Made Local Magazine, May/June 2025

In 2007, the New Oxford American Dictionary named “locavore” its Word of the Year. Farmers’ markets were proliferating nationwide, tripling in just 15 years. Restaurants began emulating farm-to-table trailblazers like Chez Panisse. Then came surprise bestselling books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and films like Food, Inc. as millions reconsidered dinner’s long and convoluted journey to their plates. Local food was the new buzz phrase.

If one moment marks the tipping point of this zeitgeist (evidenced by its mention by multiple interview subjects for this story) it would have to be in 2011, when a comedy sketch aired on the debut episode of Portlandia. In it, two overzealous diners pepper a waitress with questions about the source of their chicken: where it was raised, how it was treated, eventually requesting paperwork detailing the exact bird they’ll be eating. Still not satisfied, in the end, they leave the restaurant to go inspect the farm for themselves.

No longer a fringe oddity, today, locally branded food is big business and unsurprisingly, Big Business has taken notice. For example, recently, a major grocery store with locations in Sonoma County displayed a glossy new campaign above its produce department with slogans like “Support your local family farm.”