Food tastes better local

Welcome to new and returning readers of this weekly column about local food, which originated 11 years ago in the old Oxford Press. The then-editor of that newspaper visited the newly opened MOON Co-op Market, and impressed by the amount of locally sourced content in the store, offered the cooperative a weekly column. The column has since expanded to embrace Oxford’s Farmers Market, our community’s other principal source of local food.

Several hundred families got together to open MOON Co-op, because Oxford’s large supermarkets were viewed as not providing local, organic and eco-friendly products. MOON (an acronym for Miami Oxford Organic Network) incorporated under Ohio law as a cooperative and is now owned by more than 1,000 mostly Oxford-area households.

Oxford’s Farmers Market started in 1979 and moved 20 years ago to its current site in the parking lot at Main and Church streets, adjacent to Oxford Memorial Park. Two features of Oxford’s Farmers Market are distinctive. First, it’s open every Saturday morning year-round, not just in the summer, as is the norm elsewhere in the Midwest. Several of our local farmers have been able to grow produce even in the winter, thanks to innovations such as hoophouses.

Second, Oxford’s Farmers Market controls its vendors more tightly than is typical. Most farmstands and urban farmers markets permit reselling of products acquired elsewhere, such as from out-of-town wholesalers. Larry Slocum, Oxford’s Farmers Market Manager beginning in 2006, says that Oxford’s Farmers Market vendors must either “make it, bake it or grow it” themselves. The market’s motto, “cultivating community,” is a reminder that growers and producers are hyper-local.

At MOON Co-op, prepared food made in-house accounts for an increasing share of sales. People often too busy to cook increasingly depend on the cooperative for healthy and nutritious food that’s ready to consume.

Smoothies, which are widely available these days, are an example of the co-op difference. Those at MOON Co-op are especially well-regarded in Oxford, in part because all ingredients are organic and fresh. For example, orange juice, a popular smoothie ingredient, derives from frozen concentrate in national franchise shops, but from organic not-from-concentrate at MOON. National franchise smoothie shops add sugar to cover the less intense flavor of frozen fruit.

MOON Co-op smoothies are also popular because they can be individually built rather than limited to predetermined combinations. Around half of MOON shoppers choose a preset blend, and the other half start from scratch to build their own. Distinctive combinations suggested by community folks sometimes are featured as “smoothie of the month,” such as July’s “Summer Breeze.”

The contributions of MOON Co-op and Oxford’s Farmers Market to this community were recognized last month when both received Best of Butler County awards. Oxford’s Farmers Market was voted one of the county’s three top Farmers Markets. The other two awardees are actually retailers in rural-looking structures rather than a true farmers market limited to vendors who sell only what they grew or make themselves.

MOON was voted the county’s #1 Natural Food Store, #1 Health Food Store, #2 Grocery Store, and #3 Best Place to Buy Meat. Especially gratifying was being voted second-best grocery store, behind only world-famous Jungle Jim’s, which is 75 times larger than MOON and 45 minutes away from Oxford.

In the weeks ahead, this column will chronicle locally grown and raised food and the growers who supply it. All of us who live and work in Oxford experience sharp seasonal changes, thanks to the arrival and departure of Miami University students. Consuming local food is tasty, nutritious, and Earth-friendly, but above all it is highly seasonal. Eating local means lots of asparagus in May and strawberries in June. As one fruit or vegetable finishes, another arrives.

James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.