The news that Michele’s Pies will replace Baskin-Robbins bodes well for Westport — and not just that segment of our population that prefers baked goods to ice cream.
According to the American Independent Business Alliance, for every $100 spent at a chain store, $13 remains in the community. When that same $100 is spent at a locally owned business, $45 stays home.
Granted, msot people don’t spend $100 a pop on either baked goods or ice cream. (Though Westporters are not “most people.”)
Still, you catch my drift.
Money spent at a hometown store goes on to pay local accountants, local PR firms, local web designers, maybe even local furnishing suppliers.
Owners of local businesses buy more of their goods locally. Most of Michele’s ingredients are sourced around here. Baskin-Robbins distributes their (admittedly delicious) ice cream in ginormous trucks, from central warehouses located who knows where.
At the end of each day, money spent at a hometown store doesn’t get sent off to the “corporate office.” The office, instead, is at the back of the shop — or maybe the extra room of a house, a few miles away.
I have nothing against Baskin-Robbins. I have never tried even one of Michele’s pies.
But — from a microeconomic point of view — the recent shift downtown, from corporate ice cream to home-made baked goods, seems both cool and sweet.
