Retailers often guide their consumer’s decisions about the food. R15 notes the importance of her position, “I do feel a great sense of responsibility to people who are spending money here...I would not want to lead them wrong or ever make bad decisions for them.” Once, when she was unsure of her constituents’ responses, R15, a distributor, sent out an email to her customers explaining that she wanted to buy from a certain producer, because she liked him, but that he was not certified. 99.9% of customers wrote back and said “we completely trust you.”

Retailers were less concerned about their producers’ labels or certifications because they had established a trusting relationship with their producers and, in turn, with their customers. R1 said: “First is quality and taste. I mean organic is definitely a plus but I know that a lot of the farms I am working with are beyond organic and a lot of them don’t get certified since it’s so time consuming. For the eggs – that’s always…I find the eggs to be the most difficult thing, there’s so much confusion over all the different labels…the best ones are the ones you get from the farm; they are truly free range. A lot of the time the labels are misleading. I don’t follow labels as much as I follow talking to the farmers directly. The same goes for livestock and how they are raised. I know there are labels though, like pastured and grass fed and free range.”

This creation of trust was often enhanced because of retailers’ careful attention to the transparency of their operations and distribution of relevant information to their customers and producers. A dialog directly with producers (to discuss quality, certifications, or daily logistics) allowed retailers to work with the producer to meet their needs, and informing consumers of their practices allowed retailers to explain their trade offs and choices. R14 explains, “I think mostly people have a sense of safety that we’re sourcing well, as well as we can. We have a few customers who are crazier and stricter than we are. (My work has sort of been out there too [so] we sort of started off with this body of trust.) Transparency comes in for those people.”