Your pick: strawberries grown in Mexico or strawberries locally grown in Carlsbad?

This isn’t a difficult choice for most shoppers.   Consumers tend to trust locally grown produce over internationally shipped foods any day. The problem is, who knows when the produce is locally grown? Much of the time, it’s difficult to tell, unless the buyer takes the time to talk with the manager of the store.

The San Diego County Farm Bureau is taking steps to remove this dilemma. At the bureau’s endorsement, county growers are being encouraged to put a small sunburst label on their products that says “San Diego Grown 365” The label is intended to reassure the consumer that the food is either grown in the county or made form produce grown here. 

Currently only about 10% of the county growers have adopted the label program. The impediment is cost. Even though there is no county fee for using the starburst labels, there is still the cost of putting the labels on the produce.   Fortunately, the cost can be claimed as marketing cost for the growers. This means that within the next year you will see many more starburst labels on the shelves of your local food store.

Chris Broomell, winemaker for the fledgling Vesper Vineyards and Triple B Ranch in Valley Center thinks the labels will make a key distinction compared to his competitors. “Specifically for wines, I want to really declare the grapes are from this county,”, he said. “A lot of vineyards are calling themselves local, but their grapes are coming from elsewhere.” The sentiment expressed by Broomell is shared by many local producers. Expect to see the labels more in the near future.