Sudbury

Eat Local Sudbury to be dissolved, doors to close March 1st

Eat Local Sudbury will be shutting its doors in a little over a month. About 75 members of the co-operative met Thursday night to decide the fate of the business.

Local producers will need to find new locations to sell their products

Green beans, strawberries and English cucumbers sit in blue bins in a close-up of a grocery produce display
Children will learn about local produce at an upcoming Eat Local workshop for children. (Hilary Duff/CBC)

Eat Local Sudbury will be shutting its doors.

About 75 members of the co-operative met Thursday night to decide the fate of the business.

Eat Local Sudbury provides locally grown food and support for local producers. It has seen a decline in business recently.

Stuart McCall, a farmer in Garson, used to volunteer with Eat Local. 

He calls the news 'disappointing' for small local producers, and says it will be Eat Local's customers who will lose out in the end.
Garson farmer Stuart McCall, calls it disappointing news that Eat Local Sudbury will be dissolved and will close its doors March 1st. (Megan Thomas/CBC)

However, McCall thinks the Greater Sudbury Food Policy Council is expected to take on the social enterprise side of things.

"Advocating for local food, having pop up markets, attending festivals and events throughout the city, you know, the garden festival, the seedy Saturday those kinds of things. Holding the food fair in the fall," he says.

"I don't think the whole thing is going to fall through the cracks. There is sort of a bit of a safety net."

McCall says people around Sudbury are still interested in buying and eating local food, citing increased farm gate sales for farmers and increased customers to the farmers' market.

Eat Local Sudbury says those producers who sell at the storefront on Larch Street will need to look for other places to sell their products.

The business will be dissolved and will officially close March 1.