Monday, October 12, 2009

Locavores Versus Consumers

The NY Times Magazine had a food theme yesterday, including an article by Mark Bittman in which he argues for a quantum leap forward in grocery shoppiing:
"This is my fantasy about virtual grocery shopping: that you could ask and be told the provenance and ingredients of any product you look at in your Web browser. You could specify, for example, “wild, never-frozen seafood” or “organic, local broccoli.”
He also wants his preferences recorded with the ability to be notified of the arrival of his favorites. He interviews a software vendor about the possibilities and concludes existing retailers aren't really focused on filling his individual wants. 

I think a big hurdle to this is the almost reflexive opposition by small and local growers to tracking and animal identification systems.  That's going to be needed to get the data needed to keep Bittman happy into the IT system.

No comments: