The Transit of My Food As I sit here at my kitchen table, I contemplate about the meal that is in front of me. There sitting on my plate is pancakes with maple syrup, turkey sausage, grits, and a glass of orange juice. I have never once thought about where this food comes from let alone how did it get to the store that I bought it from, but when I received this assignment it got me to thinking. There are many people that have their hand in the food that I eat everyone day. Someone has to pick the oranges in order for me to have my orange juice and someone has to find that tree in order to get the maple syrup. There are many factors, but in order to understand it you have to be in the mind set of those that do this on a day to day basis. The question is where do the food and drink that we consume from a day to day basis. Before these items reach our local grocery store or wholesales club, they have to come from somewhere. The fruits and vegetables that we eat come from a farm and then they are sold to the local grocery stores usually the mom and pop stores within the community. Well when these mom and pop grocery stores grow and become a franchise, they continue to use these farms for their produce. The growers and the managers at the stores make connections to discuss the purchasing of these products. This is one of the ways that businesses get their items. Production of locally marketed food is more likely to occur on small farms located in or near metropolitan counties (Martinez, 2010). When a store knows exactly where their food is coming from, then they want to let the consumers know as well with signs indicating the origin of the produce and possible recipes using the item. If a consumer knows that particular item is grown on a farm, they are likely to purchase it. The store may also invite the producer to the store to talk about their produce and pass out samples to the consumers. Not only trying to find who you will buy your product from, but you also have to work with the grower to figure out the pricing. The pricing would be at a wholesale price and not at a retail price because at the retail price it would be a lot more money than wholesale. How much money is you will to spend and what is the quantity of the product? All this plays into getting the food to the store. As I farther my research, I found out through my husband that the company that he works for owns quite a few of the packaged food that we consume. For one I use Aunt Jemima pancake, maple syrup, Quaker grits, and Tropicana orange juice so PepsiCo (the owners of Pepsi Cola) owns this. These products are manufactured in Chicago, Illinois. The Jennie-O turkey sausage that we eat is within the United States as well. This product is manufactured out of Willmar, Minnesota. They still have the companies that make and package these products and shipped them to the stores. I have not realized how much and the origin of these foods. The produce and packaged foods mostly comes from within the United States and they are either shipped via truck to the grocery stores. Packaging is what appeals to a lot of consumers as well especially if the package has the name of the local farm where the product came from because this tells the consumer that this product came from a farm and you as a consumer can always go online and found out other things about the farm. On the most of the packaging there is information that tells you the ingredients and the nutritional value of the item. These are very helpful for those that are on a diet or who are very health conscience. There are many reasons why most people want to buy locally, but of course with advantages there are disadvantages. An advantage with buying grocery items locally are as follows: the money stays in the community, good for the community, and the other shops in the community will benefit, do not have to travel as far for a good deal, less packaging. The disadvantages