After a year or so of talking and badgering the supermarkets, one chain has finally agreed to discuss the possibility of setting up a local food section in one of their stores. My idea is that all supermarkets should have a local food section run by local farmers who take at least 75% of the retail price.
I am sure this idea has the potential to save British farming and improve our food. Why, because:

75% of retail would give Farmers a fair price for their produce, (compared to the average of 9% on food they currently get in supermarkets).

This fair price and volume of business would encourage farmers to team up and co-operate
They could then supply other buyers such as schools and the public sector.

As the farmers would take it in turns to be ‘in store’ they will talk to customers and be encourage to grow a wider range of produce
Likewise customers will become more aware of local and fresh seasonal produce and be encouraged to eat it.

As trade grows local economies would improve as more produce is grown and money remains in the local community.

This list of ‘wins’ could go on, improving health, cutting imports and food miles and so on. My job now is to find ways round all the obstacles the supermarket is going to put up, such as; quality standards, pricing, labels, etc, etc, and the biggest so far; our customer want cheap food not local! I have told them we can meet quality standards and that people want fresh local food. And, local can be cheap, with no distribution cost and middle man margins.

The truth is they don’t really want to hand over power to the farmers. If you want to help us make this happen register, free, here and we will lobby your local supermarket and send you our newsletter every month with special offers from your local farmers.

And please spread the word, I am sure that if consumers understood the above there would be a resounding ‘YES’ to the Local food section. Supermarkets are customer led and will do as their customers ask, remember the anti GM movement.

With your help we can make this happen. At BigBarn we have details on over 6,500 producers as icons on our maps and 20,000 consumers have already registered their email and postcodes with BigBarn to say ‘l want more local food in my local shops’.

Many farmers are already working together to supply local food users. We will be helping more farmers team up and soon be running a pilot scheme in a supermarket. Once the pilot scheme has proved a success we can lobby all the supermarkets. Simple.

To see me on TV explaining this idea click here

We may not have the ingrained enthusiasm for food as the French and Italians but I am sure we now have better food.

I was interviewed by a local radio station earlier this year about British food following Monssuer Chirac’s comment ‘the only thing the English have done for European agriculture is Mad Cow Disease’. And; “One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad.” I said in the interview that he was probably having a bad day and taking the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar badly but it was true justice the next day when we won the Olympic bid.

In preparing for the interview I thought about the French enthusiasm for food, the fresh bread, sitting down for meals as big families, celebrating food, the markets, the joy of depriving frogs of their legs, eating snails and force feeding geese to make pate. Not all good, and I think this enthusiasm for food has waned over recent years and with it the food produced by French farmers. This is either because French farmers are subsidised to do nothing so have gone out of food production, or, like the UK, supermarkets have attracted all the traditional shop’s customers away and ‘Fast food’ outlets appeal to the next generation more than the family table.

I know we have the same problems in this country with the dreaded supermarket power and fast food. Our farmers however are not subsidised to anything like the same level and as the French food quality drops, ours seems to be rising. Our farmers have had to find new markets to survive and by getting close to the customer at Farmers Markets or selling to local people, have added value to farm produce. Cheese is a classic example of this, we now have more varieties than the French. Will we soon be hearing ‘Un peu de Stinking Bishop?’ in posh Parisienne restaurants.

I am sure that farmers talking to consumers has been the turning point in the renaissance of British food and the more Farmers Markets we have providing a ‘hot bed’ of food innovation and celebration the better our food will get and the more people will enjoy it. Which is why I am so keen on every supermarket having a local food section run by Local Farmer earning 75% of the retail price. It is essentially a mini Farmers Market with the convenience of the supermarket giving all those consumers who do not get the chance to go to the local farmers market the chance to buy local food and talk to a farmer. To read more on this BigBarn mission Click Here.

So there you have it, enthusiasm for food without torturing geese. We are working hard to get a local food section in the supermarkets, but they won’t talk to me! My next ‘rant’ will open the debate on the ‘local food section’ idea. A debate that I hope will raise awareness to the advantages of bringing the ‘foody hot bed’ to more people and helping the supermarkets regain the trust of the consumer. More next week!