Food from the Arnside Silverdale AONB and the surrounding region.

What If?

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if all our food came from local farms or market gardens or was grown by people for their own use? Instead of going to a supermarket to buy beans from Africa, apples and meat from New Zealand, or scampi processed in Taiwan, we would produce most of these things here in North West England as part of a vibrant local food economy. What if that was a practical idea?

Of course going completely local in food is just a dream – we have been importing food for decades and we take for granted that tropical foods will always be available on the shelves of the local supermarket that itself is probably part of a large chain of similar stores. In any case many of our favourite fruits for example are best grown in warmer climates where they benefit from the natural advantages of tropical sun and rain.

The list of the more exotic foods continues to expand. Our tastes in food are continually changing and what is exotic today is commonplace tomorrow. Like changes in lifestyle we want to try new things and to cook in new ways. Styles of cookery from the Far East and the Mediterranean appear for example to be more popular than ever. In fact one is hard-pressed to say what dishes are truly British or English, such is the influence of international styles on our own cooking. Examples are the greater use of herbs and exotic spices sometimes to ‘pep-up’ what might otherwise be a fairly mundane stew.

Get Healthy

We are also told that we have to adopt more healthy diets and reduce the input of calories – many convenience or processed foods are accused of having high fat, sugar or salt content – added by the manufacturers to improve flavour but also now blamed for the long term trend towards more obesity, particularly in the young. Other additives can increase shelf life but have been associated with allergies of various kinds. Convenience foods are however here to stay – working families have less time to prepare meals and so food that just has to be bought in the local supermarket, defrosted, heated in the microwave and then served is just the job.

Minimise Food Miles

Convenience foods are of course unlikely to be of local origin but the consumer needs to be offered a better choice and the marketing of locally produced foods can help in this. In this respect consumers have driven quite radical changes over the last few years. An increase in organic production driven partly by consumer pressure as well as a trend towards more sustainable agricultural systems is perhaps the most important example.

Locally produced food has also figured in these changes. More local products are on the supermarket shelves, though they still probably form only a small percentage of total sales. One example in this area is a very popular marmalade made on a modest scale locally and sold by a local supermarket. Farmers markets that visit the local centres (though not within the AONB) have increased in popularity over the last few years. They offer a ready way of direct selling to local consumers by-passing the distribution systems of the supermarkets so that more of the profits go to the producer. Country markets are also springing up.

While the daily food markets selling fresh food that typical of countries such as France are rare in Britain, one does see many examples of where local producers have found ways of selling direct to consumers. Roadside stalls or farm gate selling of fruit and vegetables in season are still commonly seen in the local countryside.

This website and the booklet and CD that will join it in the near future, tries to promote the greater use of local produce from two different directions: it aims to help the producer or potential producer who wants to market his produce locally and also to potential customers, whether local residents or visitors who appreciate the benefits of truly local food.

This website is still under construction, please visit again soon.