Local Producer Profile

Locavorious

Ann Arbor, MI

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Being a “locavore” in Michigan can mean a few meager months of eating little but potatoes, squash, and hoop house-grown spinach.  Even these delicious foods can get pretty old after month three.  And unless you’ve taken the time to preserve the harvest during the growing season, February and March can be particularly brutal months for those who eat local. But who has time to sort, clean, cut, blanch, and freeze every bounty of produce you bring home?  Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Locavorious was owner Rena Basch’s answer to the winter suffering of Ann Arbor’s local-food-committed eaters. During summer and fall, Locavorious orders bulk quantities of fruits and vegetables at their peak of freshness and flavor directly from local farmers. The goodies are then preserved in a sub-zero, no-thaw freezer. The amount of time from field to freezer for this produce is likely less than the time it takes most peoples’ grocery store loot to get from the shelf to their plate.  That’s what makes Locavorious’ frozen goods so special; they taste great!  Throughout the winter, you can find their locally grown, hand-picked, hand-processed raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, sweet corn, edamame, heirloom sweet peppers and cherries in our freezers!  

Rena wasn't always a professional preserver of sustainably produced food.  But get her talking about it and her big smile and glowing demeanor make it clear that her road from 15 years as a metallurgist in the automotive industry to where she is now was paved with genuine passion for supporting local food systems.

“Eating local just makes sense.  It allows greater transparency in knowing where our food comes from, gives back to our local economy, and is better for the growers and eaters alike. Michigan is an agricultural state.  We should take advantage of its bounty!”

This commitment to local food and has stayed with Locavorious since it started in 2008.  With most farms providing produce to her within a 100 mile radius, Rena has developed personal relationships with the farmers she buys from.  Now they know to call her if they have extra green beans or another freezer-friendly product.  Each bushel of produce that comes into their kitchen is hand-processed by about 7 local employees and labeled with its farm of origin throughout the whole process.  So when you buy a bag of Locavorious blueberries, you can be assured that every berry in the bag is from the farm on the label.  And speaking of transparency, Locavorious products are frozen in clear bags so you can see the product before you buy it.  No more dry, colorless, freezer-burned sweet corn; Locavorious sweet corn is still sweet, yellow, and juicy!

Challenges still exist for Rena and her team.  Since their produce is picked by local farmers at peak freshness and purchased at a fair price to the farmers, the fresh products they source are already more expensive than most grocery store equivalents.  Add to that the cost of processing in single-origin batches, packaging, delivery, and the fair wage paid to employees, that leaves the end cost to consumers a bit steeper than the frozen equivalents from California or China. 

But Rena, says, "We provide a service that people really care about. Local food is not a fad, and the taste is enough to persude people."

“This is food with a story, and it can be hard to get that across at the store,” Rena says.  “Our edamame, for example, is a favorite of our customers’ because of the taste. But people don’t realize that almost all of the edamame sold in the U.S. comes from abroad. So ours is special in more ways than one.” 

So, the next time you’re craving the bounty of Michgan summer in the dead of winter, check the freezer at PFC and look for Locavorious! 

Locavorious also offers a frozen produce subscription, similar to shares offered by community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms. Click here for more info.