170: Charley Cummings - Fixing a Local Food System by Connecting Farmers with Consumers

Charley Cummings started his business Walden Local as a way to connect farmers with consumers. He also worked to address and fix the issues in the entire food supply system in his local New England area, and now it proudly serves 30,000 families there.

His business tackles everything from raising and processing animals to hand delivering the meat to consumers.

In this podcast episode, you’ll hear all about what led Charley to start this business, the problems he’s addressing, the obstacles he faced, and so much more.

On top of building Walden Local, Charley also created Walden Mutual, which is a bank that supports the local economy and, more specifically, the local farming community he works with.

You’ll not only hear about how Charley started Walden Mutual in this episode, but you’ll also learn about the true impact of your bank deposit dollars — you’ll be surprised by this one — and why you should pay more attention to where your money goes.

Here’s a look at some of the topics Charley and Dr. Anthony Gustin discuss:

• Charley’s story and how he found himself in this local agricultural movement space

• Charley’s experience that made him realize something more needed to be done to connect consumers with local farmers

• What Charley’s business Walden Local does

• The pivotal point that shifted Charley’s thinking on addressing global environmental issues and how he still uses this thought process today

• How Charley wanted to play a role in tackling environmental issues

• Why there’s no silver bullet to climate change and what can be done instead

• The problems Charley initially set out to solve and what that looks like today

• How Charley addressed issues like moving massive quantities of ground beef

• Why Charley doesn’t ship his meat and the delivery approach he uses instead

• Some of the challenges farmers in his area faced and what he did to help people overcome them

• What happens to your money when you deposit it in a traditional bank

• How to change where your deposit dollars go and why you’d want to do that 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Charley Cummings’ Walden Local website

• Charley’s Walden Local Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

• The bank Charley started - Walden Mutual

• Charley’s email - Charley@WaldenMutual.com