Chow Locally

Chow Locally is a brand new business, and the first of its kind in Arizona. Chow Locally is an online marketplace that allows you to easily access the freshest seasonal foods grown by local ranchers and farmers.

You can think of us as a food hub, a business that does two important things. First, we bring together all the best foods that local farmers and ranchers produce, creating volume that no single farmer can achieve. Second, we get that amazing food out to individuals, families, restaurants, and organizations through our website and through our distribution mechanisms. Really, we’re a new model for the local food system, and we think this model holds a lot of promise because we can simultaneously meet the needs of our customers while supporting multiple local farmers at once.

Founders

Christopher Wharton, PhD

Chris has always been passionate about every aspect of food and has pursued the topic academically his whole adult life. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Illinois in Nutrition Sciences. He went on to complete a PhD at Arizona State University, after which he took a postdoctoral research position at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. His focus there was food policy, food environment, and obesity prevention.

Chris came back to ASU in 2007 as a professor in Nutrition in the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion. At ASU, he broadened his research and teaching to include focuses on local food systems and sustainability. After working hard to improve food access through local foods programs like farmers’ markets, Chris realized how important the broader local food system could be in improving health, community, and the environment. It was about this time that Chris met Derek, and the idea of Chow Locally was born. Chris is excited about Chow Locally because it offers a solution to so many concerns people have about food these days. It gives people the chance to buy food that is local, fresh, healthy, ethical, and sustainable. You can’t eat better food than that.

Derek Slife

Derek began writing software in the computer labs of ASU at the age of 12, keeping himself busy while his mother was attending graduate school. He had found his passion, and ever since, Derek has excelled at writing great software. Fast forward to his freshman year at Northern Arizona University, where he created his own custom software development business. The business, whose first projects included software development for architecture firms and Arizona-based utility companies, grew rapidly.  In 2001, the firm was sold and Derek embarked upon his adventures in the corporate world.  For ten years he led development teams on various software projects, which included automating supply chain operation, master data management, product search engines, pricing engines and other projects used to enhance the critical operations of Fortune 500 companies.  In 2011, Derek saw an opportunity he believed he had the skills to address, the need to give people better access to high quality, local food. So, he left the corporate scene to begin working on his own startup, Chow Locally.