Ottawa residents buy produce from Ottawa Farm via Ajax warehouse

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This is an article from the Ottawa Citizen It has been edited for length.

By Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen Special September 26, 2009 8:03 AM OTTAWA

The SunTech Greenhouse is a 15-minute drive from Ottawa. Using hydroponics, the Manotick company has been growing pesticide-free tomatoes -- according to some critics, the best-tasting in the province -- for 10 years.

It's been a local success story, with a sprawling 10,426-square-metre facility that supplies grocery chains such as the Loblaws group, which includes Real Canadian Superstore and No Frills.

But if you picked up a few SunTech beefsteaks in the last week or so at your neighbourhood Loblaws thinking you were buying a 100-mile product, think again.

While SunTech tomatoes are still grown locally, they are now being trucked more than 700 kilometres before reaching a Loblaws near you.

The grocery chain recently stopped distributing produce from its warehouse on Sheffield Road [Ottawa]. So instead of delivering their freshly picked tomatoes to the local distribution centre, or directly to stores, SunTech now has to truck its produce to Ajax, just east of Toronto.

That's where Loblaws has built a massive distribution centre to serve much of Ontario. The company then delivers the tomatoes back to Ottawa stores.

The Ottawa-Ajax round trip is 730 kilometres. Each run costs SunTech more than $600.

"We have a sign up in our store out at the farm that says, 'Trucking doesn't add flavour,'" says SunTech owner Bob Mitchell.

Although not cost-effective or sustainable for the long term, Mitchell will continue to ship to Ajax. After all, Loblaws is a major client and he hopes he'll be able to convince the grocery chain to accept direct deliveries at their stores.

"It used to be that our delivery trip was 35 kilometres," said Mitchell. "We'd deliver to Loblaws, to Metro, Farm Boy, maybe Produce Depot, all in one shot. It made it virtually a non-cost item.

"Now it's a 10-hour round trip, best-case scenario. Ajax is not next door." So while Loblaws' in-store signs boast that certain products are "Grown Close to Home," it's unclear how much they've travelled.

It begs the question: Can a tomato grown 20 kilometres away, but trucked 700 kilometres, still be considered "local"? Proponents of 100-mile diets say definitely not. Eating local is all about supporting area farmers, but also getting fresher food that takes less time to get from farm to table, and that has travelled minimally, reducing the carbon footprint of one's meal.

But to huge corporations, the term can mean anything produced on the outskirts of town to the other side of the country.

No company has jumped onto the eating-local bandwagon with more enthusiasm than Loblaws. The company's chief executive, Galen Weston Jr., has taken to the TV screen in commercials highlighting Canadian farmers who supply the grocery chain.

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Polls consistently report that a majority of Canadians want more locally sourced foods. Some report that respondents are even willing to spend more on a locally produced item than on a similar import.

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"A lot of the stores have told us that they're no longer interested in the local tomato that has 700-plus kilometres on it," he said. He doesn't blame them: The whole point of SunTech's operation is its ability to get fresh, ripe tomatoes onto shelves quickly.

"So who makes the decision here?" asked Mitchell. "The customer or the mother company?"