While we make lists of what to pick up and cook for Thanksgiving, the “buy local” movement is going strong.

A growing number of shoppers don’t want food that’s been trucked thousands of miles, and realize that feeding themselves and their families from local businesses nourishes area jobs. Farmers these days are getting more appreciation, and patrons.

Grabbing a grocery cart at the Lewiston Hannaford – a chain that labels local food with “Close to Home” tags – we set out to see what local Thanksgiving food we could find in the aisles.

There’s plenty — just about everything but the turkey. (Maine turkeys are also available from area farmers, but consumers needed to order ahead; the 49-cents-a-pound deals aren’t local.)

Here are some of the local — Maine and New England — foods available at area grocery stores, and the stories behind the products.

Cranberries from Turner

Don’t plop cranberry sauce from a can when you can make it from scratch using fresh cranberries grown in our backyard. Ricker Hill Orchards in Turner is one of a few Maine farms that grow cranberries.

Harry Ricker’s eighth-generation farm planted its first cranberry bog in 1997. By 2011 the farm had 14 acres of bogs and a growing customer following. Local produce managers report shoppers ask for Ricker cranberries by name and that they outsell the Ocean Spray berries from Massachusetts. Some insist the Maine berries taste better.

You can find bagged Turner cranberries in the produce sections of Hannaford, IGA stores and Whole Foods. If you’ve never tried making it from scratch, it’s easy. Boil the berries in 1 cup (or less) of water, add 1 cup of sugar, stir for about 10 minutes or until the berries start to split. That’s it. Yum.

One-Pie’s Maine origins

Speaking of yum, enter One-Pie canned pumpkin. The label says One-Pine Canning Co.’s address is P.O. Box 400, West Paris, Maine. It doesn’t say where it’s made.

One-Pie President Richard Penley of West Paris recently explained it used to be made in Maine, but now is made in the Midwest.

For years the canned pumpkin came from the Medomak Canning Co. in Waldoboro. Medomak canned a lot of different foods, Penley said. In 1985 the company went bankrupt. The canning plant closed.

In 1986, Penley and two partners bought Medomak Canning Co.’s assets. “We preserved some of Medomak’s labels,” including the pumpkin and squash pie fillings, along with Stewart’s beans and Bird’s frozen turnip and squash.

The Waldoboro canning plant was never reopened. Production moved to the Midwest, sales went to Billerica, Mass. “The corporate office is in West Paris,” Penley said.

How the product is prepared is the same, Penley said.

Regardless of where it’s made, One-Pie has a loyal following.

“It’s what I use,” said West Paris Town Clerk Karen Wilson. “It’s good.”

“I’ve used it for years. I love it,” said Paris town worker Dian Rainey.

(Ditto or me. One year I used another brand and was disappointed. One-Pie’s “New England Pumpkin Pie” recipe on the can helps create a perfect pie.)

Followers say they like that the label hasn’t changed. “It has a vintage look,” Wilson said.

Potatoes, squash, turnips from Lewiston

You can’t have a great Thanksgiving feast without fresh vegetables. We bought fresh potatoes, turnip, butternut and acorn squash from R. Belanger & Sons farm in Lewiston. It doesn’t get much more local than that.

Rick Belanger said his family farm is a second-generation affair. “My dad bought the farm in 1965 and started selling vegetables in 1969.” Belanger, which relies heavily on family “when we’re at full blast” in the summer, raises 30 kinds of produce, strawberries, tomatoes, string beans, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, pumpkins, squash and more.

The farm has a seasonal vegetable stand in Lisbon, sells to area vegetable stands including Blackie’s, as well as to area restaurants (The Village Inn), to Bourque’s Market and Hannaford. It also sells vegetables to some area schools (not Lewiston schools yet, Belanger said) plus Bates and Bowdoin colleges.

Consumers wanting local food “has been a great boom for us,” Belanger said. Today his farm is 180 acres, larger than it used to be. “We’ve had to clear land. In the last five years we’ve increased acreage by 25 percent.”

Bell’s seasoning from Massachusetts

Another food that screams Thanksgiving is Bell’s Seasoning. Generations of families associate the holiday with the little gold box.

The claim on the package that the original recipe was created by Boston food inventor William G. Bell in 1867 is true, said Sales Manager Bob Tallent from his East Weymouth, Mass., office.

The recipe of rosemary, oregano, sage, ginger, marjoram, thyme and pepper has never changed. The mixture has no salt, no fat and loads of flavor. It gives off a wonderful fragrance, enhancing the flavor of turkey, stuffing, turkey soup, turkey salad, turkey pot pie . . .

Also unchanged is the blue turkey logo; the design is Bell’s 1867 creation, meant to illustrate a wide turkey, Tallent said.

Today, Bell’s Seasoning is made by Brady Enterprises Inc. in Massachusetts, a company that employs 100 workers. Brady bought the Bell family product about 50 years ago. Brady has since added stuffing mixes to the line.

The company sells some 1.2 million boxes of the seasoning each year, mostly to New England cooks.

Cranberry wine from South Casco

Hannaford store Manager Randy Hoyt recommended blueberry or cranberry Blacksmiths wine, which is made in South Casco. What better way to toast Thanksgiving.

Winemaker Steve Linne said he started Blacksmiths in 2000. “At the time, I was brokering wine in the Pacific Northwest. There were only four Maine wineries. I kept hearing from retailers they couldn’t get enough Maine wine.” He founded Blacksmiths.

“It’s a lot of work,” Linne said. Fermenting wine takes anywhere from six to 15 weeks. “Three and a half of us work at least six days a week.” Since he founded Blacksmiths competition has increased; the four Maine wineries have grown to more than 30.

Linne sells his wine and cider to small specialty shops and bigger stores (including Shaw’s and Hannaford). His most popular is blueberry wine. He can’t keep it in stock. Another favorite is “Fatty Bampkins Hard Cider,” named for his chocolate Lab who has a bit of a weight problem.

Much of the fruit he uses is local, Linne said. “My emphasis is to support Maine agriculture.”

Apples from Sabattus

Husband and wife Jill and Charlie Agnew started their Willow Pond Farm in 1982.

They are a small orchard, selling 3,000 bushels of apples in the region at their farm stand and at Hannaford.

She’s noticed a change since the buy-local trend has started. “More people come to the farm more readily now,” Agnew said. There’s less of a need to sell fresh fruit.” Their orchard gets busier at the holidays. “People want apples. We’re running like mad to keep up with that.”

For years the couple ran just the orchard. In 1989 Jill started what she said was the first CSA operation — community supported agriculture — in the area. During the growing season, CSA customers buy “shares” and get produce each week.

Lucarelli’s rolls from Livermore Falls

Terri and Tony Maxwell bought Livermore Falls Baking Co. in 2000 after owner Larry Lucarelli passed away, Terri said. The husband-and-wife company, and their 11 employees, bake four days a week in Livermore Falls.

They sell their breads to a distributor, to large and small stores, and sandwich and pizza shops. Their big product now is dinner rolls for Thanksgiving.

“After that it’s finger rolls at Christmas,” said Terri.

Maple sticks from Farmington

Pastry rolls called “Maple Sticks” from Knowlton Corner Farm in Farmington was another recommended product.

The delicious pastry sticks are baked by Arleen Masselli, who moved to Farmington 15 years ago when she bought the farm. In the early years she owned a horse farm, boarding horses and working with disabled individuals who rode horses as therapy. And she baked: breads and pies.

She created her maple, cinnamon and apple sticks “by accident with leftover pie crust,” Masselli said. The pastry sticks proved popular.

On Dec. 29, 2011, her farm suffered a fire. She lost her barns and the ability to board horses. To survive, she refocused her energies on opening a farm bakery, selling more maple and cinnamon sticks. Today she bakes and sells some 60,000 pastry sticks a year in a variety of flavors. Popular are her chocolate and raspberry sticks. “Good does come out of a tragedy,” she said.

Cheese from New Gloucester

Cheese is a big deal at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, the nonprofit farm campus created by the Libra Foundation to promote Maine agriculture.

Six years ago the Pineland Farms Creamery was founded. The goal was to educate people about local food production, which is why tours are offered, said Neal Kolterman, the creamery’s vice president of sales and marketing.

Making cheese is time consuming. It takes a half-day or more to turn milk into cheese curd. Then it needs to age. Sharp cheddar ages at least a year, he said.

When the creamery started, “We used cheese from our own milk.” Today the creamery’s 25 workers make cheese from Pineland’s 90 cows, plus milk from 25 surrounding dairy farms.

Pineland cheese – which sports a “Made Fresh on the Farm in Maine” label – sells to several thousands stores coast to coast, Kolterman said.

There’s a benefit to being made in Maine, he said. “Maine has an allure, a mystique, a reputation for quality. When we’re out promoting the brand, we promote Maine at the same time.”

Flour from a Vermont company

King Arthur Flour is based in Norwich, Vt. Founded in 1790, it is the nation’s oldest flour company. It has 300 workers and is employee-owned.

King Arthur flour, considered high quality by bakers, is sold nationwide. The flour is not milled in Vermont. “Most of our wheat is grown in the Midwest and milled at various mills across the country that mill our flour to our very specific specifications,” said company spokeswoman Terri Rosenstock.

The Vermont headquarters and its country store are a destination for bakers, as each year more than 500,000 tourists visit. On site are a cafe, bakery and cooking school.

ORONO – Interest in local food is high for three reasons, said James McConnon, professor of economics at the University of Maine: nutrition, food safety and support of local business.

Consumers, especially baby boomers, have grown more concerned about health. They want to know the nutritional content of what they’re eating and maintain (or get) a healthy lifestyle as they age, McConnon said.

Since the recession, consumers are also more interested in supporting local farms and business, McConnon said.

And for safety reasons, buyers are less interested in buying food from far away, he said.

All of that is fueling interest in the local food movement, he said. More people are entering farming as a profession. Schools and restaurants want more local food. And stores and restaurants are promoting local food. “It really is an opportune time to capitalize on the Maine brand,” McConnon said.

Maine’s food industry represents a lot of dollars to the state’s economy, McConnon said.

In a Maine Policy Review report McConnon helped write in 2011, research showed the state’s food economy was worth $12 billion a year, while the food industry supported 113,000 jobs and provided $3 billion in wages.

“That includes farming, fishing, processing, grocery store and the restaurant industry,” McConnon said. If a similar report was done today, “if anything the numbers would be up.”

Consumer interest in buying local is driving new food products, and more business for Maine farmers.

“If you go into a grocery store you’ll see not just Maine fresh products, but on the shelves more value-added products, from maple syrup to sauces to cheese.”

In the beverage sector there are a lot of local beers, “and more wineries are popping up,” McConnon said. The new beverage and food products are providing more outlets to Maine farmers.

Meanwhile more consumers are shopping directly from farms.

The number of farmers markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years, McConnon said, and consumers are buying more “shares,” or weekly supplies of produce, from a specific farm.

The number of shares sold through community supported agriculture farms has grown in Maine from 180 to 7,000 in the last 10 years, McConnon said. “The trend is positive.”

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