Meet the (Frito-Lay) farmer

It happened with organic, and now it’s happening with the adjective “local.” Frito-Lay, as Kim Severson reported in the Times last week, has hijacked the local descriptor, using it to market its potato chips regionally on T.V. spots in five states: Florida, California, Maine, Michigan and Texas. The $12 billion convenient foods business contracts with 80 potato farmers across the country; five of them are appearing on the ads. Other companies such as Hunt’s and Kraft are doing the same thing, Severson says, “mining the concept because consumers care more than ever about where their food comes from.”

Well if consumers really do care where their food is coming from—and I think they do—don’t you think they’ll shop at the farmer’s market, or (gasp!) not buy potato chips at all? (Maybe, dare I suggest it, even make their own?) Frito-Lay spokeswoman Aurura Gonzalez says her company wants to provide consumers with “the freshest product possible”—ironic when you think that the chips, bagged in factories across the country, have a shelf life of months and (aside from their “Classic” chips) contain MSG, dextrose, maltodextrine and other artificial additives and flavors.

As Severson wittily writes, “this mission creep has the original locavores choking on their yerba mate.”

Unlike Sysco, which has been working with small farmers regionally for years, Lay’s seems to be jumping on the “local” bandwagon all of a sudden, capitalizing on consumer awareness about food miles (if not a true locavore ethos). Crucially, Sysco contracts with small-scale growers to distribute produce regionally: everything from specialized products like heirloom cherry tomatoes and asparagus to basic staples such as green beans and Yukon gold potatoes. Sysco is not using the modifier “local” in vain, to hawk packaged junk food that lists Monosodium Glutamate on its ingredients list.

But Lay’s forgot about our desire to support small-scale, relationship-based food economies. Or at least, the company’s vision of what that means is so lame as to be laughable. At my CSA, we have a “meet the farmer” event where members come to the park where our produce is delivered weekly to talk to the farmer. Lay’s version of this is to broadcast costly T.V. commercials that highlight a handful of its 80 farmers. Well, at least we can see the farmer, even if he can’t see us.

Consumers are smarter than Frito-Lay, Hunt’s, et al give us credit for. To many of us, buying local has everything to do with supporting the underdog—the artisanal cheesemaker, the new coffee shop on the corner, the struggling farmer that comes to the market week after week to sell what’s in season. We know that, as with the organic label, any food that requires packaging to claim that it’s organic is not, actually, food but an edible food-like substance.

Which is not to say that those of us “original locavores” don’t ever slip up and eat food-like substances. And when given the choice between locally-produced potato chips and those that are made at some anonymous multi-national company, we may very well plunk down money for the “local” brand. But Frito-Lay may be surprised by just how many Americans can see through their manipulative advertising.

When faced with two brands of chips, I, for one, would rather support a truly local business. I’m from Salem, Oregon, and even though Kettle Chips are now ubiquitous around the country (and indeed, the world—I once spotted them in a convenience store in London), I buy them with pride, even when I’m nowhere near their headquarters in Salem. A hypocrite?  Maybe. The food miles of such a purchase are high, since I now live in Brooklyn, NY. But I’d rather do that than reward a gargantuan company that’s transparently trying to make money off the now-mainstream Buy Local movement.

Vote with your fork, I say.