What We Talk About When We Talk About Local: What We Lose When We Keep It Small

When we celebrate local food, we often picture community, connection, and the pleasure of a familiar face behind the basket. And yes, direct-to-consumer sales deliver that in spades. But when we treat DTC as the only real way to sell local food, something important gets lost.

I learned this the hard way on my mushroom farm. At one point, we were running 12 farmers’ markets a week. It felt like no other option. We couldn’t rely on a single market, not a place or a person. I begged markets within thirty miles to let us join, just so we could stay afloat. That pace built the business, but it also brought burnout. I was running ragged, and the farm nearly ran me, my partner, and our team into the ground.

Years later, I was part of a meeting with two other farms and the hospitality division of a major business in the DFW area. This company serves meals to over 500 people per day across three kitchens on their campus and wanted to begin sourcing locally grown produce. I was thrilled. Here was the scale. Here was the impact. But the deal fell apart due to many causes. The largest of those was that the red tape was too thick, the contractor relationships were too inflexible, and their internal systems couldn’t adapt. It was a different kind of exhaustion, not from doing too much ourselves, but from watching an opportunity dissolve because the system couldn’t bend to meet us.

Direct-to-consumer will always have a place. It builds bonds. It fosters trust. It lets us look people in the eye. But we have to stop pretending that small is the same as good, or that scale is the enemy. Some of the best, most values-driven farms I know are using hybrid models. They sell to restaurants and food co-ops. They fulfill CSA shares and deliver to school kitchens. They build partnerships that require structure, not just spirit.

Here’s the thing: in 2020, USDA data showed that direct-to-consumer sales made up only 33 percent of all direct farm sales. Retailers, institutions, and intermediaries accounted for 46 percent of those same sales. Yet too many of us act as if local food thrives only when it happens at the market or through a CSA. That belief shapes how we organize funding, build coalitions, and structure support systems.

And it’s not just about efficiency. It’s about equity. Schools, hospitals, food banks, and eldercare centers are the tables where access is determined. If our food doesn’t reach them, we aren’t just limiting our business. We’re limiting the potential for justice. We’re reinforcing a two-tier food system where fresh, local, and nutrient-dense foods only go to those who can navigate boutique channels.

This myth keeps us small, and it keeps us struggling. DTC is intimate, but it is time-intensive. It rewards meaning but punishes scale. Institutions offer consistency, scale, and community impact, but only if we build systems that make them accessible to small farms. We need food hubs. Aggregation partners. Legal templates. Procurement reform.

Local food does not lose its meaning when it grows larger. It loses meaning when it is misunderstood. When we say local is defined by size or channel, we overlook the people intent on feeding communities, not just customers.

So here’s my quiet ask today:
As a Farmer, have you ever relied on a single sales channel and felt trapped by it?
What would it take to make institutional sourcing feel like a real, sustained option for you or your network?

Let’s be honest about what’s working and what we’re missing. Because if we want vibrant, sustainable, and resilient food systems, we have to go bigger without giving up what makes it local.