It’s the local economy, stupid

Can someone base a run for state office on local food? Alex Steed is trying. He’s running to represent the town of Cornish in the Maine House of Representatives; check out his website. This blog entry goes into some detail about a fundraising event Alex hosted in Cornish last week.

I was there, to offer a little history of how Rosemont began, where it’s come to, and where we as a store might be heading in the future. Rosemont will be opening a new store this summer — bigger than any of our others, which will allow us to offer a greater variety of  local foods. The new store will also allow us to use the current Brighton Avenue store for production only, which will help us make more yummy stuff out of local produce. This is the step we need to take if we’re to open more stores, or do anything else in the area, really.

So, that’s part of where Rosemont is heading. But the other direction is more…cultural. We want to remain central to this area’s social and cultural uses of local food: to maintain family and community health; improve school nutrition; strengthen the local economy; and keep our natural surroundings vibrant, bountiful, exciting. A lot of people around here have the same ideas. I said that night at the fundraiser for Alex Steed, and really do believe, that on a number of fronts we’re living in a golden age for food right now. We’re all working toward something(s) BIG. It’s hard to say where it will all end up.

But food matters a great deal to these endeavors. To think that someone (and Alex isn’t the only one) running for political office — where he’ll confront issues of education, health care, job creation and the environment — agrees is very exciting.