Although located in a highly populated area, the Bay Area local food community seems to be very close-knit and knowledgeable of each other. Most people we interviewed had an association with Chez Panisse and everyone seemed to know everyone. Most were involved in Slow Food SF, all monitored and used each others' services, and a few have “foodie” blogs.

Yet, we received mixed reviews regarding the cooperative nature of the local food community. Overall, the majority of retailers noted that people in the local food ecosystem want each other to succeed. For example, when we asked how retailers found producers initially, we were often given a common example of how, if a producer did not have a certain product that a retailer was inquiring about, the producer would refer a retailer to someone else and even potentially share a route to market with their producer friend (R14). People are friends; they have long-term, trusting relationships with their business partners and they support each other.

However, entry into the Bay Area local food market could potentially be challenging. It may be that a retailer who did not become involved in this scene could miss out on valuable knowledge about the support network of farmers, new ingredients, distributor favors, seasonal variations, opportunities for showcasing talent or celebrating accomplishments. R1, a new retailer, described how producers asked questions about him to know if he was “worthy” of their produce: “Who is he? Where does he work? What’s the concept?” These tests for quality also take place in the opposite direction.

R10 said: “I think that…from the butcher department we’re looking for farmers that are, I don’t know, I guess farmers that are working as hard as we are to do the right thing. People that are not going to take any shortcuts, they are going to do it the right way from start to finish because it is the right way, and it’s something that’s important to them."

However, not everyone expressed such harmony. Certain retailers who were attempting to compete with larger competitors explained that certain aspects of the industry were quite competitive. “Even though we are in this really crunchy green happy industry it's very cutthroat...everybody is clawing for every last penny” (R16). “I love the food part, the feeding people part, I feel like I am nourishing people...all the other politics stuff about produce, I hate that.” (R15). R15, a distributor, describes the difficulties she had buying from established, medium-sized, local farms: “Produce is very political...People don't think about it.” Originally she thought, “Why can't I go to Joe Farmer and get carrots...?” Yet, when she asked, some farms said, “Oh I'm very sorry you have to buy my stuff through the other [established] distributor.”  

Overall we found that people were willing to freely share a large amount of information with each other, even if exchange of physical goods, or actual sourcing, between those two entities would not take place. "You don’t want to hog somebody or keep that from somebody else…you want everybody to profit from the business or the exchange…you would never hog or covet a relationship” (R10). “I’m always telling people if I find something good…call up this person they are great to work with” (R12). “We’re paying less attention about what other people are doing than about what we’re doing ourselves.” “It’s not just because we want to be better than Whole Foods we just want to be better” (R11).