Where does the food in your supermarket come from?

[Shirley]

I was thinking last night - a dangerous hobby at the best of times...

Everyone talks about food miles, and we here in Britain are offered unseasonal delights from all over the world on our supermarket shelves... tomatoes from Israel, plums from Africa etc etc...

So where does the stuff in your supermarket come from? Is it all locally produced or from further afield. If you live in New Zealand, do you import apples from the UK?

It can vary even within the UK with some places selling a lot of local produce - when we were in Herefordshire there were often a few local apples and strawberries on sale...

My local co-op is selling lamb from NZ - now no offence to the New Zealand folk on this site but WHY? Does NZ import Scottish lamb and sell it in preference to your own?

[Andy Hamilton]

It is ridiculous, I have to hunt down english apples even when they are in peak season. We seem to get a lot of stuff from South Africa here in Somerset. I asked in my local greengrocer where some of the organic veg they sell comes from and it is not local! I thought much of it was.

Keep meaning to look into box schemes, it is a bit of a contension with my girlfriend though as she loves here unseasonal veg.

f

[Wombat]

Yeah, we get stuff fom all over - even all over Aus!

Linda was telling me about a "farmers market" in a local Westfield and they sold "local" produce ie from within Aus, but also had a lot of overseas stuff!

Grrrrr!

Nev

[Goodlife1970]

Hi Shirlz,it seems we have some kind of pact with NZ from way back that they have to sell us x amount of lamb and we have to buy it! Bizzare but thats the way things are. Our local Co-oP is really rather good on the local produce,lamb,beef,milk,cheese,eggs and quite a lot of veg,are produced locally,ie the farms that they come from are within a 30ish mile radius. It does seem that "we" Welsh (ok Im pushing it a bit here but Grandad was Welsh!) are very proud of our foodstuffs and have big stickers saying WELSH whatever all over them. Its amazing too the difference,we couldnt believe the taste of the locally produced milk when we first came here,miles better than the mixed stuff we were brought up on!

[nick]

bad topic to get me started on!!
Why import orange juice into Aus when at the same time tonnes are getting dumped into landfill.
Why import pork when there is a perfectly good pork industry in Aus.
fozen peas from NZ

there are so many imported lines of fresh food in the supermarkets at the moment and unless you have time to stop and read the fine print on everything the consumer is none the wiser.

[Wombat]

We get frozen peas from bloody Belgium in the local Woolies! gotta buy 'em cause of Kevin, but....................

Nev

[wulf]

I do tend to go for more local stuff when it's an option although, I have to confess, I'm talking about when there's a UK or at least European product on the supermarket shelves

If it's from further afield, then there will often be some alternative motivation - for example, we like our banannas but only buy the fair trade ones. Even those are shipped a long way but it's a chance to invest in the livelihood of the farmers; without fair trade ones, we do without.

I like the idea of an organic food box... but I think I might start another thread on that!

Wulf

[Millymollymandy]

France!!! Apart from Dutch cheese and Cheddar. Bananas come from the former French colonies. Sometimes we get early strawberries from Spain. The French seem to allow Spanish produce - don't know why, but there is always a large selection of Spanish olive oil but only one from Italy. But mostly everything is from France. So I can't wait to get to an English supermarket. I'd kill for Greek olive oil, German rye bread, selections of English cheeses and sausages..... God and some beef NOT from French tough as old boot cows!!!!!!!!

Sorry guys, I am so the antichrist to you all in your hatred of all things supermarkety, but try being 11 years out of the UK and loathing the food of the country you live in........

[wulf]

Sorry guys, I am so the antichrist to you all in your hatred of all things supermarkety, but try being 11 years out of the UK and loathing the food of the country you live in........

France? The holy grail of hautre cuisine? Surely not?

Wulf

[Shirley]

I'm surprised to hear that MMM - I thought that French people really cared about their food - is ALL the beef from French cows tough? Surely not????

I visited a friend near Paris and we went to a farmers market - this was about 5 years ago now. I was amazed at the quality of the food.

IS there a french supermarket equivalent??

[Millymollymandy]

Haute cuisine may be found in a handful of very expensive restaurants but the majority of restaurants serve really naff food. Tinned haricot are very common - that's if you get a veg at all.

The quality of vegetables and fruit in the supermarkets is not good. Today I needed a cucumber but I wouldn't buy one at €1.40 as every one was squidgy and rotten at one end. Quite often they leave rotting peppers, aubergines, lettuces there in that sort of state.

There are markets for fruit and veg and nylon blouses, tacky handbags, you know the sort of thing but they are rubbish!

Can't find stewing steak in Brittany that is edible. It should be renamed chewing steak! I could however get edible s.steak the other side of the country. Haven't found edible normal steak since I lived over there and could buy Argentinian beef!

If the French cared about their food how come so many MacDonald's are opening up all over the place and they are full of French people having a whale of a time - or maybe it is because the beef isn't chewy!!

[diver]

I can't believe it's like that all over France. I have had excellent meat from a market in Paris (I'm veggie but my partner is a butcher and very fussy about his meat), and also, on many occasions from markets in the Auvergne and down south....never had a problem with fresh veg. when my son lived in Brittany he certainly didn't enjoy the food and neither did I when I went to visit him...perhaps it's a regional thing.

[Millymollymandy]

Like galettes and saucisses - the haute cuisine of Bretagne!!!

Maybe it is a regional thing because I see these wonderful looking markets on the telly with all the British chefs saying how fantastic it all is with such wonderful fresh produce blah blah blah, and I think - so where ARE these markets?

[ina]

Must admit, when I was in France, we ate mostly homegrown stuff - but what we did get from the market was at least ok. Funnily, I found that the bread from the local baker wasn't all that great, though - but maybe it was because they always tried to palm off the old loaves onto this stupid foreigner! We mostly made our own, anyway.

I found eating out a bit of a problem, as everything is very meaty - as a vegetarian, I was lucky if I found a pizza without meat or seafood on it. Had a very good one once, with Roquefort and walnuts.

[LSP]

Apparently lots of people facing starvation in Kenya because of the lack of rain.

Where do our sugar snap peas and mangetout come from? Kenya!

Lots of fresh roses are also imported from Kenya. So that country is growing lots of flowers and mangetout and stuff for export while Kenyans are starving to death.

It's not right, is it? Raise this point, however, and the reply is likely to be: if we don't import their foods, would they be better off?

We're only importing their food because labour is cheap and we are not paying a fair wage, but I cannot say I have all the facts.