Organic food in supermarkets

alfsmum

Welcome Hapshade

Hapshade

Forgot to mention, if anyone's interested in the ethics of the companies behind the brands they're buying Ethical Consumer is a good place to check out.

They rate companies as best-buys and assign them an 'ethiscore' that's updated regularly, so as companies change policies on things like environmental reporting etc their ranking changes. They go into a huge amount of detail.

Kirri

Edwardia wrote: »

!!!!!! Strawbridge and son James who did 'The Hungry Sailors' are being landlubbers for this new series, 'Saturday Farm' on ITV. They will be basing themselves at Daylesford for a farming year.

I missed that in the tv guide, will watch, I watched most of their last series.

Edwardia wrote: »

Kirri - besides deliveries, the other consideration is broadband speed.We have 100Mb and 16Mb for cable and 11Mb for landline is just EEK sloooooowwwww

It's a gorgeous historic medieval town on Kent/ E Sussex borders, with a small fishing fleet, surrounded by marshes and bird reserves, marinaded in smuggling tales, full of tourists, very pedestrian-friendly, farmer's market, markets, deli, fleapit cinema, cute small swimming pool, cute single track diesel train which chugs to Brighton, annual festival.. it's also only 7 miles from my mother's place so I could borrow her gardeners hehe.

I have a microfibre dusting mitt which my mother bought me not terribly impressed TBH

Yes that too, I've only got 60mb bb but wouldn't want to have less now.

^ sounds lovely, I love that area, there's quite a few organic farms and farmer's markets as well. Would love to live on either South Coast, or W Sussex but realistically I want to be within driving distance of my specialist vet so I'll probably never get much further than the other side of the M25!

I have microfibre cloths, good for the car and I got them for stainless steel light switches but I generally use eco products for cleaning as it's easier than just a cloth which I find hard work.. I won a microfibre towel for hair yesterday, can't imagine what it's like as they have a strange feel. Think my blind cleaner thing is microfibre too.

Welcome Hapshade Winchester is lovely, have you found any organic farms or specialist shops in that area?

Edwardia

Welcome Hapshade and if there was a medal emoticon I'd have to award it you for reading all the way through.

I started the thread but it would not have lasted to 80 pages without the great contributions from all the crew on the thread here :T It's very much a mutual effort and if people find it useful and have fun contributing or reading that's brilliant.

I think we've probably all experienced the OMG there's this Huge Supermarket But Actually Nothing Much To Eat In It experience.

Quite a few of us have had the sinking feeling of Will I Eat it Before It All Goes Manky, when faced with a veg box for the first time.

And even though I'm an ex-chef, I felt daunted by the What To Do With Kale question.

But that's sort of the point, that people don't have to know anything about organic food and can ask questions , share experiences, post info, review food, ask for recommendations, get all excited about parcels, look for offers and even drool over pics of Alexander Skarsgard in Whole Foods

Looked at https://www.ethicalconsumer.org and looks real interesting. I had a random browse in food and noticed that Mr Organic baked beans scored 16/20 (currently on offer at Ocado BTW) and Heinz organic baked beans only 7/20.

Potted Leeks recipe by James Strawbridge in 'Saturday Farm' at Daylesford looks yummy... as does Mr Strawbridge Jr have to say. And cute lambs being born too.. I felt kinda guilty about eating them for 5 secs until I realised mine were from NZ.

We eat Daylesford chicken quite a lot so I'm hoping my veggie mother doesn't ring me and say look at those cute chicks.. you eat those..:o

Hapshade

Kirri: We have a county-wide farmers market that comes a couple of times a month, though I've not found too much organic produce at it lately. We've also got a couple of local shops that source relatively ethical products like Bio-D, Green People etc., and one carries a few competitively priced groceries.

I try and avoid Tesco unless they're doing a very good offer on something as I've found a lot of their organic produce isn't certified by the Soil Association.

Edwardia: Their buyers guides go into a huge amount of profiling on companies and their ethics. It's an interesting thing to consider how ethical the company you're buying from is rather than just what you're buying. Ocado seems to cover the more ethical brands pretty well though!

Have my first online Waitrose order coming tomorrow morning, and registered on Ocado as a result of this thread and my Mum recently experiencing good service from them. I'm going to have more Ecover than I know what to do with.... quite exciting!

Edwardia

There's a big 24hr Tesco near my mother's house which is beautiful, architecturally - not one of those pseudo barn things. Every time she drags me in there, I find myself thinking: 'If only this was Waitrose'. Food-wise it's a complete desert. It doesn't attempt to sell fresh organic produce these days.

I must admit to being a Waitrose fan, but my nearest store isn't that big and just doesn't have the range of Waitrose stuff that Ocado has. I'm just as much an Ocado fan, especially when the delivery even turned up on time after being stuck in snow. Ocado does so much more than food too.. Fifty Shades of Grey, paintbrushes, kitchen stuff...

Stocking up on Ecover when it's on offer is what I do too. I aim never to pay full price

Edwardia

Hisbe ethical supermarket to open in Brighton
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/companies/supermarkets/hisbe-to-open-ethical-supermarket-in-brighton/238566.article

Sainsbury's opens greenest convenience store in UK in Solihull
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/companies/supermarkets/sainsburys/sainsburys-opens-britains-greenest-c-store/238602.article

Ocado opens new customer fulfillment centre (warehouse)
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/companies/david-cameron-opens-ocados-warwickshire-distribution-centre/238613.article

Fraudulent tuna
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/fresh/tuna-imports-held-following-warnings-of-illegal-fishing/238499.article

McDonald's switches to Freedom pork
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/fresh/mcdonalds-opts-for-freedom-food-pork/238539.article

Seed & Bean becomes Glastonbury supplier
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/seed-and-bean-becomes-chocolate-supplier-to-glastonbury-festival/238455.article

Edwardia

Tesco joins Morrisons and ASDA feeding GM soya
http://www.theranger.co.uk/News/Tesco-joins-Morrison-s-and-Asda-in-allowing-the-use-of-GM-soya-in-poultry-feed_21887.html

Lupins instead of soya ?
http://www.theranger.co.uk/News/Home-grown-Lupins-a-future-soya-replacement-_21880.html

Soil Association statement on the GM feed issue
http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/5170/soil-association-comment-m-s-sainsbury-s-co-op-and-tesco-gm-animal-feed

Waitrose bans neonicotinoids from supply chain
http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/5168/press-comment-waitrose-removes-three-neonicotinoids-from-supply-chain

Hapshade

A further point about Sainsbury's on sustainability.

You can take a lot of their plastic film packaging back to the store and put it in the carrier bag bins. Proportionally much more than I've seen in any other supermarket sadly.

Kirri

Edwardia wrote: »

Waitrose bans neonicotinoids from supply chain
http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/5168/press-comment-waitrose-removes-three-neonicotinoids-from-supply-chain

Well done Waitrose :T