September 19, 2011 After discovering “fruits & vegetables are transported around the Globe and purchasing an apple grown around the corner in a local supermarket is impossible”, Willem Treep and Drees Peter van den Bosch (of the Netherlands) got together to come up with an idea on how to get locally grown produce into local markets, and Willem & Drees was born.
“It is a new kind of distribution company: a local-for-local distribution company. Willem and Drees started bringing local fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables within a radius of 40 kilometers [just under 25 miles] to local supermarkets. These are conventional retail stores like Tesco and Wallmart but then smaller in size as the Netherlands have smaller sized supermarkets. We also bring fruits to catering locations. So what we are actually establishing is a breakthrough from mass standardized production to local biodiverse produce.”
Recently Willem & Drees was nominated for a Triodos Bank Heart Prize. If they win the prize of € 10.000 (just under $14,000), they hope to continue building their new endeavor of bringing locally grown seasonal foods to the communities throughout the Netherlands, which in turn would help build a local food economy and cut down the number of food miles for each product brought to market.
Deadline is September 21st, if you would like to give them of vote of support.
Here is a short video of Willem Treep and Drees Peter van den Bosch, talking about what they do. It is in Dutch, but you will get a visual sense of what their project is about:
And, a short video from Environmental Transport Association (ETA) showing how our food miles can add up quite quickly…entitled: Buy Local:
h/t @WillemenDrees