Just the other day, I was idly browsing the produce section at the Loblaws near work when I was confronted by a brightly coloured sign above the red peppers shouting "Locally Grown!" at me, seemingly bursting with excitement at the part it was playing in the locavore movement.

I'll admit I'm one of those people who doesn't care whether my tomatoes are grown in Mexico or Metcalfe.

But I will also feel guilty whenever I see a Foodland Ontario sign on the bus, gently reminding me I'm not supporting local farmers and am increasing my carbon footprint, just because I want to save a buck.

Indeed, it looks like the 'buy local' trend is picking up speed, with the popularity of books such as The 100-Mile Diet, and environmentalism feeding concerns that those trucks and airplanes transporting your groceries are slowly killing the planet.

Then there's that new city bylaw coming out that will regulate the definition of the word 'local' in marketing goods to ensure they really are locally produced.

The city's farmers' markets are getting in on the game with their colour-coded sticker system to denote the origins of each product, although it doesn't quite seem to be working out.

And the Ottawa and District Labour Council is trying to have the City of Ottawa adopt a made-in-Canada purchasing policy.

And yet, it seems we just can't help ourselves when it comes to the lure of the foreign, or at least the not-so-local, especially when you think about how companies such as sewer technologies firm Clearford Industries Inc. and defence products makers Allen-Vanguard and Pacific Safety Products find it easier to sell their wares abroad than here at home.

Sure, it's not all bad: Canada's trade surplus increased in May and June, as well as for the three months before an April slip. And recent increases in imports have been due largely to price changes rather than heartier appetites for foreign goods.

As well, a recent snapshot by the Canadian Tourism Commissions showed Canadian travellers have been exploring their backyards more instead of jetting off to Cancun or Cuba for their holidays, with an 8.7-per-cent hike in domestic tourism spending.

This helped to ease the pain of the lack of dollars coming from our southern cousins during the loonie's monster growth period.

Still, the problem remains acute in Ottawa's tech sector. It's a little alarming to see the poor financial results of some of our local companies and hear them say it's because the domestic market is either wary of new technology, or because an unwieldy bureaucracy means it's often easier to look for business elsewhere.

Such was the case with Allen-Vanguard, which developed a foam decontamination system in partnership with the feds. However, the Ottawa-based firm was still forced to compete with foreign companies when the government decided it wanted that very same technology in its arsenal, even though taxpayers' money had already been invested into Allen-Vanguard's product.

Clearford and whiteboard maker SMART Technologies Inc. have also talked about the poor local demand for their technologies, with Clearford's new CEO John Kelly recently saying the company is shifting its focus to the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) region and other emerging markets because the province and country just haven't caught on to the benefits of Clearford's technology.

It's an issue that really deserves more thought, especially since many worry about the dearth of innovation by local companies and the hollowing-out of corporate Canada.

Favouritism is not the answer, but perhaps a more proactive – and creative – stance needs to be taken, such as helping local firms market their products more effectively at home.

Maybe then more people would pick the Metcalfe tomatoes over the ones from Mexico.