by Jon Roesser

My New Year’s Resolution seemed simple enough:

Eat More Local.

Goodbye, Unilever. So long, Nestle. From now on I will only eat food made by my neighbors. After all, this is Philadelphia, and this is a food town.

In 2016 I’m going to be able to hop on a train or take a quick car ride to shake hands with the men and women responsible for growing or making the food I eat. Like Bassetts Ice Cream. As their website says, Bassetts is “a Philadelphia tradition since 1861.”

Thick-wristed counter clerks have been scooping this stuff at their home base in the Reading Terminal since Benjamin Harrison was president. It is, like Taskykake and the Whitman’s Sampler, an iconic Philadelphia food brand.

The trouble is, though, that Bassetts Ice Cream isn’t made in Philadelphia. Bassetts Ice Cream isn’t even made by Bassetts Ice Cream. Bassetts Ice Cream is made by Galiker’s Dairy in Johnstown, PA, about 250 miles from Reading Terminal.

Say what? Why is everything so hard?

I will resist the temptation to pick on Bassetts. The company is based in Philadelphia, and the people who work there seem nice enough. When I inquired about why they stopped making their own ice cream (way back in 1989), Michael Strange, great-great grandson of the founder, was quick to respond and very forthright. A steady loss of local dairy farms to suburban subdivisions made operating their own ice cream factory in Philadelphia unsustainable.

At least the Bassetts folks deserve credit for remaining independent and reinventing themselves to deal with the new realities of their industry. I wish I could say the same for most other esteemed Philadelphia companies.

The list is long and sad and transcends all industries. Wanamaker’s, which foolishly gave me my first credit card, is now Macy’s. Philadelphia-based Bell Atlantic is now New York-based Verizon. Acme Market’s first store was in South Philadelphia; today the Acme brand is owned by Idaho-based Albertson’s.

Germantown Savings Bank, where I opened my first bank account, was bought out by Core States, which was bought out by First Union, which was bought out by Wachovia, which was bought out by Wells Fargo (all in 20 years, no kidding).

PECO is essentially a brand of Chicago-based energy goliath Exelon. The once venerable and locally headquartered Philadelphia Electric Company has been dead since 2000. PECO is its undead successor.

The Whitman’s Sampler hasn’t been made in Philadelphia since the mid-1990s, when Whitman’s was bought out by long-time rival Russell Stover, which almost immediately closed down the old Whitman’s chocolate factory and moved production elsewhere. (Russell Stover has subsequently been gobbled up by Swiss-based Lindt.)

As for Tastykake, it’s just a brand of Thomasville, GA-based Flowers Foods, makers of, among other things, Wonder Bread. Krimpets and Kandy Kakes are, for now, still made in Philadelphia but only for as long as the suits in Thomasville think it’s a good idea.

This steady erosion of local ownership, of local production, of local decision-making is undeniably bad for our city. Philadelphia is losing its soul. But as the New Year dawns, there’s hope! Most old iconic Philadelphia companies may have sold out, but in the abandoned factories and office buildings they carelessly left behind, a New Philadelphia has risen. John & Kira’s. Metropolitan Bakery. Philadelphia Brewing Company. La Colombe. Dozens, probably hundreds of others. All over the city, small independent breweries, distillers, coffee roasters, chocolatiers, bakers and, yes, ice cream makers are reclaiming our food manufacturing heritage.

Philadelphia’s growing food now, too. The largest: our very own Weavers Way farm, which harvested 40,000 pounds of produce last year, every ounce grown and sold in the city.

It turns out Philadelphia still is a food town. You just have to forage a little more than you used to. The New Philadelphia companies might be puny compared to the companies of old, but the men and women who run these new companies can say something about themselves that no executive at PECO or Acme or Verizon can: They’re the boss.

So after much reflection, I have revised my New Year’s Resolution: Eat More Zsa’s Ice Cream.

That’s one promise I can surely keep.

See you around the Co-op.

Jon Roesser is General Manager of the Weavers Way Cooperative Association, based in Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill.

* Reprinted, with permission, from The Shuttle.