11/12 Guests Cara and Karl Rosaen

Category: Guest Contributors

Last month I learned about a cool website, Real Time Farms that connects consumers to local farmers and restaurants that use locally grown food in their offerings.  (10/12 post) This is such an amazing tool that I’ve asked the proprietors of Real Time Farms for personal insight about their vision and to share it with Exploits.    

Here is the beginning of this conversation with the founders Cara and Karl Rosean, who I hope will continue to contribute their thoughts with us.

Exploits: What is Real Time Farms?

Cara: An online local food guide.  Our motto is: “Know Your Farmer.  Find Their Food.”  It was founded by Karl Rosaen, a University of Michigan alum.  He left a cushy job at Google in California to start Real Time Farms!

Exploits: Why did you create the website Real Time Farms?
Karl: It sprang from two motivations.  First, after reading books like “Omnivore’s Dilemma”, it became important to me to know more about what I was eating and where it came from.  While I found many regional or local food guides and a few national ones, I felt there was room to create one comprehensive and dynamic food guide.  It is a single place for visitors to learn about their local, farm fresh food, how it was grown and where they can find it.

Second, I felt that I could build a space to share information and photos to give a voice to independent farms and farmers across the country. Under-promoted, farm fresh items often get lost in the shuffle of brightly-colored food products at mainstream local food retailers.  Real Time Farms can help level that playing field.

Exploits: What is the mission of Real Time Farms?

Karl: 1) To engage and educate consumers about their local food ecosystem; connecting them to their local farmers and all of the ways they can find local, farm fresh food in their communities.

2) To provide tools for restaurants and food retailers to showcase to consumers all of the ways they source locally.

Exploits: What is your favorite part of doing Real Time Farms?

Cara: It gives me the feeling of being really alive. I feel part of a movement that is changing the food system to help people live healthier, more sustainable lives. Everyday, I’m excited as I see people post photos directly to the site from farmers markets and farms across the country. It’s created by all of us.  I get to be a part of something as it comes to life. I’m grateful everyday.

Thank you Cara and Karl, we look forward to sharing more with you in the journey.   Photos courtesy of the Roseans.  Visit them at Real Time Farms.
Have a delicious day.

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November 12th, 2010
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