As I wrote when the pandemic swept in, the uptake in our box scheme during the lockdown was extraordinary. Within two weeks from its start, it had tripled from our usual 60 or so boxes to 180. And through out the lockdown it stayed thereabouts. We had welcome and gratifying messages from our customers for our services – genuine appreciation for what we do and that we were there when they needed us.

From the start of all this, the question for us – and I’d venture to say, every other veg grower, small scale producer and local shop – was, will it last? Will this interest in local food stick?

The lockdown has definitely woken us up. Research carried out by You Gov for the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission has shown that people want to learn from this crisis and are trying different things – cooking from scratch, exercising more. It’s enhanced a sense of community, bringing people together even as they are separate. We’re more aware of nature and of how much better air quality has been because we’re not moving around so much. And, thankfully, it’s made us recognise how much we value food. The stats are hopeful, heartening and speak of change and transformation.

But change, we must all remember, is unabidingly hard, no matter how good it is ultimately. In the last week, I’ve witnessed the slow drip of customers leaving our box scheme: ‘We are not organic die-hards,’ said one, ‘but have enjoyed the change and variety’; another said ‘I’m just rethinking food and shopping now that I’m not working and I just can’t justify a veg box delivery at the moment’; a third, ‘Thanks so much for the boxes we’ve had, they were delicious. We are going to stop them for a while I’m afraid’, with no further explanation.

A good chunk of the people now leaving our box scheme have gardens that are starting to produce, so that’s a good thing – and many of them will come back in late autumn when their gardens slow down. They’ll also come to market through the summer and autumn to top up on the things they didn’t grow. But I suspect that in the coming weeks a lot of our customers will leave because life is gently returning to normal, to what they did before, and the supermarket is ever so much cheaper and you can buy whatever you want, from wherever you want at any time of year.

I know that expense is an issue in local food – whether you’re buying local vegetables, local cheese, local meat or local flour. It’s produced on an economic playing field that values economies of scale, efficiency and just-in-time logistics, so it’s bound to be on the downside of profit, demanding customers pay more. The problem is that turning this equation around is particularly difficult in our globalised, industrialised food system, where trade deals have the potential to trump environmentally-sound agricultural practice and high animal welfare. Everyone has to decide how they prioritise their food purchases based on what they can afford; but I do believe that many more people can afford to pay more for food that is produced more sustainably and with better animal welfare, but choose not to.

In a recent podcast, former Today host John Humphrys in conversation with SFT director Patrick Holden, argued that ‘The vast, vast overwhelming majority of people in this world…are concerned with two or three things: the first is that there is enough food when they [need] to buy; the second is that it be of reasonable quality; and the third is that it be of reasonable price. [People] couldn’t give a monkey’s as to where precisely that pear or apple or rice…came from [or] how it was grown. They see it, they need it, they buy it – and they will continue to do that unless and until something catastrophic happens.’ It’s a pretty bleak viewpoint, but one, I hate to admit, that is most probably true.

But here’s the thing: that catastrophic moment is not so far away, it’s just too big a catastrophe to take on board. We sit on a knife edge of calamity, teetering on tipping points – global warming, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, planetary boundaries, plastic in our seas and other less noted dangers. What we eat and how we feed ourselves is integral to how we solve the problems that we face; untangle this knot of issues and it will surely make the solutions to other problems easier to find.

But if we don’t use the pandemic to re-imagine what our future could be, then we are surely damned. The end of the lockdown with its promise of a return to normality holds both hope and blindness – we cannot go forward, looking back. This pandemic has revealed so much about our food system: that if we continue to destroy the wild places on the earth in the quest for industrialised food and the money which comes from it, we will have more pandemics that will, inevitably, be more dangerous; that supermarkets are not the bastions of food security that we may have thought; that citizens when faced with empty supermarket shelves will be resourceful and find alternative local routes to food that fills the gap. But will they remember how important their discovery was?

The small- and medium-scale farms and food businesses that serve their local communities need far, far more support and local food should be championed. But the vast majority of people have long since forgone local shops and producers for cheaper supplies in supermarkets – yet, if they aren’t supported, they won’t be there for the next pandemic. And what they offer is largely what we need most: businesses that value the quality of what they produce and whose practices are less impactful on the earth and countryside and who give considered care to the animals they raise. They produce food with a story – a provenance and place. And local purchases strengthen local economies. I hope that the experience of buying from them through the pandemic has made them more valued and increased respect for them.

So, remember that small and local producers are a good place to start for your food. And remember to reach a little further into your purse, if you can, to buy from them. If we leave it to the industrialised food system to feed the world, which it does rather little of in the big picture – most food in the world is produced by small-scale farmers – the next time a pandemic comes round we may find ourselves, as I said at the beginning of all this, ‘Nine meals from anarchy’.

By Alicia Miller

Results of a snapshot survey of 100 good food enterprises has shown that a high number of these small, diverse businesses were able to stay open for business and adapt to changes, despite experiencing fluctuation in demand and supply chain challenges.

Sustain’s Food Coops Network and London Food Link surveyed their networks of food enterprises at the start of lockdown to gather insight into how they had adapted to the lockdown and social distancing measures brought in as a result of Covid-19. The questions also elicited information on the challenges those running local good food enterprises were facing.

Over 100 people completed the survey between the 6 April and 8 May 2020 with representation from a wide range of enterprises: including cafes, producers, shops, markets and buying groups.

Key findings were:

• Good food enterprises are open for business and have adapted to the changes
• There have been supply chain challenges
• Finances, staff safety and logistics have made things difficult
• Uncertainty, particularly income fluctuation, have made it hard to plan for the future
• Networks have helped with finding solutions

“Being able to be small and nimble and people-powered has worked to our advantage at this time. It’s vital that local and national governments support sustainable small businesses with affordable rents, enabling finance, and supportive regulation.” Tom Steele, Kentish Town Box Scheme

Following the survey, in which respondents suggested various ways we could help, Sustain have published information and guidance for local enterprises and worked to keep markets open during lockdown. They are now looking at how to influence local and national government to support these supply chains and enterprises as we come out of lockdown and look at rebuilding local economies.

“We think it is critical that small, diverse food enterprises are seen and heard as part of local economic recovery plans that are being developed following lockdown. These businesses have shown their economic worth time and time again, and now have demonstrated how resilient and adaptable they can be in times of emergency and recovery” commented Ben Reynolds, Deputy CEO of Sustain.

Actions highlighted in the report include working with councils to develop Good Food Retail plans and provide support and access to premises and opportunities for good food enterprises to thrive.

Pete Ritchie, Executive Director of Nourish Scotland, is also the co-owner of Whitmuir Organic Farm, shop and café. Today he writes from his perspective as a local food business owner during the initial weeks of the Covid-19 crisis.

Even though he’s already retired twice, Robert was at Shotts abattoir at 6 this morning to pick up 4 more lambs which Matthew took in for us on Tuesday as we’ve gone through all our own. Sheena’s dropping off extra milk from Bryce in Ayrshire and we’ve got more eggs coming in from Dumfries as Margaret’s hens in Peebles can’t go any faster. We’ve doubled the order from Donna at Breadshare, Sascha is keeping us going with chicken and Wilma’s sending cheese. Ewan’s picking the spinach and leeks and sorting out the veg boxes with help from Graham in North Berwick and Roger in Bathgate. Angus’s team are flat out milling our flour in Drem. Vicki’s other business is on hold, so she’s joined the delivery te

Local food is a relationship, not a commodity. Like every other local food business in the UK just now, we’re working flat out to meet an extraordinary surge in demand. Our systems and supply chains are creaking under the strain, and we’re wondering if now is really the time to migrate our website to a shiny new platform.

But in the middle of it all are people, and care. The people in London who have set up a weekly delivery to a relative living near the farm are showing their love through food, and it’s a privilege at this crazy time to be able to help.

So what’s next? For us, sure, some of our new customers will go back to the multiples for all their shopping. We can’t do one hour delivery slots, and our prices are higher because we are small and we are organic. There still won’t be a bus to our farm shop. But we hope that some will stay, here and across the UK.

Why does it matter? First, though the supply chain didn’t break this time, it certainly frayed. Scotland produces far more food than it needs for its own population – but getting it to people involves long food chains, but doesn’t need to. Flour, vegetables, meat, oats, milk, cheese, eggs and many other products could be connecting more farms to more people more closely. Even if 10% of our food reached us that way (rather than the 1 or 2% currently) it would provide valuable resilience in a future crisis.

The thing about black swans is you wait for ages, and then three come along all at once. This pandemic may be the stress test we never need to learn from; or it may encourage us to take out some insurance.

Second, because this crisis has reminded us that people make food, and that we rely on them every day – people here, and people across the world. Local food reconnects citizens to food producers, reasserts food as part of community, and empowers citizens to shape the food system to reflect their values, whether those are about the environment, health, fair wages or animal welfare. Local food creates more jobs per meal, more meaning per mouthful, more social capital per shopping basket.

So what should we do to strengthen the local food sector in Scotland? To date, Government has focused on exports, commodities and growth. Now, some of that focus has to shift from production to connection, investing in the local food economy.

Some of this is about access to land, and to skills. If a young person in Scotland wants a qualification in market gardening, she will have to go to Europe. Some of it is about innovation – whether that is reinventing the Scottish glasshouse industry, using our wealth of renewable energy to grow our own Mediterranean diet, or creating a network of right-size cow with calf dairies in the green belt.

Some of it is about co-operation – in marketing, logistics, processing infrastructure, and supplies. And some of it is about public money for public goods – whether that is investing in organics for climate and nature, supporting livelihoods in fragile rural areas or widening access to local food through community food hubs.

But while Government has a key role, all of us can make a difference. Our new customers are hugely appreciative, but here’s the thing: for the last ten years we have had about 200 customers who pay us a standing order every month through thick and thin and that’s given us the resilience every small business needs.

We naturally take out direct debits for our fuel, our phone, our mortgage: but most of us treat food as a spot purchase. It’s time to invest in the local food sector, so that it’s still here the next time we remember we need it.

By Pete Ritchie

Article originally published by Ethical Consumer

The news has concentrated on stories of selfish stockpiling and fights over toilet paper but amidst the distress and panic-buying, there have been pockets of incredible community cooperation.

Kate Ford and Natasha Soares from Better Food Traders describe the collaboration they’ve been seeing within their network and why it is so important.

Community cooperation and support

As a network of ethical retailers who supply sustainably grown fruit and vegetables to their local areas, we have seen our communities step up in this time of extreme strain on the food sector.

An overwhelming number of customers have voluntarily come forward to help as demand for local food skyrockets. Instead of racing to stockpile, they are sharing the food supplies equally, as is the normal format of the schemes, where members share the produce available each week. Because members feel a sense of belonging, they trust that everyone will get their bag of food and have a sense of responsibility to their neighbours on the scheme.

Since we began, we have been cutting our carbon footprint by creating accessible spaces where customers can pick up their vegetables on foot, and now with COVID-19 members that can still make it are supporting those that cannot.

Customers, who would like to help the businesses and those affected by COVID-19, have come forward to collect and deliver weekly orders on a voluntary basis to people who can not make it to a collection point.

A survey run by Veg Box People, a Manchester-based Better Food Trader, also showed that if their collection point closed and the scheme couldn’t find a way to get them their vegetables, 20% of subscribers would be willing to pay anyway to support this community-led local business and 50% of subscribers offered to donate their veg to a food bank. Customers of another Better Food Trader, Local Greens, have donated over £330 worth of food to their local food bank in one week alone.

Committed to better food

In this incredibly difficult time, when everything is stripped away, it is the community we fall back on. But it’s not just in times of struggle that these ethical businesses are there for us.

The local fruit and vegetable sellers in our network are committed to principles of distributing food in a low-carbon, low-impact way, trading fairly, championing ecological food production and striving to change the big picture. They have always been dedicated to their local people, providing local jobs and work experience for the long-term unemployed or for those with disabilities, giving to food banks, paying local farmers what they deserve and providing nutrition training and resources. Now, loyal customers are appreciating them and giving back.

In a crisis like this, we can see how important local food initiatives are because they provide more than just fresh, low-carbon produce. They encourage local supply and production and healthier eating, make better quality food more affordable, and bring people together.

Changing our food system

The coronavirus has reminded us all of what really matters. It has exposed deep structural weaknesses in the current UK food system, dominated by supermarkets whose business model is based not on seasonality, locality or nutrition, but on the profit-driven choices of large food corporations. This structure damages our communities, our planet and our farming, and now the fragility of the system is exposed.

The food system is currently heavily dependent on fossil fuels, for example in its use of petrochemical-based pesticides and fertilisers, and responsible for at least 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is also one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss, soil degradation and deforestation and a major driver of many diseases.

Estimates also suggest that total UK food and drink waste after the produce leaves the farm stands at around 9.5 million tonnes per year and that 70% of that waste is avoidable. We can’t continue producing food like this if we are going to tackle the climate crisis and feed our communities.

At the Better Food Trader network, we believe we can create a sustainable, resilient food system that feeds us well if we work together. Most of the degradation of our environment and communities is embedded in the systems that provide the basis of our society – the infrastructure, processes and worldviews that dictate our energy, transport, food system, industry and housing. The Better Food Traders network has set about creating a viable alternative to the food system (albeit on a small scale) that could aggregate and focus individual choices towards the systemic changes we are all seeking.

By signing up to a waiting list for a veg box from a Better Food Trader you are not only reducing your personal impact and becoming part of a caring food community, but you are also helping create an alternative system that is better for people and the planet.

Article originally published by The Grocer

An accreditation scheme to recognise retailers with ethical supply chains that support British farmers has been launched.

The new initiative, called Better Food Trader, was launched this week by campaign group Sustain and community food charity Growing Communities, with the aim of setting a “gold standard” for food retail practice.

The initiative is aimed at retailers, veg box schemes, markets and other retail models.

The accreditation schemes are based on models that involve low waste, better margins for farms and nature-friendly farming.

“Ultimately we want every shop, box scheme, market stall and retailer committed to the environment, to fairness in the food system and to providing people with great local food to join the Better Food Traders,” said project leader Natasha Soares.

The scheme aims to have 50 accredited members within two years.

This month, thousands of young people around the UK received their exam results. It is a time of celebration for some, for others it is a time of sadness and confusion over the future. For others it is a time for celebration and confusion: good results don’t always mean a clear eyed view of the path ahead.

It almost goes without saying that exam results don’t define you as a human being and are not the last say on a person’s potential. So if you’re one of those that didn’t get the results you want (or you’re still confused by the path ahead) then consider it may just be an opportunity in disguise: time out to work, travel, explore and to discover what it is that make life meaningful for you.

For us here at Better Food Traders we’re motivated by protecting the environment through changing the food system. If this is something that motivates you too then there plenty of opportunities to explore. In London there are fantastic schemes such as:  Wolves Lane in Tottenham http://wolveslane.org/; Growing Communities in Hackney https://www.growingcommunities.org/volunteering-hackney and Organic Lea in Waltham Forest https://www.organiclea.org.uk/volunteering/

Or if you want to go further afield then WWOOFing can enable you to live, meet others and work on organic farms in UK and around the world http://wwoof.net/.

This is not an argument against university education. We need scientists, engineers, inventors and artists to help us in the face of seemingly unstoppable climate change. However if you decide that academia isn’t for you then there are numerous other ways to make an impact. The UK is in dire need of horticulturists: people to grow fruit and vegetables in a way that sustains the environment. We need entrepreneurs to set up community led organisations to sell fairly priced food that also provides a meaningful income to farmers and growers. We need campaigners to put pressure on government to prioritise land for sustainable agriculture and support tenant farmers committed to agro-ecology. We need budding cooks to give people new ideas as to how to cook with fresh seasonal, plant-based produce.

The list is endless, and so are the opportunities. Happy exploring.