Local businesses demonstrated that personal service attention would bring customers to them, rather than having to endure the automated impersonal approach offered by the large organisations.
It is worth reiterating the case for localisation.
How does localisation help?
Apart from improving the quality of fresh foods, growing locally brings more money to the local community. Buying locally keeps more money in the local community.
There has been a lot of research on this concept, and conclusions of the effectiveness range widely.
The impact of buying from the major supermakets for someone in Bellingen is quite clear. Apart from travelling, most likely driving, to Coffs Harbour, you can be sure that none of your money will stay in the local Bellingen community, but 80% of it will immediatley be transferred to the headquarters of the company. Only 20 % may remain to be used by the Coffs Harbour community.
Apart from improving the quality of fresh foods, growing locally brings more money to the local community. Buying locally keeps more money in the local community.
There has been a lot of research on this concept, and conclusions of the effectiveness range widely.
The impact of buying from the major supermakets for someone in Bellingen is quite clear. Apart from travelling, most likely driving, to Coffs Harbour, you can be sure that none of your money will stay in the local Bellingen community, but 80% of it will immediatley be transferred to the headquarters of the company. Only 20 % may remain to be used by the Coffs Harbour community.
Why is this important?
Money retained in the local community will be used again and again, some estimates suggest 6 times but other 2-3 times.
The local organic vegetable grower sells food into the local market and then spends the money earned in the local community. They may grow plants from their own seeds and do produce highly nutritious products.
In town, the butcher gets a haircut, the hairdresser spends some of the earnings buying meat, having coffee, the barista has a haircut. Of course, if the barista goes to Coffs Harbour for a haircut, the opportunity for further circulation of that money ceases.
Buy-local schemes are proposed from time to time by the Chamber of Commerce, and local food initiatives such as Bellofoodbox are putting local supply and distribution into effect.
The most beneficial approach is to grow your own food from your own seeds – guaranteed quality of product at lowest cost. The money saved can be spent in the local community on other products and it will circulate to the benefit of the community.
If you earned less money from a shorter working week, you would have more time to grow your highly nutritious vegetables, spend less in travelling to work, see the kids more often, get them to grow the vegetables.
The way the economy had developed in the name of efficiency made it more difficult to move to a localised economy. However the change in public opinion about big business from 2015 was the catalyst for this change.
More about the effect on the local community is reported in the section on "ENGAGING WITH EACH OTHER"