Several years ago, Dan Sutton tried to find an old peach orchard that his family used to visit in Kansas when he was a kid.

He searched the Internet in vain and realized there wasn't much information online to help locate small farms.

What started as a hobby on a spreadsheet is now more than 15,000 grower profiles on Sutton's Web site, www.LocavoreNetwork.com. It took two years to complete and was published in mid-May.

"When I put this together, I wanted it to be more than another list," said Sutton, who worked for Albertsons for 26 years and is currently the produce director for Albertsons LLC. "I wanted to facilitate two-way communication" between growers and consumers. That's what makes this Web site different.

To build the database, Sutton compiled data from more than 200 existing databases.

"In Colorado, there's four or five, but nothing that includes everybody," he said.

Some databases operate on a pay-to-play basis. For example, for $50 a year, a farm will be included in a particular database, but many small farmers don't have the extra money for marketing. Locavore Network is free.

Although Sutton had played around with different Web tools for years, building the database was difficult, he said. Everyone had their own way of compiling grower information. He used personal funds to hire Web developer Randall Goya, who understood what Sutton was trying to do.

A hyperlink on the site takes the visitor to a grower's profile, which includes the farmer's name and the business name, contact information and the products sold.

Growers can modify their profiles, and consumers can e-mail growers.

Sutton also listed about 3,000 wineries.

"It was kind of the chicken before the egg," he said. "Once I created the profiles, how do you notify the growers? Who wants to send out 15,000 e-mails?"

But that's what he's in the process of doing, a few hundred at a time so his message isn't blocked by spam filters.

The site also offers marketing tips for growers, food safety tips, forums, classified ads and seasonal information.

"You can see why you can't get peaches in January," Sutton said. "There aren't any here."

Sutton also designed the site to accommodate restaurants that want to buy and serve a locally produced product.

"When I get the 'Spotlight' pages configured properly, restaurants will be able to post their menu in a PDF file, and it will be viewable on their page."

Doreen Guenther, a farmer at Hidden Springs Community Farm, found her farm on the Locavore Network.

"With any site, people have to be looking for it and put the right thing in for their search," Guenther said. "We've gotten some contacts from people seeing us on Local Harvest, and I think it would provide a similar benefit."

Local Harvest is a traditional database of farms across the country.

Guenther was interested in the Web page that she and farmer Jennifer Harrington could create for the Hidden Springs farm on the Locavore Network. They've held off on it because they thought they could reach their audience with a Google group, Guenther said.

"But I haven't even looked at it this year," she said.

Dave Krick, owner of Red Feather Lounge and Bittercreek, which serve local food in Downtown Boise, called the Web site "slick" and said he was very interested in using information technology to link farmers and consumers.

"From the restaurant perspective, we want farmers to know we buy local food," he said.

The pitfall is that the information on the site is only relevant if someone is actively keeping it up, he said.

Bethann Stewart: 377-6393