ooooby

I found this, when browsing the blogs on www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs. I've often wondered what it would take to disconnect from the corporate food system...

Stupermarket break out!

by Rachel Lalchan

It's been over 13 months since we shopped in a large, intense, brightly lit, empire of grocery consumerism and I'm happy to report that life sans supermarket is not only viable but quite wonderful! With no intention of going back, I hope you will consider quitting too!

The thing about supermarkets is that there's really nothing super about them. Ripping off farmers and producers both here and abroad, selling cheap products at huge cost to suppliers, tricking us into buying far more than we need, producing tonnes of unrecyclable waste, filling our landfills, upping CO2 emissions, encouraging detrimental consumer habits, grabbing land from local ownership, promoting unhealthy over-processed crud disguised as 'food', destroying local communities and values as well as our own farming industry, I mean really, what's super about any of that?!

To ensure that farming can continue in the UK as part of our sustainable present and future and that we can feed ourselves instead of relying on other countries for our nutrition, we need to stop supporting supermarket shopping. It has proved to be an unhealthy, unsustainable and unethical method of putting food on our tables. » Read more

www.ooooby.org went live last night!

This is the story of the first Ooooby food box - being installed in Auckland, NZ. This is about connecting growers and eaters in a community in the most efficient manner.

It's about the growing and intersecting communities of interest using the readily available technology and readily available resources, to organise. With a focus on the small, intensive, local growers who use the most natural soil regenerating methods, the Ooooby Box is facilitating the distribution of healthy food for local consumption.

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Get ready all you Grey Lynn'ers, the Ooooby stall at the Grey Lynn Farmer's Market will welcome your produce.

Here's an article from Stuff. Farmers' markets are known for showcasing local produce but a new Auckland initiative is taking the concept further in a model organisers hope will be repeated around the country.

Due to start on September 6th, the Grey Lynn farmers' market aims to get ordinary city dwellers with a penchant for growing veges in their backyard, or even those with an over-productive lemon tree, to sell alongside the professionals.

Dubbed an urban food market, locals will be able to exchange vegetables or fruit at the community table, while enthusiasts looking to make money off their own garden can hire a space at a stall from $20. Work on making the idea a reality started last year.

Development manager Vincent Dickie, recently returned from overseas, was surprised to notice Auckland supermarkets were selling Californian oranges when he could see the fruit lying rotting on the ground in his neighbourhood. Since then a group of active volunteers have contributed time and energy to making it happen.

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There was a gathering in March, where a number of people came from all over New Zealand to share ideas for how to support the growing Transition Towns movement here. This 13 minute film is taken from 90 minutes of talks given on the first evening we were together. People were invited from all over Waiheke, and heard a wide range of viewpoints about where we are, and where we could be going.

Click To Play

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