Here's the scenario: several weeks after Hannaford grocery store bought out the independently owned community grocery store in my community, Garden Street Market, the flyer below is distributed by mail to residents of the community.
"Great! Hannaford gets it!" I think.
My first trip into the Hannaford big box, several times larger than Garden Street Market, I'm looking everywhere for the Harris Farm Milk, the local dairy, the milk I bought every week from Garden Street Market...the dairy that has cows that look just like Bessie above.
No Harris Farm milk. I ask at the register. "We don't carry that," the cashier says. "It's the local dairy," I say, "I bought it every week at the local store, Garden Street Market, the one Hannaford bought out..."
No Harris Farm Milk for you!!
Undaunted, an email is forwarded to customer service at Hannaford. A product research specialist returns my email with an apology for my inconvenience, assurances that the manager will be contacted regarding my request for milk from the local dairy, etc. etc. I have since received two customer service surveys from Hannaford asking how satisfied I was with the handling of this.
Hmmm. No Harris Farm Milk for you!
Each week, I dutifully ask the cashiers for the local dairy's milk, and each week I am told they don't carry it, and now I see the "Local Milk is a Keeper" on the reusable bag they sell at the cash registers, no doubt manufactured somewhere locally... offshore.
The independent convenience store, The Landing Store, now carries Harris Farm Milk, from the local dairy. They don't send out flyers in the mail asking for donations to support local dairies (whose products they don't sell), or sell reusable bags with pictures of New England cows, manufactured in China. They sell the local dairy's milk and put the glass bottles in a paper bag so they won't break when I stick them in the pannier on my bike for the ride home.
Keep local farms by shopping from local independent merchants that really get it.
