| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Behemoth |
Britons 'lacking food patriotism'From BBC News websiteBritons 'lacking food patriotism' Britons care about taste, but not where the food comes from Patriotism alone is not enough to sell British food, according to new research conducted by food think-tank IGD. Researchers found 87% of people consider farming to be important to Britain, but only one in five will go out of their way to buy British food. The study was conducted for food suppliers and the government to find out how to bolster British produce. It comes as the EU's farmers move from production subsidies towards producing what customers will pay for. Country of origin seems to be low on the list of what shoppers look for, according to the findings. The findings suggest customers care primarily about taste, price, and sell-by date. Where food was produced came a lowly 10th on the list of importance, as rated by consumers. Consumers' attitudes However, around two thirds of those interviewed expressed an interest in seasonal and local food. Sir Don Curry, Chair of the Sustainable Farming and Food Implementation Group said: "Reconnecting the public with the food they eat and how it is produced is one of my key challenges for 2005 and beyond. "It is essential that we have a better understanding of consumers' attitudes if we are to develop an effective communications strategy." His sentiments were echoed by Lord Bach, Food and Farming Minister, who said the findings "will provide a valuable evidence base enabling food producers throughout the food chain to develop their communications effort in order to reconnect with the public". He added: "Our key policy statement on farming and food issues remains the Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food and reconnection is a major theme of the strategy." |
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| Jonnyboy |
Good news then, 20% of shoppers go out of their way to buy british food.
I reckon that's an improvement on the last decade at least. |
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| Northern_Lad |
Exactly. And how many will buy British given an easy choice? |
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| Jonnyboy |
Yep, and don't forget that the supermarkets have a lot to answer for. Try buying british apples during the growing season, it aint easy unless you like Bramleys every day. | ||
| jema |
I think it is another of those chicken and egg situations 
Go round a supermarket and see what is being promoted with vigour and it probably will not be local. I get the impression in France from the Rick Stein series on at the moment, that local specialities are served with pride and the suppliers compete on the quality of the product. I have seen a small Spanish market where this sort of process was in evidence. But around here, there is nothing but crap in the supermarkets, and with all due respect to the people selling produce at the couple of small farmers markets there are. The level these are operating at, lacks the number of customers to create the turnover and competetion that would make them really sizzle. Which is again I suppose a chicken and egg thing 
So I will say for myself, my interest in "local" food is not half of what I wish it was. |
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| JB |
... and where did the statistics come from?
When studying statistics I recall being shown various types of errors one of which was 'never trust what people say', the specific example they gave was a survey of how many people bought free range eggs - ask people in a survey and 60% bought free range eggs, survey supermarket sales and only 20% of eggs bought were free range (NB the figures may be misremembered but you get the point) |
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| Lozzie |
Not only supermarkets, Johnnyboy - but celebrity chefs and TV programmes celebrating weird and wonderful ingredients from all over the planet. Their enthusiasm (and blatant overexposure) has sparked off people's curiosity to such a degree that many "foreign" foods take pride of cupboard-place in many people's kitchens, just as they do on supermarket shelves, at the expense of more "traditional" ingredients.
I think that for some time in the 80s and 90s, British cooking was simply not seen as "cool". I am grateful for TV chefs and restauranteurs who do now pay attention to the British scene. It seems to be all about what is trendy and what is not! Thanks for the post, Behemoth. |
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| JB |
Fortunately there does seem to be a slight move away from that with the likes of HFW and JO. |
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| ele |
Although I do go to some lengths to get local food, especially vegetables and some fruit, and I only ever buy meat that is UK produced I don't think I am really very patriotic at all when it comes to buying food.
Like most people in the UK these days I like eating pasta, dried fruit, rice, spices, pulses etc which by necessity come from abroad. If overnight I ate like my Grandparents did with practically 100% of food being from the UK then I admit I'd be a bit sad about the lack of variety. |
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| bagpuss |
There is a current trend in both TV cookery and chefs to move towards locally produced goods
I am staying here with friends for a longweekend in January http://www.eatonmanor.co.uk/ An one of the things they offer is a chef to come in a cook a 3 course meal for you with local produce! It is definately is becoming more trendy The problem is most people by most of their produce from supermarkets who make it quite difficult to actually tell where most of its fresh produce has come from and next to impossible for the meat. The source of produce needs to be brought into the public eye before the majority of people will actually start changing the way they shop on that basis and unfortunately supermarkets currently seem to have no intention of doing that One of the things that does irritate me about this is when people think of local food and what people ate in the good old days is that they forget we have been shipping spices and coffee and tea a long way for a very long time. Eating locally doesn't necessarily mean not using these things but what is does mean it eating the stuff which can be produced in this country when availible and trying to eat more seasonally I am getting very good with meat, only buying english meat and most of that from farmers markets or farm shops so it tends to be relatively local, the rest of my shopping I am less good given my veg mostly comes from tescos very little of it is likely to be british. I keep contemplating veg boxes but then reminding myself that there is no way 2 of us would eat a kilo of potatoes a week and bemoaning the fact that most of them don't guarente peppers! |
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| ele |
In a city like Cambridge I'm guessing that there are quite a choice of people doing organic and or local food (unlike a backwards place like Derby  ) Maybe there's some that can give you a small box or a non-potatoes box with optional add ons?
These links might be useful if you've not already tried them; http://www.bigbarn.co.uk/producers/index.php http://www.cam.net.uk/home/Nimmann/eco/SHOPPING.HTM http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/Resources/directory.html |
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| twoscoops |
The ingredients championed by TV cooks such as Nigella or Delia don’t make people move away from British food as such. The desire for exotic ingredients which can’t be produced here, such as coconut milk or vanilla (!!!) is nothing new. If these types of produce are becoming more popular because of their exposure on TV then surely the same should be the case for seasonal, local food because of Nigel Slater, River Cottage and Rick’s Food Heroes. The bigger problem is that most people don’t think about it – if the supermarket is selling asparagus, lamb or tinned runner beans then people will just pick them off the shelves.
Also, who’s to say that yer man up in Lancashire with his black pudding is using blood from local free-range pigs? Just because somebody is producing traditional regional specialities doesn’t necessarily mean they are using local produce. Note: There are many people in this country who make a good living from adding value to seasonal, local, produce. |
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| bagpuss |
I certainly have spoken to people about this my generally impression though it would be no potatoes not less potatoes which I don't necessarily want! The issue I have never seen a way round with the box schemes while it will probably provide most of what I need it will rarely provide everything which means I still have to go out and buy veg elsewhere which kind of makes it lose its incentive! |
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| Penelope Anderson |
I LOVE buying good food from this country- but where can I get really proper tasting veg? i find that most of it, with the exception of perhaps leeks and celery is pretty tasteless. I grow my own tomatoea and sometimes peppers (not really successful) in pots, with limited space, but I would really like to find a source of veg that is similar to the stuff my father used to grow without pesticides. I think in those days we were completely organic (1940s) I live in London now, and buy foreign peppers, spanish onions, little beans from Kenya, and feel horribly guilty about it! | ||
| twoscoops |
There's Borough Market, if you've got the wedge. | ||
| ele |
I think the best kind of box schemes are the ones where you can pick a box if you want to and then be able to choose extra fruit and vegetables if you wish to, so providing the majority of your needs. It's also nice to have the option to not have the box at all but just choose what you want on a weekly basis, with the downside that it'll cost more. I'm training myself to like more vegetables and be a bit more seasonal cos I'd got into a vegetable rut buying the same ones week in week out, pretty much throughout the year, so the box scheme helps a lot with that. 
As for potatoes, a kilo is quite a small quantity to me, even with only two of us in the house, we can easily eat that in a week and still be having rice or pasta based meals a few times. Maybe you have below average potato consumption? |
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| crackapple |
Me too, i've never been much of a veg lover, i'm mainly carnivore but i love growing them. what i wont eat though is foreign apples! i will wait for the english season or my own to ripen. my wife buys tastless apples all the year round for the little one, unfortunately its the price you pay for the 5 portions a day. |
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| ele |
I've been playing apple roulette with my veg box apples they're not labelled or anything and there's sometimes two or three varieties in each box. I've learnt to take a tentative bite to see if it's for cooking or eating. Some of the eating ones have been amazing but I've no idea what they are. The cooking ones are rather nice after a quick "bake" in the microwave with some sugar, cinnamon and sultanas 
It's interesting about the five a day thing. If you were to do it with solely british food I guess you'd have to eat more veg proportionally, and most of the fruit throughout the year would come from preserves. I'm more than happy to eat apples only in season, but I'd miss bananas, not to mention citrus fruits in winter. |
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| bagpuss |
We eat potatoes maybe once, maybe twice a week and so we go through 500g maybe 750g tops |
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| gil |
Yeh, I'd like to do that (make a good living from....) It really pissed me off when I looked round the food section of the shop in the Gretna Green Visitor centre (owner champions local art / sculpture, and Scottishness is supposed to be really important) only to find that most of the jam, chutney and other preserves were made made elsewhere - mostly on industrial estates in England, and labelled with twee rural brand names, or else from much further north - B*x****, for example. Perhaps there's an opportunity there - been thinking about this for a while. |
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| twoscoops |
Annoying, isn’t it? Look at a pack of Ye Olde West Country Fayre Fudge in any gift shop in Cornwall. The manufacturer puts the postcode on the back and it’s usually in Fife.
You can make a living from it, no doubt, but you would need to be aware that the road to riches in that game is long and arduous. That’s not to say that you wouldn’t have a more fulfilling life. |
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| tahir |
I was in devon a few weeks ago, stayed at a pub/b&b that displayed in the window a sticker "Best of the West, fine food and drink from the west country" The only beer that was local was Dartmoor IPA (sold out the 2nd night), they had Strongbow cider and that was about it as far as I could tell, even the butter on my toast was from Ireland 
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| Behemoth |
Starnge - all the fudge in Northumberland is made in Devon with a postcard of Seahouses stuck on the front. | ||
| twoscoops |
I take it the beer survey was purely for research
Doesn't it make you mad, though? But it isn't jsut us Brits who are guilty of it. I was in a Savoyard restaurant in Lyon a few years ago and we decided that we hadn't drunk nearly enough and ordered some liqueurs. There was a Cognac on the menu, and when they brought the bottle it was a Spanish brandy. When I (regrettably/stupidly/arrogantly*) commented that Cognac can only come from Cognac the owner spent about five minutes extolling the virtues of this particular brand, and I had to stop him from opening a bottle of VSOP to demonstrate. *apply as appropriate |
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| twoscoops |
[quote="Twoscoops"]
Whereabouts in Devon, T? |
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| tahir |
Harberton | ||
| tahir |
Actually I had a half of Spitfire 
Anyway I spoke to the owner, his explanation was that his wife who does the ordering is German so nothing's local for her
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| twoscoops |
Floyd's old gaff is just down the road at Tuckenhay and now has a good reputation, I believe. | ||
| tahir |
I'm going again tomorrow, staying in Dartington this time, thought I might go in to Totnes to eat (this b&b is owned by the same bloke) | ||
| twoscoops |
Well you're a glutton for it, no? Maybe you could pop into the library and pick up the Good Pub Guide. But a man of your means could also pop down the New Angel in Dartmouth. |
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| tahir |
The nearest I could get to dartington hall (it's where I was supposed to be last time too) | ||
| tahir |
So should I head to Totnes for nosh? | ||
| twoscoops |
I’ve not been there for five years, but I imagine you’d get something decent. Apparantly that bloke out of the Royle Family runs a pub there, with hilarious consequences. Totnes was always a bit alternative, like Glastonbury without the queues outside the dole office. | ||
| sean |
This place got a fantastic review in the Indie a couple of years ago. | ||
| tahir |
Any idea where that is in relation to Dartington? | ||
| Behemoth |
Go north and through Buckfastleigh (what a great name) | ||
| tahir |
Indeed. I'll check on multimap later thanks
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| alison |
my brother used to work in Poole, Dorset, and bought a stick of rock at Niagra Falls, Canadian side, and it was made in the factory next door to his office! | ||
| twoscoops |
So this is the guy from Rick's food heroes, Ireland's black pudding up in Lancashire somewhere. They had a stand at the Great British Cheese Festival in Cheltenham at the weekend, and I asked where the blood came from. Apparantly it has to be dried, and it comes from the Netherlands. |
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| tahir |
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| alisjs |
went to buy uk peppers from ASDA today....found labels on the shelf saying West Sussex, but the cardboard boxes containing the peppers said Spain!
Yes, I did indeed complain, and voted with my feet by not buying. You`ve got to watch them, haven`t you? |
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| ros |
In the summer it's great, local fruit, salad from the garden etc.
Frozen veg can be good , english peas etc and the surplus from the garden frozen. But how do you pursuade the family that it's not necessaru to eat salad al year round? my kids complain if there are no fresh toms or cucmber to go with their pizza (yes I know that I should be grateful they're not bemoaning a lack of chips!) We've got used to having cold stored, imported tasteless toms all year round any ideas for alternatives? |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
[quote="alisjs"]uk peppers from ASDA today....quote]
Peppers grown in November? Even in tunnels they would have moulded. Cabbage, Sprouts or root vegetables, are what you should be looking for in ASDA in November. |
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| alisjs |
land cress is great in salad and currently growing well on plot....not seen it in shops, but then I haven`t looked...
Also like beans (broad or french or runner) in salad, steamed and served cool.(from supply in freezer), and chopped courgette, and how about grated raw beetroot , or cubed cooked beetroot? Apart from that, local salads days are just about over I think |
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| cab |
I must say, its really easy for me to be a 'food patriot'. Those veg that we don't buy can be got locally. Local onions in the greengrocers on Arbury Road, plenty of East Anglian meat in the butchers, a nice little farmers market in Cambridge on Sundays and a great little ordinary market there every other day, and another farmers market that travels around the outskirts of town. I don't worry about the occasional thing shipped from further afield in bulk.
Bagpuss, get a box scheme in! And buy the spuds in bigger bulk, store them in that old coal shed at the food at the foot of the garden (I'll go see if its watertight next time I'm round) or in the garage; doesn't get very warm in there does it? Get 'em in a paper sack or transfer them to a cloth one, they'll last fine if you don't use them fast. |
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| bagpuss |
they may last but if we are getting spuds at a far greater rate than we are using them it is still pointless I keep pondering a box scheme and one of these days I might actually take the plunge but we shall have to wait and see untill then I will do the best I can |
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| cab |
Some of the schemes around here will do 'without potatoes' or what have you, then all you have to do is buy them separately; I happen to know a greengrocer not much more than a hundred yards from your place selling fenland spuds. Stored properly they'll keep fine. |