Organic vs Fairtrade vs Local?

Debt_Free_Chick

SusanCarter wrote:

They both get their produce from the same wholesaler who is ten miles closer to the supermarket.

Sadly, they don't. The supermarkets tend to "own" a producer and insist that the producer only supplies them. They tie the producer down to an exclusive contract which means that the producer (farmer) cannot sell their product any other way - everything they produce is sold to the supermarket at the price that the supermarket decides is "fair".

As for supermarkets buying local, let me tell you a story

I live about 12 miles from Hastings which still has one of the largest land-launched fishing fleets in Europe. You can buy directly from the boats at Hastings or from a number of fish shops. Either way, you buy what they caught this morning.

There's a massive Sainsbury in St Leonard's about 3 miles from the coast, where the fishing boats land their catch.

How much of the "fresh fish" sold at the counter in Sainsbury's do you think is bought from the Hastings fleet?

Yep - not a single flake! It's all shipped in by road, in giant trailers, packed in ice, probably caught yesterday at best - more likely, 2 or 3 days ago.

What a bloody disgrace. What a crazy system! :mad:

aimme13

This thread has really got me thinking.........and that in itself is a good think. Im cooking my dinner and popping on the internet in between, so i started looking at all my cupboard ingrediants!!!! (well ok i stopped after about 5 items as it was depressing!..........i have tried to buy fair trade stuff when possible, but unfortunately cant always afford it........but now this whole debate has really got me thinking about buying locally. I am one of these people who check all labels on food, but that is because im a vegetarian, now im going to make the effort to start looking into local produced food.....its very difficult where to start!.......i do however buy a lot of foods that are not british from the local shop that sells asian/turkish and north african foods only.........so i guess it will be impossible to know, what is from where, and what conditions it is produced.

by the way the first product i took out of my cupboard was rice,
produced in usa, packed in italy??????? and sent to tescos 10 miles away!!!!........oh dear have to change that one!!!

dolly_day_dream

Thank you Seakay for the information about Alpro, as I use a lot of their products it is reassuring. However I also buy soya beans and other non-Alpro products and I am still finding it hard to discover where they are grown.

zar

I take a similar approach to lnyzpower, especially the

Local & Organic

I'm really fortunate living somewhere where I don't have to choose between these two. We pick up our local organic veg from the farm where it's grown 5miles away (we take turns with a friend thus halfing the food miles). We also have an organic farm shop 3 miles away which sells chicken, beef and lamb along with veg. I'm in town most days where there is a daily "farmers market" (its more of a farm shop with lots of different producers really) which has a great butchers and also a wide range of fruit and veg, so also buy stuff there. We do get stuff from the supermarkets in weeks where we are really busy but try to do that less and less. Most of my meat is organic but some just free-range and that is for welfare reasons. I want to buy organic veg and cereals for the sake of farmland wildlife rather than health reasons (I've discussed this in other threads before so won't go into it aagain!) In order local comes before organic where possible.

Fairtrade

I try and buy fairtrade on all the things that aren't grown here - the biggies are bananas, oranges (when I can afford it - haven't thought about this one too much with regards food miles), chocolate/cocoa. I always buy fairtrade tea and coffee (isn't coffee the most important commodity apart from oil? think of the difference to the world if all westerners bought fairtrade coffee!)

I obviously need to do a bit of thinking about sugar given the earlier discussion.

t7tigger

I get veg from my local organic veg supplier they tell me every week what percentage of my box is UK sourced produce and where it all comes from. I think it is very dependant on what you are buying.

I really get annoyed with the supermarkets and there organic ranges which are increasingly becoming imported produce. eg Tescos spring onions are from mexico - sorry spring onions are easy to geow in the uk it's not like oranges or bananas!!! Air miles are so important but I have been pleased to see that more and more supermarkets are labeling food with the origin in readable writing but then you ask the question why is it still more expensive from the uk that hugary or argentina like alot of the meat is from. it's just plain rediculous.

I like to buy form local farmers but so many seam to be jumping on the band wagon with there farm shops and have increasingly high mark ups on products.

I have decided that when I get home to scotland (I so hope it's soon) that I will be having my own veggie patch in the garden and I will find a local butcher for meat or order it with my veg box.

I buy organic because

1. it tastes better
2. my veg box is cheaper than going to tesco to buy veg
3. my health. older generations may have had shorter life spans but they worked harder and were sick far less. I'd rather be healthy and die younger than sick and die at 120.

I do think there are people taking advantange of the situation and putting small organic produce out of business. Just look at the ever increasing range of supermarkets own organic compaired to small companies - it grows every time i'm in the dreaded supermarket.

Ho Hum we'll then be back to square 1

pickledtink

Vegetables and food generally I will go to great lengths to buy Local ( ie fresh) if Organic Local so much the better or semi organic/ insecticide free etc.

I had a shop which only sold local food. Nothing came further than 20 miles. We encouraged people to buy ,cook and eat seasonal fresh food.

It was a real eye opener. The British traditional, quality food industry is nearly dead. Priced out by big Supermarkets. Most Farmers and smallholders I know reckon they will be the last generation and can only hold on because they own their houses. Their own children cannot afford to continue.

We matched Supermarket prices on all the fresh veg, fruit and eggs. Matched their prices on the 'quality' lines on Honey, Jam , Chutneys and cheese. Our milk, cream and yoghurt came from an organic farm from a Guernsey herd.
We went bust anyway because people mostly have no idea how to cook anymore without the vast imported out of season stuff.

Those who appreciated the shop were absolutely heartbroken when it closed as there is absolutely nowhere else in this town bringing that quality and freshness together in one place.

One vegetable distributer I know says there are fewer and fewer greengrocers as outlets. He reckons within 5 years you won't get anything local and will be lucky to get British. 10 years there won't even be that. My potatoe grower kept them in sacks in the barn under old feather quilts through the winter for storage instead of gassing them. He used manure from his cows as fertiliser so they were really an organic potato which we sold for 28p a pound. He said apart from our shop they didn't really have any place to sell them now. Tescos wanted to pay 10p Kilo and for that they had to be washed and sorted into a uniform size so there was absolutely no profit for them at all!

Support your local grower before you have none TO support!

zar

Thanks pickledtink that's an interesting post. May I ask how long ago it was when you closed your shop? I have the impression that there is a real movement towards local and seasonal food going on in the last 5 years or so, for example with new farm shops and farmers markets opening all the time, magazines such as delicious, websites and people on the TV such as Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Rick Stein championing local producers and eating seasonally. It's become quite fashionable, though I hope it won't go out of fashion very quickly!

btw if there is anyone reading this who doesn't currently eat seasonally/locally then HFW is looking for groups of people to challenge to change their eating habits. You can apply via

http://www.rivercottage.net/tvapplication/index.jsp

pickledtink

zar wrote:

Thanks pickledtink that's an interesting post. May I ask how long ago it was when you closed your shop? I have the impression that there is a real movement towards local and seasonal food going on in the last 5 years or so, for example with new farm shops and farmers markets opening all the time, magazines such as delicious, websites and people on the TV such as Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Rick Stein championing local producers and eating seasonally. It's become quite fashionable, though I hope it won't go out of fashion very quickly!

btw if there is anyone reading this who doesn't currently eat seasonally/locally then HFW is looking for groups of people to challenge to change their eating habits. You can apply via

http://www.rivercottage.net/tvapplication/index.jsp

We closed last Christmas eve. Although there is a move towards eating that way it's still only supplementary to the Supermarket shop for most people. Perhaps if we hadn't been so strict on the seasonal/local we might have survived but then it would have been a different sort of shop and not what we wanted to do. Sure miss the food though!

muddled_midget

I try to buy local first, which living in West Dorset is fairly easy for fresh produce. I have an organic veg box delivered from a farm half a mile away each week, and then visit the local market for meat for OH, local dairy and bread products etc. If I do visit the supermarket I try only to buy British, but do worry about the miles some of this has travelled.

Next comes fair trade for coffee, tea and chocolate, and anything else that is available. Have to admit I've never considered buying British sugar, but I'll look into it.

Last comes organic. I only buy organic for carrots and tomatoes if they're not local (ie 5 miles). For supermarket eggs and meat if I'm desperate, it has to be British, free range organic.

I'm definitely thinking more about where I'm getting my food from and how it's got to me since I moved here. One day I'd like to become completely local, but I'm still thinking about the feasibility of this.

SusanCarter

pickledtink wrote:

We closed last Christmas eve. Although there is a move towards eating that way it's still only supplementary to the Supermarket shop for most people. Perhaps if we hadn't been so strict on the seasonal/local we might have survived but then it would have been a different sort of shop and not what we wanted to do. Sure miss the food though!

I think lots of people would like to eat more like that but with all the cheap produce from abroad, the price difference can be prohibitive. Obviously I don't know how much you charged and I'm not saying it's right or wrong for people to be affected by cost but it is an observation.