It seems some supermarkets are slowly giving options for British meat, fruit, veg and flowers, but it's crazy that they come at a premium. Apples flown in from New Zealand might well be cheaper. It's an ecomony that is entirely nuts. The thing that gets me roaring is green beans flown in from Keyna all year round. Importing green beans to British in summer and apples in autumn just seems plain criminal to me. But it's all about the financial bottom line.
It will continue thus until the British start demanding local or home-grown food and supporting farmers' markets and local producers but that comes at a price and also depends on having transport access and the desire to eat meals from scratch and not convenience foods.
Certainly the French SMs I use are very good at promoting local growers and state breed or variety and sometimes the farm if it's local. They always state the country of origin clearly on fruit and veg and it's really hard to find foreign cheese, wine, meat.....
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
It's actually often less polluting to produce food where conditions (climate, soil, whatever) are more favourable, and then transport it to the final consumer, rather than producing it locally where conditions are less favourite and therefore require more "artificial" help (fertilizers, artificial irrigation, heating).
Can one produce coffee bananas cocoa tomatoes wine chilly in Scotland? Of course one can. All year round. But is this better for our planet than producing them somewhere else and then transporting....? No.
Here my environmental pledges: Eat less animal products Eat what you need, no more Limit what you buy (of everything!) Limit energy consumption (transport, heating, electric)
@alberto.defanis I do agree with you but I also think the root of the problem is the expectation that seasonal produce is available all year round. I saw strawberries in my local supermarket a few weeks ago - I love strawberries - but I'm not buying them until they're in season and British. That's a summer treat to look forward too. I'm definitely not saying that I'm a saint and that conscientious with all my shopping, but a bit more awareness means we can all do a bit to help reduce the environmental impact.
The prices are the perfect tool to do this balancing and the perfect information system. If something is produced in NZ, shipped here, and still cheaper than local produce, it is because it is more efficient to make it there. That higher efficiency is why we can afford so much more than the generation before us could. But there are two problems: - The cost of externalities really isn't fully part of the prices at the moment. - Subsidies and regulations deform the system and take away the information naturally present in prices. But still, even if I compare for example British lamb and Welsh lamb (the same country, probably very similar situation for farmers), Welsh lamb is more expensive, even though there are sheep everywhere (so it shouldn't be a supply problem). One would guess that the British lamb is mostly Welsh lamb too but the fact that they can mix whatever they have and don't have that much bureaucracy to prove the origin maybe, just maybe, make it cheaper but who knows. Maybe it's just the demand side - the fact that local people are willing to pay more for local meat.
For local, read seasonal. I do not see very much out of season fresh fruit and veg here tho there are bananas from French territories year round and avocadoes from Peru.
Early strawberries come from Spain, early tomatoes come from Morocco but then France catches up with its own. There are all sorts of cattle bred for beef in France but round here it's either Blondes d'Aquitaine or Limousin you see in the fields and in the shops. There is a new venture to grow Aberdeen Angus on the marshy flats between us and the Atlantic but not yet in the shops. Elsewhere in France it will be Charolais. Even bread has local versions - Luçon baguette which is wider and flatter than the Parisian and of course brioche and gâche. No soda bread, no ciabatta, no sourdough. Not French.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I consider myself to be more the referee than the fat controller in my garden. Anything that plays nicely is welcome.
Snap! That’s our approach too
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
France does seem to have its food systems more sorted (and always was more of a solidly agricultural economy, like Italy and Spain) but the French take their food more seriously - they are willing to spend a higher proportion of income on really good food. UK spends 8% of household budget, France 13% and are more into regional sourcing. UK has one of the lowest in the 'European zone'. And, to boot, complains the loudest about expensive food.
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Certainly the French SMs I use are very good at promoting local growers and state breed or variety and sometimes the farm if it's local. They always state the country of origin clearly on fruit and veg and it's really hard to find foreign cheese, wine, meat.....
It's actually often less polluting to produce food where conditions (climate, soil, whatever) are more favourable, and then transport it to the final consumer, rather than producing it locally where conditions are less favourite and therefore require more "artificial" help (fertilizers, artificial irrigation, heating).
Can one produce coffee bananas cocoa tomatoes wine chilly in Scotland? Of course one can. All year round.
But is this better for our planet than producing them somewhere else and then transporting....?
No.
Here my environmental pledges:
Eat less animal products
Eat what you need, no more
Limit what you buy (of everything!)
Limit energy consumption (transport, heating, electric)
I'm definitely not saying that I'm a saint and that conscientious with all my shopping, but a bit more awareness means we can all do a bit to help reduce the environmental impact.
But there are two problems:
- The cost of externalities really isn't fully part of the prices at the moment.
- Subsidies and regulations deform the system and take away the information naturally present in prices.
But still, even if I compare for example British lamb and Welsh lamb (the same country, probably very similar situation for farmers), Welsh lamb is more expensive, even though there are sheep everywhere (so it shouldn't be a supply problem). One would guess that the British lamb is mostly Welsh lamb too but the fact that they can mix whatever they have and don't have that much bureaucracy to prove the origin maybe, just maybe, make it cheaper but who knows. Maybe it's just the demand side - the fact that local people are willing to pay more for local meat.
Early strawberries come from Spain, early tomatoes come from Morocco but then France catches up with its own. There are all sorts of cattle bred for beef in France but round here it's either Blondes d'Aquitaine or Limousin you see in the fields and in the shops. There is a new venture to grow Aberdeen Angus on the marshy flats between us and the Atlantic but not yet in the shops. Elsewhere in France it will be Charolais. Even bread has local versions - Luçon baguette which is wider and flatter than the Parisian and of course brioche and gâche. No soda bread, no ciabatta, no sourdough. Not French.
East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham