BENTONVILLE, Ark. - The race to find locally sourced food is underway as grocers and other retailers seek ways to bring fresh produce from nearby farms to their shelves. Walmart joins Whole Foods Market, Supervalu and Safeway in scouring the countryside for vendors of fresh fruits and vegetables to stock neighboring stores, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Walmart and Kroger point to saving money as one of the reasons they buy local, but other chains do so because of customer preference. Walmart pledged last year to increase the amount of locally sourced produce to 9 percent of its entire U.S. purchases for 2015?"double its current number

Walmart asks that its managers purchase produce from farms within a 450-mile radius of its distribution centers even if the produce cost more than vegetables from farther away. The discounter has found that lowering the amount of "food miles" fruits and vegetables have, the higher the cost in fuel. Local buying also slashes spoilage, although the retailer won??t give hard numbers on that.

One example of the change has been where Walmart gets its jalapeño peppers. Ten years ago, nearly all of those peppers arrived in stores from California, Florida and Mexico. Today, farmers from 30 states grow jalapeños for the retailer.

"We can get chili peppers from Florida all day long, but at the end of the day that is not necessarily the best model for us," said Darrin Robbins, senior manager for produce for the chain. "I'm going to pay a higher price in Ohio for peppers, but if I don't have to ship them halfway across the country to a store, it's a better deal."