The 10th Annual Boston Local Food Festival, promoting healthy local food for all, attracted thousands of visitors to the Greenway on Sunday.
Presented by Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts (SBN), the large farmer’s market brought together local farmers, fishers, restaurants, food trucks, food producers, and organizations who are all focused on healthy food and fitness. The festival featured over 80 vendors providing scrumptious meals for purchase, free samples, chef demos, and a seafood throw-down competition.
Aiming at a zero-waste event, the Boston Local Food Festival is committed to informing consumers of the benefits of buying locally and reducing environmental impact of human activity. According to SBN, spending $1 toward local food means that 90 cents of that goes toward the farmer as opposed to 27 cents if purchased non-locally. A New England Food Vision displayed a booth that called for New England to produce 50% of the region’s food by 2060 in a sustainable and accessible way.
The Trustees, a group dedicated to protecting New England’s outdoors, offered wildflower planting and composting lessons. The Boston Food Forest Coalition provided information about the uses of seed balls and offered free sunflower seed balls for attendees to take home to grow themselves.
Festival foodies enjoyed a variety of local food options such as caramel apples, street corn, and entire watermelon halves to drink from. The vendors and exhibitors helped contribute to a zero-waste festival by serving on biodegradable dish-ware and composting their food scraps. There were activities for everyone with fun ways to learn about fitness, gardening, and local food.
Mateo and Pedro, two brothers who hand-craft their chocolate, have learned to do so from living and learning among the rural farmers of places such as Peru. Their company, Prophecy Chocolate, sources their cacao beans directly from farmers in Peru and contributes 10% of their profits toward supporting indigenous communities, traditions, lands, and practices. The pair was enthusiastic about showing festival-goers their various ingredients and allowing them to sample the cacao beans to learn more about what goes into their chocolate.
Celebrating the virtues of locally grown and produced foods, the 10th Annual Boston Local Food Fest saw a successful turnout. Attendees were able to interact with local companies to learn more about how their food is sustainable and healthy. More information about the vendors and exhibitors who attended can be found here.
