Our Commitment

For more than 30 years, Central Co-op's workers have been developing relationships with local family farmers and producers, whose bounty you'll see when it's seasonally available. With hundreds of local products that range from elegant beeswax candles to organic skincare, stunning rainbow carrots to raw food entrées, our emphasis on local products make positively contributing to our local food economy a pleasure.

Why Local

• Local foods' taste and nutritional qualities are exceptional.
• Buying local support family farms, allowing them to compete in the face of large-scale, industrial agriculture.
• Supporting locally grown and produced goods can reduce your carbon footprint.
• Small-scale agriculture better promotes food security and land and water stewardship.
• Local growing encourages genetic diversity as production is based on what naturally thrives.
• Locally directed buying and selling connects the community's resouces to its needs, resulting in relationships that serve to restore the land and regenerate community.

Bioregionalism

Bioregions, including Cascadia, are geographic areas that share common characteristics of climate, native plants and animals, soil, and watersheds.

Bioregionalism describes how unique living communities identify with a place, its culture, and its ecology. This place-based understanding of natural systems encourages deeper connection with and stewarship of an area. Local food economies benefit from and encourage bioregionalism.

What's Local

Central Co-op uses a three-tiered definition of local.

Gold Standard

Goods grown or produced within a 100-mile radius, their predominant ingredients or materials sourced inside the 100-mile radius.

Silver Standard

Goods grown or produced in Washington State, their predominant ingredients or materials sourced inside Washington State.

Bronze Standard

Goods grown or produced in the remainder of Cascadia, a bioregion consisting of Lower Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, and Northern California, their predominant ingredients or materials sourced inside Cascadia.

Locally Produced

Additionally, items produced, imported, or distributed by a local company with their predominant ingredients or materials sourced outside Cascadia are marked with a locally operated tag (gold, silver, and bronze designations as applicable, defined by the operation's physical location).

Always Evolving

We consider this interpretation of local a starting point. As language, bioregions, and food systems change, we will regularly examine whether our definition is culturally accurate and ecologically relevant, updating it when it fails these tests.