The New Local

Relax: You don't need to eat bad cheese to support the local economy.

by Bruce Schimmel

The amiable Emilio Mignucci winced visibly when I asked him about the new "Buy Local Philly" campaign. Perhaps it wasn't the most opportune time. We're chatting at a gala grand opening for Di Bruno Bros.' new international gourmet food store on Chestnut Street. (Fore more on Di Bruno's, see p. 58.) Mignucci is the store's buyer, a legendary cheese affineur who can practically taste a fine cheese by squeezing it. But while creamy Epoisses from France and piquant parmigianos from Italy are granted berths on his shelves, the slim young man with the diamond stud earrings has yet to embrace many locally produced cheeses.

On display at Di Bruno's are about 1,100 cheeses. Of those, maybe 20 are made locally — mostly the fresh types, like farmers' cheese or mozzarella. The aged cheeses that represent the acme of the cheese maker's art — the silky Vacherons, the biting Goudas — almost all come from somewhere else.

From the point of view of quality alone, Mignucci's choices are right. Face it: Except for the occasional batch of fresh goat or the odd cheddar, most American-made cheeses stink — and not in a good way.

Still, I ask again if he's heard about the "Buy Local Philly" campaign (www.buylocalphilly.org) of the Sustainable Business Network (SBN), but before he can answer, a burly man puts down a case of coffee and rescues Mignucci with a bear hug.

After planting a kiss on his cheek, the big guy turns to me. "Sustainable business?" he scoffs. "After three generations, Di Bruno's is definitely a sustainable business."

In fact, he's right. According to SBN's new executive director, Leanne Krueger-Braneky, buying local means patronizing businesses that are locally owned, regardless of where they buy their goods. So celebrate: you don't have to snarf bad cheese or quaff rank wine to benefit the local economy.

SBN recently launched a campaign of in-your-face ads (tag line: "My City Is My Business") featuring local retail business owners who live here. It's hardly a new or radical idea that money spent locally stays local. For many, it's just common sense. But SBN has encountered one naysayer, Philadelphia Inquirer business writer Andrew Cassel, who recently attacked their "Buy Local Philly" campaign.

In a recent Sunday column, Cassel claimed that asking consumers to buy from local owners is really no different from "urging people to patronize businesses owned by Christians, or heterosexuals, or white people." According to Cassel, money spent at a big-box retailer doesn't really "leak" out of the region. He calls the notion that dollars spent locally tend to be recycled locally "almost certainly bogus." For Cassel, these are crackpot notions from "activists battling "big-box' chains in Maine, Texas and elsewhere."

Professor Stephan J. Goetz is not an activist; Goetz is an academic, a professor of economics at Penn State University whose work Cassel is apparently unaware of. Goetz has done hard-number research on the effects of big-box stores on local economies, including a recent study that links higher poverty rates to the construction of new Wal-Marts. I asked Goetz to review Cassel's column.

Cassel's narrow focus, Goetz says, ignores the big picture. Cassel's narrow stance, says Goetz, "assumes that we do not care whether our neighbors are gainfully employed, or whether the cost of a head of lettuce delivered from California to Philadelphia reflects the true environmental costs." Profits do leak out of a community, insists Goetz, when the business owners live elsewhere, and also he cites the loss of local reinvestment and the loss of local leadership.

Goetz is not alone in his critique of Cassel. I suspect SBN's Krueger-Braneky is secretly pleased with Cassel's dunderheadedness. "It's created an interesting opportunity because we've gotten lots of e-mails asking, "How can I help?'" Among those clamoring to pick up the cudgel is Michael Shuman, who's scheduled to speak at an SBN conference on May 20-21 (www.sbnphiladelphia.org also has reprints of additional economic studies).

Shuman, a buy-local activist with a national reputation, has also reviewed Cassel's column and is somewhat less circumspect than Goetz. He calls Cassel "woefully underinformed" and intentionally misleading.

Shuman, who admits to owning two Toyotas, says "it's a red herring to say we believe that people should spend a lot of money on a product just because it's produced locally. Though clearly, the more you can get local ownership and local sources, the more positive impact on the local economy."

Kreuger-Braneky has invited Cassel to SBN's upcoming conference, where Shuman says he's ready to debate Cassel "in any format, in front of any audience, at any time." (At press time, they've received no reply.)

Meanwhile, if you do shop at Di Bruno's — or any locally-owned shop — go ahead and buy the best food from anywhere — including local chocolates from The Painted Truffle and cannolis from Termini's (for which I think they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize). Still, if you do see Emilio Mignucci, you might remind him that as summer approaches, the best produce you can buy is still grown right here.

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