[Mallows Flock]

 
In a bid to buy locally, I am making the best efforts to buy from our local village shop and local farm shop however, bless them, many items I HAVE to drag myself to a supermarket for. Sainsbury's!
I do the best I can to buy locally produced food; at least British and as far as I can, organically produced.
However, I am nauseated to find that in Sainsbury's (may also be the case with other conglomerate supermarkets!) the cheese aisle is totally dominated with non-British cheese/milk used. I live in Somerset where we are dominated by dairy and have obviously a huge cheese industry yet out of the cheese slices, the only british ones were the Value ones and only one tub of soft cheese (Sainsbury's equiv of dairylea). All the others consisted of Danish or German milk. Even the cheddar is not British! I live fairly near Cheddar itself and am pretty pee'd off by this alone! LOL!
Ecover products are Belgian (I have switched to Surcare) and most of the bacon is from Danish or German pigs! Pigs are huge business in Somerset too!
Bloody rubbish I say! 
Rant over ... i am having to eat a bowl of BRITISH strawberries and BRITISH redcurrants topped in Sainsbury extra thick cream with lemon and Earl grey to recover from the stress of it! LOL! mmm! Ok Ok, so the Limoncello in it is not British! At least the milk is!!!! 

[Oneeyedhen]

Couldn't argee more 

[Rosemary]

We also try to buy local but was pulled up short when my cousin's lad, who's a long distance lorry driver, told me he'd been up in our neck of the wood to pick up a load of carrots to atke to the south of England to be washed and bagged. These will no doubt be sold with a saltire on them but in tems of food miles, that's a bit deceptive.

It's not like we don't have enough water up here to wash our own carrots 

[SallyintNorth]

I applaud your sentiments, Mallows 

However, you are in top Farmers' Market country there and must have just about the widest choice of locally-produced excellent foodstuffs available to you therefore, so what the heck are you doing in a supermarket?       


Re: supermarkets, did you know that if I buy 'north country' or 'Scottish' lamb in my Sainsbury's here, although the lambs will have been finished in the named region, they will then have been trucked, alive, in wagons, to the Sainsbury's abattoir in Somerset.  Butchered, packed and trucked back up to my supermarket here.    (Morrisons' abattoir is in Turiff, Aberdeen; Asda - Wales; etc.)  So even if you buy 'local food' in your 'local supermarket', it may have many hundreds of food miles attributable to it. 

Far better to support your independent local butcher, and/or your local farmers at your local Farmers' Market.  (Having said which, my local independent butcher, who really does try to buy direct from the local farmers, nonetheless has to buy most of his bacon in from Denmark.    His home cured is local, but he says he can't get vaccuum packed British bacon that is of sufficient quality and he can't home cure all he needs.)

[Greenmoor]

We're lucky up here to have Booths supermarkets. They sell a lot of locally sourced products and pride themselves on it. Bit more expensive than the usual supermarkets, but we'd rather pay a bit more for decent food.

www.booths.co.uk

[jaykay]

Yes, Booths is good 

The local Co-op here stocked New Zealand lamb, in a dale with about 500 sheep to each human, at a time when our lamb was in season  Not for long though, they found their carpark totally blocked by tractors (I suspect not just here either) and changed their policy fast 

[Mallows Flock]

All very good points to be noted and Sally... you don't need to hide behind your sofa..LOL... you are right about the farmers markets. They are excellent locally but generally tend to close much earlier than our regular markets making my attempt to get to them from work often very hit and miss.  They are extremely small tho (I am in East Somerset which is VERY yokelish) and often you find you are being offered hot cooked ready to eat sausages, burgers etc from the stalls which are lovely but not great for taking home to the freezer ) Also, they can be a little misleading themselves.... given the token stalls supplying large quantities of very greek olives!!!!! Not too local that! Even the sheep and goat cheese from the market outside the livestock auction nearby, I found is greek.. tho it very much looks like fresh off the farm. No cellophane, stickers etc! grr
I would prefer to buy from the farm gate; I do that for duck eggs, I have my own chicken eggs and have just found a local farm who sells free range chicken, duck etc (but £16 for a chicken is pretty scarily expensive... and it ain't even organic!!!)
In terms of dairy and meat, I do get nearly all of it very locally but some things I HAVE to shop asupermarkets for! Tho' I am now putting in a grocery shop at my local village shop as they have taken this service on! Thank god! And I have been buying cleaning products, washing powder and shampoos etc from the health food shop!
I will get there. one day i will never need to shop in a supermarket again! (I think that day will come when my son has grown up and left home.... no need for cheerios and the like then!! 

[Lesley Silvester]

If only we had a local butcher.  I would have to drive several miles to the nearest.  I buy most of my veg from the local shop, who they get it from the local market (don't know where they get it from), but they don't have a very wide range.

[Ina]

I applaud your sentiments, Mallows 

However, you are in top Farmers' Market country there and must have just about the widest choice of locally-produced excellent foodstuffs available to you therefore, so what the heck are you doing in a supermarket?     

Farmers' markets, at least up here, only happen on Saturdays, and then only once a month... Not much good if the only job you have is a Saturday job (and not one in a town with a market, so popping out in my break isn't possible either)! The "farm shops" (in quotation marks, for a good reason) generally sell a lot of tat, most of which is not produced locally, let alone has ever been near a farm. (I wish they had conditions on what can be sold in a shop that calls itself farm shop like they have for farmers' markets, as opposed to general markets...) The local Coop, allegedly "supporting British farmers", do not get my custom any more, because when I did try and buy there, it was impossible to buy Scottish cheese or butter; no idea where the milk came from, either. Their veg was more often than not from very far away, too. (Chilean asparagus anybody, in Scottish asparagus season?) Actually, Lidl is much better than the Coop on Scottish products.

Since I do "voluntary" work (i.e. paid in veg) on a local-ish organic veg farm, and grow some of my own, veg is not a problem (except this year, when almost nothing grows). Neither are eggs, although I can't get any in the town where I live. Dairy products are still a problem; meat is available, but I don't eat it, so don't know details.

So what I'm trying to say, no matter how much anybody wants to buy local stuff, it's not easy - maybe easier in some regions, and less so in others...

[Mallows Flock]

Very true Ina. We get 'local' products in our farm shops that are actually in the next County and further; Dorset, Devon, Cornwall! They have gotten round that by labelling it as West Country! Now, I am happy to support those counties esp as opposed to foreign foodstuffs but they have still had to cover considerable miles to get to tiny old Shepton Mallet!!! Our local Dobbies' make money from tourists buying bottled ciders and beers as well as chutneys and jams, but some are from Staffs, another Cumbria! Again, good to be British but we have Bay Tree trading only a few miles down the round. Literally, a few miles!
Our most local farm shop has loads of expensive, designer wear.... bunting, artwork - but not much fruit, veg or meat and absolutely no fish!
To be honest, if I could actually cook things would be a lot easier all round. LOL

[Sudanpan]

I use an online market 'Cornish Food Market'. Their premise is that they supply local produce from local farmers - and cos they don't have to factor in a huge amount of food miles (eg produce from field next to me harvested for Tescos, taken up to Bristol for logistics processing and then redelivered back down here to the Tesco in Camborne/Penzance/Helston) they can pay the farmer a bit more and we (consumers) can pay a bit less 


They have the origin and info on their website of where the produce comes from so you can be aware of where the stuff comes from. Its good quality, they have a minimum order of £12 and delivery is free 

[deepinthewoods]

ive never heard of them. shall look in, thanks.
 
 

[tizaala]

Our local abatoir in Leintwardine has a butchery attached and we go along once a week for green tripe for the dogs, but tonight we are eating some of his faggots that I bought from him this week , huge things , freshly made smelled delish on the way home,  next week he's getting an oxtail for me. 
 
 Its a LOCAL SHOP FOR LOCAL PEOPLE. (where have I heared that before Tubbs ?)

[Lesley Silvester]

Mmmmm,  oxtail.   

[Mallows Flock]

Am looking up a possible Somerset food Market now!!! Here's hoping