps’.
Place
Like the French concept of wine’s ‘terroir’, all food is a product of where it is from. As history has shown, seasons influence what can or can’t be grown in particular regions, and the strength of local communities influences the ability of producers to sustain their activities over years.
Product
Throughout generations, great food cultures have debated and refined the different methods for growing, harvesting and processing food to make the perfect product.
For example, different processing methods now determine whether milk becomes cream or butter, and more subtle differences like the type of grass eaten by the dairy cow change the look, feel and taste of the milk, cream and butter.
Producers and Providers
Food often does grow on trees, but of course the reality is never quite as simple as that.
Behind all good food, there are many stories. Stories of individuals, families, organisations, communities and cultures. They are the stories of our food producers and providers that add colour and flavour to the food that we love.
Why local food?
Food is a necessity but the activities that go with eating, making or obtaining food can often be the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences we will have in life.
By now you will likely have read or heard many of the benefits of local foods. Not only does local food usually taste better, because it is simply fresher, but buying locally also supports local businesses and the local economy, often reduces energy consumption and also makes it easier to understand where food comes from and who actually produces it.
In the modern day, when food from anywhere in the world can be enjoyed, our choices relating to what we eat are more important than ever.
Contact
Want to let us know about a product or producer you love or find out more about this project, please contact us using the contact form linked here.
Collage photos taken and kindly shared by Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Melbourne (AU), Queen Victoria Market — 2019 — 1542” / CC BY-SA 4.0