InSeason makes getting real local food in Boston less annoying

Crandall definitely has a personal stake in helping out local farms - he comes from Vermont farming stock himself, and has often seen the struggles farmers endure to survive in a industrialized business that has left them behind.

"I feel very strongly about farmers in New England. I wouldn't have chosen this business if I didn't feel there was this intrinsic part of New England that's just vanishing. My family history is in Vermont, [where] the dairy farms are being replaced by townhouses," Crandall says. "Places lose their personality when they modernize and homogenize. I don't want that to happen for New England. There's a strong contingent that wish it wasn't like that everywhere. And those are the folks I'm trying to appeal to."

However, Crandall's business approach is refreshingly gritty, not granola. Crandall is clear about InSeason's raison d'etre: there's market that's yet to mature, there are obstacles between producers and consumers that a business like his can easily remove, and there's a niche in the Boston food market that is still wide open, despite the "local food" industry's complete overexposure in the press.

In short: InSeason is about running a business that actually helps people get groceries and farmers make money, rather than presiding over an enterprise that's just meant to make people feel good.

"I’ve talked with a lot of farmers over the past year or so and by and large their feelings about Whole Foods condense down to this type of a statement: 'They don’t really want to buy enough from me for their customers to regularly buy my products, they want to buy enough from me so they can hang a ‘Buy Local’ sign with the name of my farm in their produce section'", Crandall recently wrote in his blog. "As hard as they may try, I just don’t think it is possible for a publicly traded company of their size to do what they want us to think they do. They need better profit margins, they need to buy cheap stuff and mark it way up. At their size, this means the 'Buy Local' part of their business plan is more branding than buying."

Crandall's critical sentiments also extend to farmer's markets, which he says exist mainly because small communities like to have them -- not because they present a good opportunity for the farmer, who often has to drive hours simply for the opportunity to sell the produce, without a guaranteed payoff. Nor are they helpful for those who work during the daylight hours -- Crandall says that he mostly sees senior citizens perusing the racks, while those with families to feed are at work.

"I'm all for farmer's markets, but there's a huge group of people who don't get the food – and they're the people with the paychecks," Crandall says.

By delivering groceries by order (no surprise boxes of beets), offering "staples" like pasta and bread alongside produce (so that you can make an entire meal from one delivery and skip the grocery store line), and guaranteeing 100% local, organic products (no label-scrutinizing), Crandall aims to eliminate much that is obnoxious about the hunting and gathering process of the 9-to-5 Boston resident. We're just hoping he's got enough bikes and trucks to feed the lot of us.

Also: Crandall's looking to make afternoon deliveries to Boston workplaces, so if you live outside a delivery area but work in the city, you and your workplace buds can get together and put in your grocery orders in together, so you've got dinner in hand before your evening commute. See www.inseason.us for deets.