Our Produce, supplying Staffordshire with great value local food

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has urged families to tackle climate change by growing fruit and vegetables in their gardens and allotments instead of buying produce flown thousands of miles.

Of course I agree entirely with this sentiment, but it’s not always practical and there are writers who have already got into trouble for suggesting we all rear and slaughter our own pigs ( read Tom Hodgkinson)! However -the message is clear- we shouldn’t be buying imported food when we can buy local produce. We need to shake off our addiction to the supermarkets – it’s a myth to say local costs more. It doesn’t if you plan you meals,  just buy what you need and cook from simple raw ingredients (See Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers – Wednesdays 7.30pm). It all tastes so much better, is so much better for you and saves the environment, why wouldn’t you take on board the Archbishop’s advice ?

Ok. Off soapbox…now!

I do try and avoid blatantly criticising the supermarkets but I must admit to gasping in horror as I drove through Lichfield last week at the phenomenal scale of the new Tesco’s. I know local residents have been complaining vociferously that planning permission was ever granted for such a huge replacement to the original store and now they have started to clad it it you can see their concerns are justified. I realise that developments like this bring jobs to an area and councils have to encourage economic investment on their patch, but as I drove on to collect my bread from Hindleys, saw the greengrocers up ahead, then went past the market and Walter Smiths, the butchers I just prayed that consumers understand that these local businesses are the heart of our towns and cities. I then passed a woman on a bicycle with bulging white carrier bags hanging off each side of her handle bars….she’d obviously just been to the market. She made me smile and gave me hope.