Selling local

I just love the endless exhortations to "buy local".  It sounds like a no brainer.  Then you ship a load of  local Canadian lettuce and the customer says it looks great, but his trade would prefer inferior California product that has been shipped 3000 miles and had problems before it was shipped.  Unfortunately, despite the fact that with new varieties and state of the art cooling facilities, the Canadian lettuce is on average superior to the California average, the institutional memory of many buyers kicks in and they remember the shoddy uncooled product these growers were pumping out in the 80s and 90s.  That lettuce had the shelf life of a mayfly and looked like someone accidentally sat on it.  It takes a long time to overcome those negative mental images.  A story on NPR this morning regarding the revival of the Lincoln car brand by Ford makes a similar point.  They estimate it will take 10 years to turn around public perception of the dowdy Town Car and make it competitive with Lexus and BMW.  At least the Lincoln had a quality image at one point.  The Canadians and other local deals on the east coast can't even point to past reputation for quality.  It's more like trying to revive the Dodge Dart and convince everyone it is not your Father's Dodge.  Good luck with that.  We will just have to keep making good deliveries and trust that eventually people's perceptions will align with reality.  That and $10,000. California freight.