What Promises Does Your Company Keep?

In a bad economy it’s more important than ever to keep your company’s promises. It’s tempting to cut corners, perhaps renege on a previous commitment you’ve set forth to your customers and employees. But the company that chooses to do something in the easiest or most inexpensive way instead of the promised or right way is treading on thin ice.

The mission statement you created when you began your business presented your belief about why your company existed. It should have been backed up by values that you embraced as the business owner; statements of principles that you and your company would follow to ensure the integrity, authenticity and strength of your business. In the end, your company’s value statements should be so important to you that you wouldn’t be in business if you couldn’t follow them.
When you stop following your business principles, your customers, employees and the general public notice and your reputation will be negatively affected and perhaps ruined.

Your customers will notice:
A promise regarding your products and your practices gives your customers expectations they want to rely on.

Your employees will notice:
Your employees are representing you and your company – if you cut corners, they will too.

The general public will notice:
If you violate your own rules, it won’t take long for word to get out, damaging opportunities for future sales. If you make a product claim, it’s critical that you stick with it to maintain customer goodwill and your valuable reputation.

Here’s our Eat Local Food Mission and Values Statements:

Eat Local Food’s Mission Statement
To provide eye-catching, high quality marketing materials and services promoting locally produced, farm-friendly, natural, organic and healthy foods. This will help support local farmers and shop owners, in turn strengthening their local economies by keeping the money flowing among friends and neighbors.

Eat Local Food’s Values Statement
Our most important value is that we be authentic in our artwork, our products and our representations to customers, and our community.

We believe our artwork should be genuine representations of local food.
We believe our products should be made in the United States.
We believe our products should accurately represent local food systems.
We believe our products should provide value to those in the business of selling local food.
We believe our products should be reusable and functional.
We believe our personal consumption habits should support those in the business of selling local food.
We believe in supporting sustainable local food systems and sustainable small business organizations.

Staying true to yourself and your business principles is not always easy, but preserving your reputation and your customer loyalty is critical for long term business survival. If you find you can’t adhere to your values statements in a tough economy, it’s better to be truthful with your customers. Modify your mission and values statements to accurately reflect the business practices you are following and if it’s a temporary departure, explain why. You may still lose business, but your reputation for integrity will remain intact.

Support a Local Farmer: Join a CSA Farm

If you’ve made a commitment to eat healthy, eat local, or to support your local community in 2009, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership is a great way to do it.

At Eat Local Food, we believe in and support Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). If you are not familiar with CSA farming, it’s a farmer-consumer direct relationship where the buying public pays the farmer in advance for the promise of fresh produce over the growing season. Some farmers also request a member commitment of work hours to help supplement labor costs. Crop production is then based on membership. Throughout the growing season, members receive their share of produce on a weekly basis either through a common pick-up or delivery system. By receiving funding in advance, the farmer’s production expenses are assured, and by implementing a standardized delivery system, distribution costs are minimized. To get more information about CSA farming, you can visit www.csafarms.org.

Bob and I are proud to be members of Maple Creek Farm, a family operation in the Michigan thumb area, growing acres of certified organic produce in their 15th year of CSA operation. Owned and operated by Farmers Danny and Michelle Lutz, they are committed to local sustainable organic agriculture.

How does membership in Maple Creek Farm work?
Deliveries typically begin in mid-June, during the 2nd or 3rd week of June. Michelle send members e-mail notification of their delivery start date, and what items they can expect in each weekly share. She often includes tips and recipes on how to use the vegetables.

Maple Creek Farm offers a convenient delivery system to CSA members. Serving a large portion of southeastern Michigan, they had 28 drop off locations in 2008. Michelle and Danny’s goal is to have locations throughout the Metro Detroit area that are convenient to pick-up your weekly share. They want the delivery process to go as smoothly as possible and for it to be stress-free for their members. Our pick-up site was approximately one mile from our home. On the same day once a week, you go to your local drop-off location and pick up your box of fresh, locally grown, organic food. You check off your name on the member listing to indicate you picked up your share. Each subsequent week, you bring your collapsed box back to be used again. If you are going to be on vacation or just unable to pick up your share one week, you can let Michelle know in advance, and they will double up on your share the following week. You can also opt to donate your unused share to the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit.

What is in a share?
The variety is endless. Michelle and Danny have been tracking their organic produce deliveries for several years, and typically they provide 4-6 items per share for the first 4 weeks, which is early in the Michigan growing season. They will mostly be organic greens and other early crops such as organic broccoli, organic strawberries, organic radishes, and organic summer squash. For weeks 5-12 you'll start to receive an increase in items ranging from 8-14 per delivery, including organic peppers, organic eggplant, organic tomatoes, organic corn and organic chard. The last 4-6 weeks will include 6-10 items, including different varieties of organic squashes, organic peppers and organic kale. A share will often include heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables not typically available at markets.
There are still memberships available for 2009! If you live in the Metro Detroit area, please support a local farmer by joining Maple Creek Farm this year. You’ll feel good about your purchase and do something great for your health at the same time.
For more information about the farm, visit their web site at www.maplecreekfarm.com.

Are you looking for a CSA Farm?

There are lots of great CSA Farms out there to join. Here are some links to national databases to help you locate a CSA Farm near you:

Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
NewFarm Farm Locator: http://newfarm.org/farmlocator/index.php
Wilson College, Robyn Van En Center CSA Farm Database: www.csacenter.org
The Eat Well Guide: http://www.eatwellguide.org/

And in Michigan, www.csafarms.org

Eat Local for a Fresh New Year's Resolution

Have you made a New Year’s resolution this year? A New Year’s resolution usually involves an attempt to break an old habit, or to start a new one. A change in any habit is difficult and all too often New Year's resolutions are broken.

Popular New Year’s resolutions are listed on the USA.gov website at: http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New_Years_Resolutions.shtml.

The 13 item list includes getting fit, saving money, managing debt, reducing stress, quitting smoking and eating right. Most of the resolutions are about getting rid of something negative in your life; fat, cigarettes, debt, stress. But the resolution to “Eat Right” seemed more positive. The website’s list of tips for “eating right” include serious steps: cutting down on portion sizes, reducing fat intake, reading labels and choosing water over other caloric-laden beverages. All are good habits, but a more creative and fun way to eat healthy is to eat local.

Shopping at your local farmers market, joining a community supported agriculture farm, forming a neighborhood garden or cooking club are all great ways to get fresh healthy food, meet people, share nutritious recipes and try new fruits and vegetables. Shopping and cooking food can be very social events, so your resolution to “Eat Right” doesn’t have to be done all on your own, and it doesn't have to be so serious.

Making a commitment to eat local doesn’t mean you’ll never step foot in a grocery store again, but you may go less frequently. And you’ll still be faced with the same temptations of baked goods and higher fat foods, but you’ll find locally produced foods are typically processed less and can be healthier. Cookies, bread and cheeses sourced locally are often made with fresh, organic ingredients and most do not contain partially hydrogenated oils and other shelf stabilizers. Label reading of locally processed food is still recommended, and you can always ask the baker or cheese maker if you are unsure of the ingredients.

Eating local does require a bit of homework, but it's a fun activity for the whole family. Showing your kids where their food comes from is a great start to healthy eating habits. Creative ways to eat local involve family visits to farms and farmers markets, apple orchards and bakeries. How many children want to spend Saturday afternoon in the grocery store? Get them outside at the farmers market or orchard and you'll change their attitudes about food. And it’s fun for you, too. It sure beats counting calories and fat grams!

Here are some national databases to help you with your resolution to eat local food:

Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
NewFarm Farm Locator: http://newfarm.org/farmlocator/index.php
Wilson College, Robyn Van En Center CSA Farm Database: http://www.wilson.edu/wilson/asp/content.asp?id=1567
The Eat Well Guide: http://www.eatwellguide.org/