When you bite into your banana at lunch, do you ever consider how far it has travelled to satisfy your stomach pains?
If you bought it from Cooper’s Foods, chances are it came from Guatemala or Ecuador.
“We try as much as we can to buy locally,” said Josh Robinson, assistant manager at Cooper’s Foods in Merritt.
While the multicultural produce isles boast fruit with international labels, the only fruit native to Canada were sold-out raspberries and several bags of Spartan apples.
Watermelon, cantaloupe, apples, oranges, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries adorn the shelves courtesy of our southern partner, the United States.
Travel further south, to Mexico, to find the origin of our limes and grapes.
With pineapples from Costa Rica, coconuts from the Dominican Republic, and kiwis from New Zealand it is clear some fruit have travelled oceans and continents to reach our lunch boxes.
Rob Buurman, a produce clerk at Cooper’s, attributes the weather to being the reason why many of the produce seen in the isles isn’t grown locally.
He said when the weather warms up peaches and nectarines will come from the Okanagan, but fruit such as bananas and coconuts can’t be grown locally because they aren’t conducive to our climate.
Education about locally produced food is one of the reasons why the Food Security Task Group was created in May.
The group is a sub committee of the Social Planning Council led by volunteers from the community interested in the pursuit of a healthier, food secure community.
Food security is achieved when all people have access to nutritious, safe, personally acceptable, culturally appropriate, sustainably grown and normally obtained foods – at all times.
Sharon Hartline, of Ask Wellness, previous executive director of the Kamloops Food Bank and founder of the Food Security Task Group, said she saw a need when she noticed the amount of people coming into the ASK Wellness Centre still hungry after exhausting resources such as the food bank.
The group is developing a plan to achieve food security in Merritt.
In the early stages of planning, some projects have already been taken on.
Grow a Row – Plant a Row, where community members add an extra row to their garden to support the food bank, and a community garden, which will provide the public with fresh produce for free, are two projects already in the works.
They also plan to produce a guide of what can be purchased locally and where.
“It’s about what can be bought locally,” Hartline said.
Hartline doesn’t expect people to give up imported commodities that can’t be locally grown, she just hopes people will buy what they can locally.
“Honey for instance.”
Hartline has a passion for food security, and she found that members of the Merritt community do as well.
She started the group unaware of the level of interest.
“A flow of people came [to the first meeting],” she said.
The Food Security Task Group is seeking funding to hire a co-ordinator for the community garden.
“Healthy food leads to a healthy community,” Hartline said.
