Here we plan a quick guide to finding slow food in the Rochester region. Note that while much slow food is local, and much local food is slow, they are not equivalent. A cabbage produced by a large-scale commercial farmer using conventional techniques with pesticides and chemical fertilizers may be local, but it is not Slow Food! And locally-roasted shade-grown coffee from an organic small family farm in Central America may be Slow but is only partially local. What follows here is a guide to Slow Food that is also local to the greater Rochester FoodShed. This is a work in progress and based on actual sitings at the markets I go to. If you see other sources of local items, please contact us and we'll add it to this list!
The main sources of local food are grocery stores, especially Abundance and Lori's, and the farmers markets which are listed here, and, of course, farms. There are also some smaller stores that carry some local items, including Red Bird Market in Fairport, Pittsford Dairy in Pittsford, and and others to be added soon. There are also many farm stands in the area, but we haven't attempted to catalog them yet! Please send us information on any good sources we have missed.
We hope to build this through the year. Currently, we only have a listing of foods available in September.