You're *sure* its local? An interesting way to be sure...

In Japan, convenience stores don't just sell pop and chips, as the often do here - they sell vegetables, and/or fresh food products.  In response to customers' requests for safety and quality, as well as avoid price fluxuations from suppliers, they've started their own farms.  By growing all their own veg, they can have start-to-finish quality control over locally produced vegetables.  You can read more about it on Mainichi today: (http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/business/news/20100908p2a00m0na014000c.html)

So, that would be like Sobeys or Superstore/Loblaws actually owning and running local farms all over the country to sell exclusively to their own stores.  It's an interesting idea...I mean, certainly you could be sure of the "local"ness of your product.  It might be a way of saving a lot of small struggling farms - but I'd be worried that they'd turn into a vegetable version of those giant conglomerations that run meat processing, where animals are mistreated before slaughter. Not that I think the veggies would be mistreated :) but the land might be, by large-production methods (read: heavy pesticide use), etc.  But if people didn't want those methods used, they could directly hit the chain's bottom line by not buying from them.

Oh well, it's certainly an interesting thing they're trying out, and an idea worth at least playing with here in North America...