Tuesday 12 April 2011, author: admin

Dear Members,

We thought you might like to see this article that has been in the national press recently:

http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/news/Devon-town-wins-praise-dedication-filling-shelves-local-food/article-3432481-detail/article.html

Devon town wins praise for its dedication to filling shelves with local food

A Devon town known for its environmental achievements has scooped a national award for its locally grown produce.

A study by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has identified Totnes as the place whose shops sell some of the greatest proportions of locally grown food in the country.

The research claims that more than 60 per cent of produce sold in the town’s shops comes from farms within 30 miles of Totnes.

Environmentally conscious consumers have been increasingly keen to reduce the food miles travelled before items reach the shops to minimise greenhouse gas emissions.

The CPRE study, published today, also found that the town was having considerable success in beating off supermarket domination, boasting 44 shops stocking a wide range of local food for the 23,000 residents in Totnes and surrounding villages, supplied by 160 producers in the area. By contrast, the 16,000 residents of Birstall in Leicestershire were supplied almost entirely by convenience stores and supermarkets, with only 27 of its 200-plus shops stocking local produce, in most cases just a few items such as eggs.

Graeme Willis, the CPRE’s senior food campaigner, said: “In many areas we are already far down the road to a supermarket monoculture. This is not good for local food and it’s not good for consumer choice.”

“Until now these intricate networks were below the radar of most decision makers. However, food webs play a valuable role by connecting people, through shops and markets, to their wider community and to the surrounding countryside — and producing a better diet.”

Guy Watson, founder of Riverford Organic Vegetables at nearby Buckfastleigh which supplies nearly 50,000 veg boxes a week, said: “Totnes’s achievement is not an overnight thing.

“It means local people feel a connection with their food and they want to share that. It encourages them to cook more and cook different foods and it becomes a virtuous circle.”

The report comes as supermarket chains expand faster than ever. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons have recently gained planning permission for nearly 500 new stores in England. Asda alone is planning to open 168 stores in 2011.

The CPRE compared the food webs of a variety of English towns to see where people were getting their food from. So far it has studied 19 towns, with the first six reports published this week.

The green pressure group wants local food considerations to be incorporated in planning guidelines so that councils must take account of the impact of proposed supermarkets on an area’s supply chain. The four leading retailers supplied 62 per cent of all British food in 2008, a figure that rose to 83 per cent when smaller supermarket chains were included.