The non-profit, Michigan Land Use Institute (MLUI) has just published their 2006 edition of Taste the Local Difference food guide. The Guide lists 200 small farms from 10 different counties growing produce for their local markets in Northwest Michigan.

The Guide is the pivot of MLUI's deeper effort to help farms and a wide range of local buyers find each other and make more local sales happen. MLUI produces the Guide and the marketing campaign that accompanies it. It also conducts market research and makes connections with food distributors and buyers.

Taste the Local Difference logo, menu icon, and posters are distributed to participating grocery stores, bed and breakfasts, resorts, and restaurants. And, consumers are encouraged to shop, dine, and stay in places that feature tasty local farm foods.

The Taste the Local Difference website (www.localdifference.org) is part of MLUI's Entrepreneurial Agriculture Project , "which works to grow jobs, save farmland, and build healthier communities with food that’s thousands of miles fresher."

Comment: The Taste the Local Difference Guide and on-line website project(s) comprise an interesting local food economy advocacy model to add to our list of "other places and what they are doing."

They are obviously somewhat well funded since the pocket size guide has a print run of 40,000 copies this year, up from 25,000 last year and is available at libraries, visitor centers, farmers markets, and other popular spots for free.

Questions: I'd like to know more about this project and if time allows will dig in a little deeper and post here. My questions have to do with funding, process/restrictions for getting listed in the Guide, costs/benefits of the Guide and the Taste the Local Difference project, limits of scale if any, replicability, project(s) evaluation if any, and if there is more in depth analysis available.

More Info: On the Michigan Land Use Institute.

Taste the Local Difference on line.