Local is global

A shop that sells organic, locally grown fresh vegetables - tomatoes, spinach, chillies, carrots, fennel, aubergines, peppers, lettuce, okra, watercress, potatoes and beetroot  - plus locally made chutney, mozzarella and ricotta, freshly baked bread and gluten free cookies, biscotti, bread and cakes. Nothing special there, right? Sounds like what you'd expect from any food co-op or higher end grocery store in Eugene, or any other reasonably hip college town or big American city.

The catch? The store in question, the newly opened Ripe Farm Shop, isn't in some Pacific Northwest hipster neighborhood. It's a farmer's market done Dubai style. Located in the town of Umm Suqeim, the shop is part of an expanding business catering to Dubai consumers who want fresh, local, organic food and craft goods. What a concept, right.

It may be that the Ripe Farm Shop is catering to an elite ex-pat community. Even so, it's reassuring to see that see that people halfway around the globe are as supportive of local food webs as we are here. And, hey, if I ever land a reporting gig in the United Arab Emirates, I'll know where to shop, so there's that.