So much keep keeps happening, I don’t have time to write. You need to have read the last entry to catch up with where we are now.

So where did I get the idea from to set up Our Produce? Well, there was just a load of little things that kept happening last year, that pointed towards it:

-irritatingly the local farmer’s market is only once a month and the nearest farm shop is miles away.

-I was starting to get a conscious about my blinkered approach to food shopping. I love the cooking but I just didn’t have the time to go and buy fresh local produce from all over the place, so I just headed for the supermarket every Saturday. Well, doesnt everyone?

-our nearest large village, Tutbury, has about 7 hairdressers and some lovely clothes shops but does it have a baker’s, a butcher’s or a greengrocers?

-John up the road was forever giving me fruit and vegetables form his prolific garden and allotment because he “knew I’d use them”. There was fruit dripping off trees going to waste with nowhere to go.

-It wasn’t about just getting an organic veg box delivered once a week.

It hit me that what I needed to do was bring the farmer’s market to the villages; to find homes for all this lovely produce, some of which was going to waste. To buy the bread, eggs, pies, meats, jams from the producers and distribute them.

The question was how? And would people be interested? The answer to the second question was a resounding ‘yes’ from the straw poll I conducted, so I set about tackling the first question. It soon became clear that the idea had legs, I just couldn’t dedicate myself to it whilst still working full time as a teacher.

Dec 2007 – Having convinced my husband Steve to be the sole bread-winner for a while, I leave my teaching post feeling guilty at abandoning my sixth-formers mid-term. (Have to admit I wasn’t quite so bereft at leaving the Year 10′s and 11′s!)

Jan 2008 – Work sourcing suppliers, agents, web designers and customers begins in earnest.

Feb 22nd – (tomorrow!!) I deliver my first orders to the Red Lion in Newborough for some lovely people who have agreed to trial my new community shopping service.