An article in The Guardian reported that last week was Purple Love Week in the UK, and while it may sound like the celebration of some strange sexual peccadillo, Purple Love Week is entirely wholesome: the only peculiar fetish being indulged here is a fetish for food.

PLW is the brainchild of Giles Henschel, co-founder of a Dorset, UK food company, and the yearly event is, essentially, an annual love-in for Britain's independent food retailers: delis, farm shops, butchers, bakers, grocers and good food stores of every conceivable kind. However, in this, its fourth year, the PLW message is less a rallying cry than a stark warning: Use or lose your local shops.

Last week, Alberta's provincial government revealed that the province is officially in recession and that our local economy should brace for increasing rates of lay-offs and bankruptcies.  The stark announcement arrives as no surprise to community-oriented small businesses that are already feeling the pressures of the recession.  They were the first to suffer from labour shortages and supply chain disruptions during Alberta's unprecedented boom, but are also the first to feel the pain of dropping demand and sharply rising overhead and input costs as their local economy contracts.

The Guardian also reported that, according to the UK's New Economics Foundation, every five pound note spent at a locally owned business circulates five times before it leaves the local economy.  In this way, the circulation is actually worth £25. On this basis, if two million people took part in Purple Love Week nationally, that would represent a £50m cash injection for Britain's independent food shops.

Britain's population is now in the depths of economic recession and even the D-word is on the lips of American policy makers.  Here in Edmonton, we have already seen the closure of a handful of local food shops (Lansdowne IGA, McKernan Fresh Market, Organic Roots Garneau) and the closure of some favourite independent restaurants. 

As we too are drawn down this path, perhaps its now too late to make a rallying cry.  Instead it may be time to borrow the stark warning of the PLW: Use it or lose it!