Coterie Market: Expanding the Go Local Movement

Often, when someone brings up the "Go Local" movement, thoughts immediately go to local food, but in fact the movement covers a wide range of products that can be made locally.
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Often, when someone brings up the "Go Local" movement, thoughts immediately go to local food, but in fact the movement covers a wide range of products that can be made locally. Austin, TX (where I live) has hundreds of "makers" who not only create amazing food, but also beautiful clothing, wonderful soaps, heirloom-quality pottery, environmentally-friendly cleaning products and a host of other goods. Local food is made accessible to the masses through a number of farmers markets that occur around the city every week and a number of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) delivery services, but anyone who wanted to branch out their Go Local lifestyle beyond just food had to hunt out opportunities to do so.

Austinite Chelsea Staires is an advocate for the "Go Local" movement and serves on the leadership board for Slow Food Austin. In the fall of 2012, she started an online delivery service, Coterie Market, that takes the best that Austin has to offer and puts it all under one roof. Chelsea is expanding the CSA model to include all manner of locally made goods and making it "on-demand", delivering within 24-48 hours of an order being placed.

As an advocate for the local food movement myself, I wanted to tell Chelsea's story and help widen people's ideas of what "Go Local" can mean.

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