Locally made produce

DCFC79

How far does everyone go to buy locally grown produce and locally made food stuffs ?

itsallinthemind

Hi,

Unfortunately nothing is produced locally. Apart from the local hog roast at the butchers, which is not suitable for my family and the local bakers bread, which is nasty.

I still use the local convenience stote, whilst it can be more expensive, of is at least, supporting local employment. I try to then buy the British products, from companies not on my mental list of being non ethical. If buying non British products, I will then avoid produce of Israel etc.

Slightly off topic, apologies

mum26

Not very at the moment sadly, I do choose to buy british if there is a choice which is a start I suppose. I go out to a big farm shop place every few months to get pet things, hay etc and they have a lot of local produce there but it is not very good value - a locally made cake, nothing fancy just an iced chocolate sponge (average loaf tin sized) or lemon sponge kind of thing is £5!

Local butchers can be misleading, it's not necessarily local meat, I once went specially to a local butcher to buy a gammon for christmas and when I got home it turned out it was danish!

valk_scot

I grow a lot of my own fruit and veg, make my own jams, chutney and bread and trade surplus produce with my neighbour for eggs from her hens. So I don't go very far for a lot of the local produce I use.

I also try to support the local Farmers Market, which is once a month in a town 15 minutes drive away. I go for the bacon & sausages from local pigs, local cream, HM lemon curd and the WI baking stand, yum. In the same town is a proper butcher shop, the kind that displays the prizewinners rosettes of the beef cattle he's selling the meat from. He makes his own steak pies, sausages, burgers etc. Excellent stuff, not cheap though.

We have a good local greengrocer too, nothing fancy but he sources a lot of local fruit and veg, local artisan bread, eggs, honey and jams. His prices often undercut Tesco.

frugal_shopper_2

My local butcher also owns the abbatoir where the animals are processed so he knows the origin of all meat he sells, he only processes & sells animals from within a 20 mile radius & can even tell you which field the animal was raised in if you really wan't to know the only exception being black pudding which is made from imported dried blood due to complex health & safety rules making it too much hassle to collect fresh blood himself. A lot of the meat I buy travels further when I bring it home than it had to to appear in the butchers in the first place.
Most veg particularly root veg I buy direct from local producers but that is mainly due to the price & shelf life, it tends to be the imperfect produce that is considered to be too big, too small or is a slightly odd shape & it is unwashed so will last for months rather than a week or 2.

Other than that I tend to go for the best prices rather than looking at the origin.

Mind you in some areas local produce isn't actually that local.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1626774.ece

DCFC79

Went to a market the other day and i thought i would ask how far people went for non mass produced products. I saw various things like cider, fruit and veg, bread and cakes, sausages, cheese, jewellery, soaps etc. Dont think as good as some of the french markets ive been to.

DCFC79

valk_scot wrote: »

I grow a lot of my own fruit and veg, make my own jams, chutney and bread and trade surplus produce with my neighbour for eggs from her hens. So I don't go very far for a lot of the local produce I use.

I also try to support the local Farmers Market, which is once a month in a town 15 minutes drive away. I go for the bacon & sausages from local pigs, local cream, HM lemon curd and the WI baking stand, yum. In the same town is a proper butcher shop, the kind that displays the prizewinners rosettes of the beef cattle he's selling the meat from. He makes his own steak pies, sausages, burgers etc. Excellent stuff, not cheap though.

We have a good local greengrocer too, nothing fancy but he sources a lot of local fruit and veg, local artisan bread, eggs, honey and jams. His prices often undercut Tesco.

is any of that cheaper than the superamrkets,

another question i was going to ask is do you buy local products irrespective of the price

freyasmum

I also love the local farmers market. My chicken comes from.... an agricultural college! Lol, all the best free range chicken/eggs (though my mum has hens, so she gives me some every few days) at amazing prices. The meat comes from a local farm shop or the farmers market. Sausages I get from the rare breed stall at the farmers market - they're absolutely MASSIVE! Expensive, but seriously huge - I've never seen anything like them before Get fruit and veg when I'm there too, but it's once a month. The stuff from the farm shop ain't great - flies buzzing around, and moudly produce _pale_ - so I end up in the supermarket for the other three weeks.

Jams I either make my own or... sshhh.... littlie and I love the bonne maman strawberry one.

valk_scot wrote: »

I grow a lot of my own fruit and veg, make my own jams, chutney and bread and trade surplus produce with my neighbour for eggs from her hens. So I don't go very far for a lot of the local produce I use.

I also try to support the local Farmers Market, which is once a month in a town 15 minutes drive away. I go for the bacon & sausages from local pigs, local cream, HM lemon curd and the WI baking stand, yum. In the same town is a proper butcher shop, the kind that displays the prizewinners rosettes of the beef cattle he's selling the meat from. He makes his own steak pies, sausages, burgers etc. Excellent stuff, not cheap though.

We have a good local greengrocer too, nothing fancy but he sources a lot of local fruit and veg, local artisan bread, eggs, honey and jams. His prices often undercut Tesco.

If you were interested in making your own lemoncurd this recipe is the dog's.

You (obviously) don't need to add the limoncello, but... wow! :eek::D


ETA: It's not always about price. I could go buy a pack of value sausages and a jar of basics lemon curd and save a good few ££s.. probably £3.50 on the sausages alone, but there's really no comparing the taste.

LandyAndy

DCFC79 wrote: »

How far does everyone go to buy locally grown produce and locally made food stuffs ?

If you go a long way to buy locally produced food are you defeating the object?

My butcher sells local meat, eggs, pies etc.

I don't shop at farmer's markets because they are a rip off of the first magnitude.

helen190390

i grow my own veggies. Got carrots, potatoes and spring onions in at the moment, but over the summer, i had lots of lovely strawberries and made lots of puddings and jams with them. Also i have some frozen for when we fancy some in the winter. I think most people are put off by growing your own, but mine are all in pots, and all i do, is plant the seeds, and wait for them to grow!! easy peasy

Some veggies need tending to, but i purposely choose the easy ones!

i'm a vegetarian so don't use an butchers, but i do shop in tesco for meat for my partner and daughter! x

valk_scot

DCFC79 wrote: »

is any of that cheaper than the superamrkets,

another question i was going to ask is do you buy local products irrespective of the price

It depends if you're looking purely at price irrespective of quality. If you take quality into account most of our local artisan producers beat Tesco's "Finest" hand down. On price though Tesco Value usually wins.

Do I buy local irrespective of price? No. We're a one income family of four and I just can't afford to do that. On the other hand I do belive in supporting our local shops and producers so I do try to buy as much locally as I can. The greengrocer especially is worth supporting as he genuinely does seem to be able to undercut Tesco on seasonal produce, eggs and honey for example so it's no hardship to buy there. Local meat is more expensive but the quality is so good that a little goes a long way so I buy less, or use less expensive cuts.