How to choose real food over the lure of supermarkets

The British public’s passion for ‘real’ food is alive and kicking. However, there is still a lot more we can do to help the humble farmer.

We consumers are becoming increasingly food conscious and shopping at the local market is becoming ever more popular. However, supermarkets are still selling cut-price produce that could squeeze British farmers out of the food market.

So many of us say we want to show our support for independent producers as well as the British tradition of farming but where should we start? Well the Real Food Festival, which is set to be the biggest ever Farmer’s Market is an opportunity to meet over 500 small producers from across the UK. There will be the best line-up of produce and ingredients, incredible food and drink from small, unique producers, restaurants serving carefully sourced dishes and a entertaining and educational workshops to take part in.

Before you head down to Earls Court, we have Independent Producer Rose Grimond and Philip Lowery from the Real Food Festival on hand to tell you what to expect at the event and answer all your questions about the issues facing British Farmers and Independent Producers.

If you love food and want to learn more about how to support your local independent producers then log onto the webchat where Philip and Rose will offer advice on these matters and more…

Independent Producer Rose Grimond and Philip Lowery from the Real Food Festival join us live on Friday 18th April at 2pm to discuss the importance of British Farming and this year’s Real Food Festival.

VL: Victoria Letch
RG: Rose Grimond
PL: Philip Lowery

VL: Hello, welcome to the Food and Drink Show. I’m Victoria Letch. We all know shoppers are becoming increasingly food conscious and shopping at the markets for wholesome local food has never been so popular. Many of us want to show our support for independent producers as well as British farming, but where should we start? Well, the Real Food Festival, which is set to be the biggest ever producers’ market, is an opportunity to meet over 500 small producers from across the UK. Before you head down to the event, we have independent producer Rose Grimond and Philip Lowery from the Real Food Festival here to tell us what to expect on the day and, of course, answer all of your questions. We’re online, so pop your questions in to us. Both of you, a very warm welcome.

RG: Thank you very much.

PL: Hello.

VL: The creator of the Real Food Festival, ladies and gentlemen. Very exciting.

PL: It is, isn’t it? Extremely exciting. We are massively excited about this, because, you know, it’s, it’s, … there’s lots of food and drink festivals out there but this is something very different because, firstly, we’ve gone out and selected the best producers that we could find, so that’s fairly unique [laughter] but I think the second thing which is more important because, when you select them they’re small producers and they don’t have, often, much resources, much money, and therefore we’ve subsidised all the people that we’ve selected which means that they can take part. So I think that’s a key difference to any other festival out there because, you know, it’s selection and we’re subsidising them and therefore supporting them to do the great things that they can do and keep doing it, so that makes us very different from anybody else. I think it also means that for any visitor who’s going, because we’re subsidising these great producers who don’t normally do these sorts of shows because they can’t afford it, you’re going to see people you’ve never seen at an event like this, so it’s a unique experience, a unique opportunity to see the best producers in the country who you’ve never seen before.

VL: Excellent and, well, that leads us beautifully to you, young lady. Rose, what is it that you produce?

RG: Actually, technically speaking, I produce nothing [laughter] but what I do do is that I represent 20 local producers in Orkney and the reason why you need me to do that is because Orkney’s quite far away from London and this way my job is to champion them and talk about them and blether away and talk about how good the produce is, whilst they can remain and continue to do what they do best, which is producing stuff and growing the best produce in the UK. And so the Real Food Festival is a godsend because it’s so hard trying to compete in an industry which is built on scale and we don’t have scale, we’ve got beautiful food. We don’t have scale, so my thanks to Philip for this opportunity.

VL: Shall we applaud him now or … ?

RG: Later, otherwise it will go to his head.

VL: That’s private applause later on. So when you say you’re there and you’re supporting all these, or you’re helping bringing all this produce from Orkney, who are you bringing it to? How are you getting produce to people like me?

RG: Well, to start with we’re only about a year and a half old. We have a stall at Borough Market which is in London and is a great farmers’ market and

VL: It’s a great market.

RG: It is a great market. We also sell wholesale to restaurants but to someone like you, say you didn’t live in London and we would talk to you by email and get something sent out to you, probably from Orkney because as you can imagine Orkney to London to you would be a pointless triangulation, so we try and cut down as much as possible on things like pointless middlemen and stuff, which is again, something the Real Food Festival tries to do.

VL: Excellent. Now do remember we are totally live so if you have any questions, use the minds of these people – ask away. Type your question into the box, send it to us and then of course we will endeavour to get them answered quick-smart and, do you know what, I’m going to demonstrate that right now because Amanda has emailed in and Amanda wants to know why, apart from the obvious of supporting local small businesses, would it be more worthwhile to buy real food; is there any difference between what they and the supermarkets offer? [laughter] Do you want to take this one Philip?

PL: Ha ha yes, I mean, yes. That’s actually the most important thing about what we’re trying to do, what Rose is doing, what the Orkney producers are doing, because it isn’t about being sentimental, about these great local producers and small farmers, its about … actually it’s quite selfish: it’s saying – and certainly I’m saying this – is that what they’re producing is so far and away better than what you can get in the supermarket, it’s about the experience of tasting really, really great food as it’s supposed to be. And that’s a sort of selfish thing in that I really want to enjoy the best food I can and the way I can do that is by supporting these local producers who are so passionate and so into what they’re doing that they really do deliver on that and I think what we’re trying to demonstrate to people who come to the real food festival, come along and try the food that’s on offer there because when you do you’ll want to buy it and take it home, because it is a world away from that sort of bland, homogenous, mass-produced food that you do find in most supermarkets.

RG: And ah, Amanda – as if she’s in your screen – come visit us and come visit me and try my smoked mackerel and if it isn’t a million times better than what you are used to at the supermarket, I’ll apologise. [laughter] I’m not going to give you anything back, but it is, as you said, it’s in the taste. It’s just a completely different ballgame.

VL: Oh, this is so exciting. I love food so I’m the right person to be talking to you two. Now I will say to those of you maybe perhaps who aren’t into food necessarily, some people just eat because they have to eat, if I say to them ‘local produce’ um, you would think, quite often, just vegetables, you would think dairy … vegetables but it goes beyond that, doesn’t that? Like saying fish?

RG: Yeah, absolutely, we’ve got everything from um, what you’d expect in a weekly shop like beautiful smoked streaky bacon to, um at the food, at the Real Food, we’re going to have sea urchins and you can’t get that in your average supermarket or in fact any supermarket and they’re beautiful, and they’re a stunning thing, especially ones from Orkney, are out of this world and it’s a really good example of produce that we have in Britain which we don’t know we have and which can compete on a global stage in terms of deliciousness and luxuriousness and it’s a fantastic thing to see that we can … that these creatures come out of our waters, turn them over, crack them open and eat them straight up. And it’s a very nice aphrodisiac as well. So you get stuff like that as well as, you know, your streaky bacon.

VL: Keep it clean, lady, for goodness sake, please!

PL: But, Vicky, just picking up on that point about the people who don’t … who are just about refuelling with food, I mean, I don’t … this is not about preaching, but I mean I think they’re missing such a massive experience about life because, you know, we do need to eat to refuel but actually food is one of life’s incredible pleasures and if you miss that and you’re not enjoying it it’s probably because you’re not buying real food and you haven’t learnt that actually there is an amazing experience here and you need to come and find out. So, again, I’m not preaching about this, I think it is, come and try it because it will change your life and, you know, we eat every day, we have to eat every day and if you can enjoy and have an incredible experience every day when you’re eating, how much better is your life going to be?

VL: Well, I’m the happiest person you could ever hope to meet and I love food. I mean, food truly does colour my life, you know, I wake up and I think what will I eat today that’s going to make me feel really good?

RG: Me too. It’s quite difficult sitting in front of this ham and cheese and not eating it.

VL: Well, actually when the ham and cheese arrived, the first thing I said was well where’s the baguettes? I was like, where’s the wine?

PL: And listen, I can smell that as well. It just smells…

VL: It all smells so beautiful. Now going back to, very briefly, touching on what you were saying; my supermarket, for example, has now a dedicated section for local farmers…

RG: Great!

VL: …for local produce which is great for me but you are saying that if you don’t have that at home they can get this to their front door, there is a way to get local produce to their front door?

RG: Um, at the moment, that is, apart from farmers’ markets which are very, very valuable because you’ve got the human interaction, you’ve got to speak to bores like me who’ll tell you, talking until the cows come home about what I sell. Um, apart from those the online facility of ordering online and having it sent direct from the producer is just fantastic and it’s … thank god for the internet, and it’s really the way, the more custom we can get going that way, the more we can offer a viable alternative to supermarket shopping cause there we can match the supermarkets on really what they offer above all else which is convenience. So more online shopping.

VL: And changing patterns, cause quite a few people, particularly if you’re a busy person, you pop into the supermarket at the end of work and you’re rushing around and you’re just grabbing the onion and the garlic because you know what you’re making tonight, you make the same meal three times a week. Well, if you’re going to a farmers’ market and you’re having that interfacing, you’re talking, I mean, you’re going to be inspired then to try new foods and …

RG: And, actually, if you’re like me and quite often, well you’re thinking about food all the time, but you don’t necessarily plan certain meals across the week, you go to a farmers’ market and you get what’s in season and from that you work backwards about what you’re going to eat, which is great because it means that you’re always varying stuff but you don’t actually have to think about it yourself, because nature’s done it for you.

PL: But the interesting thing about that, as well, because there’s often a lot of talk about, well, this is all very well for people with money, they can afford to pay these prices but actually if you’re eating seasonally, often you find that actually it’s cheaper to do that because obviously the produce is available, it’s in season and there’s a lot of it and therefore the price comes down. So, you know, the supermarkets have done a fantastic job and I don’t want to spend this whole session slagging off supermarkets, although clearly I could [laughter] is that they’ve done a great job in convincing everybody through their huge marketing projects that they’re the cheapest option for food, but in a lot of cases they’re not and certainly like for like they’re not. Sometimes, clearly, if you’re talking about really premium products that you can’t get in the supermarket you do have to pay more for that, but often, particularly if you’re doing the seasonal route, you can buy food and produce at comparative prices or perhaps even less as well. So it’s a bit of a myth this that supermarkets have put about.

RG: It’s good marketing.

PL: It’s fantastic marketing and they are very good at it, but if you know what you’re looking for and you’re shopping seasonally, you can often do it very … on a budget and that’s one of the things that the show … Barney Horton, who’s an amazing, sort of, sustainable chef, he’s got a place down in Bristol called Bordeaux Quay and he’s bringing his cookery school to the event and what he’s going to demonstrate to people is how do you cook on a budget using top quality produce? Because you can do it. That’s the key. It’s just about understanding how you do it, what you need to look for and how you need to shop and we can all enjoy fantastic quality food, um, without breaking the bank.

VL: I’m so glad that you’ve brought that point up, because certainly with the – dare I say – Jamie Oliver movement, he’s brought it to the masses, yeah mass audience, now are thinking ‘I need to rethink the way I’m buying my food, the way I’m eating’ where lots of our schools and lots of follow-ups and programmes are mothers saying ‘Well, you know what, we just can’t afford it, we cant’ afford to eat healthily.’ But you’re saying that that’s not the case.

PL: I think you can, but I think there’s two things here as well because the truth is – and I’m not, I’m not going to try and flannel this because food from top quality producers can be more expensive – but I think it’s a question of priority as well. I mean, you know, Nigel Slater came up with this great phrase, where he said, “if the French eat with their stomachs, the Italians eat with their heart and the English eat with their stomach … sorry … with their wallet” and that’s a bit of a sad indictment because actually there’s an element of ‘you get what you pay for’ and the truth is that in Italy they’re still spending around about 28% of their income on food. In the UK we spend about 9%. That’s a scary statistic because what it says is that Italians have given food a much higher priority in their lives than we have in the UK. But I do think that’s changing. I think there is a movement now that people are way more interested in where their food comes from, how it’s produced and people are interested in finding out about that and want to know more and therefore want to eat in a better way. So, that’s really encouraging because I do think that culture is beginning to change. I think it’s going to be a slow process but, you know, it’s in the scheme of all those big issues that we’re talking about now in terms of global warming, climate change and the environment and this fits in there as well because, you know, understanding where our food comes from is an important point …

RG: Crucial.

PL: … and if we know that and if we’re paying attention to that, we’re going to be thinking more about those choices we make about our food. Ultimately, though, it comes down to the experience and the taste of what you’re eating and that’s got to be … in my mind, that’s got to be the most important thing. We can all go on about the environment and sustainability but if the food doesn’t taste great then why would you buy it in the first place? So that’s got to be the first ingredient.

VL: Absolutely. Remember, of course, you’re also very important ingredient here today. We’re totally live. Without you, well we’re nothing. So, we’re asking for you to send your questions in so that we can use these people. We can ask them anything that you’re worried about at all. Any questions get them in. David has emailed in. He says, “Hi, Philip and Rose [hellos back], I love my beers and wine.” You’re not alone! “How can I support independent producers in this field?” I know who’s got the answer.

PL: I think … well, firstly…

VL: I know who’s got the answer.

PL: ….the interesting thing about the Real Food Festival is actually not just food, it’s food and drink and we have got a great selection of beers, ciders, wines, juices, so it is a drink show as well. I think, you know, the thing that is really encouraging and really exciting from my perspective is that wine’s a great example. You know, we always think about wine, we think about Australia, we think about Italy, we think about France, we don’t often think about Britain. But actually now there’s nearly 400 wine producers in the UK and Britain’s getting, actually, an incredible reputation for producing particularly sparkling wines and, in fact, even the French are saying, ‘Wow this is challenging us in terms of Champagne.”

RG: Chapel Down, that’s delicious.

PL: In fact it’s amazing, amazing. So, I think it’s about supporting … instead of going for the big brands in terms of your beers and your wines that you can buy everywhere, it’s looking for something a bit different, looking for those small micro-breweries, because the quality of the product that those guys … and, you know, if you’re interested in beer you will know that your Carlsberg, Special Brew – I don’t whether I’m allowed to mention brands …

VL: Is he allowed? Is he allowed? Is this okay? Are we ok? No-one’s saying anything. [Laughter]

PL: Compared to your small micro-brewery, Cockney Brewery for example producing amazing beers that have a completely different flavour, completely different experience in terms of what you get, and try and support those guys. You can you know you can buy those from specialist off-licences, you can buy them from those sorts of breweries because that’s something that does work from an online point of view. The answer is quite simple, really, it’s if you want to support these people, buy from them.

RG: And, if you’re looking for another point of referral in terms of a human, I highly, highly recommend going down to Borough Market on a Friday or Saturday and meeting New To Beer who are an independent wholesaler and retailer of wines and, well, beers actually, no wines, of beers from all over the world – tiny, tiny breweries you would have no idea would otherwise exist – and they know more about beer than you or I will ever know [laughter] – it’s the sort of thing…[laughter]

VL: And also there’s my Uncle Geoff, in Swindon, who makes his own wine in the bath. Hi, Geoff!

PL: Hopefully, not at the same time as you’re in it!

VL: It’s lovely but it’s very strong. No, not while we’re in it. We’re not that close a family! [Laughter] Now, John has also emailed in. He says, “I’m thinking of putting a veg patch in my garden. Can I get some advice on what to grow and how to grow it at the Festival?”

PL: Yes, in fact we have got a number of seed companies as well, because I think that’s the sort of natural extension in relation to buying from small producers, having that sort of mind-set. I mean, it’s a simple leap to actually, “Well, I can produce … I can become a producer myself.” And certainly we would definitely encourage that. I think the idea of growing your own, whether it’s having chickens in your garden, whether it’s growing potatoes and vegetables, absolutely. So, yes, there are places, there are stall-holders and exhibitors who are promoting that and doing that, particularly the seed companies, so it’s absolutely the place to come and learn about that and actually what’s really cool about the show is that you can also go and talk to producers who do this for a living and ask them, because I can tell you now they’re so passionate, so enthusiastic about what they do, they’ll tell you everything. They’ll tell you all their secrets about how the best way of doing it, so you can really learn a huge amount by coming to the festival.

VL: Sounds great. Sounds like it’s going to be a very sensory experience.

RG: Oh yeah

VL: I was just saying, Amanda come and taste my mackerel.

RG: Yeah!

VL: What other things can we expect to taste?

RG: Well, I mean, from my stall at least, certainly some mackerel, maybe if you’re lucky enough, some organic smoked salmon, which is really good, and lots of other things. We sort of see what’s going on and see what the crowd are feeling like and we talk to people and ask them sometimes whether they want to try stuff, but a kind of important thing is that the tasting … I mean because we are all companies, we do need a bottom line in order to continue to trade and to get, to keep the producers in business we’ve got to buy their stuff and stay in business and buy more stuff from them, so um the tasting is a really fun thing but sometimes tastings can get you so – what’s the word I’m looking for? – intoxicated, yeah, that’s it, that you forget that it’s quite nice to buy it and take it home as well.

VL: Yes, yes, of course, yeah. Now, in terms of variety of fish, what are we sourcing from our very own waters at the moment? What should we be buying?

RG: Oh it’s just amazing. We’re in the middle of, we’re at the beginning of a fish revolution. [Laughter] It’s fascinating.

VL: A fish revolution?!

RG: Yeah, yeah.

PL: The fish are revolting. [Laughter] They’re not, of course.

VL: They’re not…

RG: They’re not. Now massive, it’s fascinating. I mean, from a global scale aqua-culture’s going to become so important and you know all about over-fishing and our depleting fish stocks of certain breeds and from that right down to the micro-scale of, like, the fishermen I represent and what they can get and what they … at this time of year, and what’s in season, is really fascinating. If you come to Orkney Rose you can see, hopefully, sea urchins (which I mentioned) and whole sea trout (they’re lovely), smoked mackerel, salmon, what else have we got? Oh, pates and you name it. All beautiful stuff, and it’s all sustainable; we only sell sustainable food so you will not find at Orkney Rose cod and you won’t find anything which the MCS – Marine Conservation Society – which isn’t on their green list.

PL: And in the rest of the show, I mean, again, we’ve got Cornish pilchards, for example, and pilchard is a sustainable fish; there’s … I wouldn’t know how many, obviously, because I haven’t counted them, but it’s one of those fish that there’s plenty of it off the coasts of Cornwall.

RG: Like herring.

PL: Absolutely.

RG: We’ve got a lot of herring. North Sea herring.

PL: But pilchards are … people often think of those tinned pilchards with that horrible tomato sauce in it and think, well, why would I buy that? But Cornish pilchards, you know, they fish sustainably and they send them off to France to be put in the beautifully French tomato sauce and then bring them back here and it’s a whole different experience, believe you me, from that image that you might have of the pilchards from years ago in the can. Absolutely gorgeous and bringing those sorts of things back, I think is really important because it is about diversity and actually recognising that there are some things that we probably shouldn’t be eating and looking for alternatives because at the end of the day we want to have great things to eat and drink and its about choice and its about making those choices but what we’re trying to push through this festival, through what you guys are doing as well, it’s about making the right choices, you know, yes let’s enjoy the most amazing food and drink but let’s try, if we can, to do it in a sustainable way that is looking after us, that’s looking after the animals and looking after the planet. That sounds a bit sort of preachy and sort of hippyish but I think, you know, people care about that now, I certainly do, I know you do. People are interested in making sure that they are making the right choices if they can.

RG: And crucially businesses are businesses because of the person they sell to and the person we sell to is the public and the public can decide what businesses stay in business and what don’t so, if we’re worrying about supermarkets and the environment and packaging and carbon footprints and trucks on the road and you name it, then put your custom where you think something is important and that’s an opportunity with the Real Food Festival to come and do that in person. Put your money where your mouth is.

VL: So buying locally will have a direct effect on our own carbon footprints.

RG: Yeah, and um, if people shop less at supermarkets so they have to take more trucks off the road, you know, etc, etc and that’s a slow-burning … it’s like turning a tanker, but we’re doing it and it’s very exciting and it’s really good to raise awareness and make sure that people are educated or … informed to know what decisions they can make. Because otherwise, if we weren’t chatting about it, then you wouldn’t know that going to Tesco and buying a whole lot of stuff there was necessarily any worse for the environment or for producers or for Britain than going elsewhere.

PL: I think the other thing it’s worth making a point … we’re promoting this event as a great place to come and experience … have a great food and drink experience but … and that’s the first and foremost reason that you should be coming to the festival, but because we are subsidising producers, what we’re also saying is feel good about buying a ticket because the money that we get from people coming to this festival by buying a ticket is going directly … part of the money that we use to subsidise the producers, so actually have that warm fuzzy glow about actually doing some good as well as having an incredible time …

RG: It’s a win-win-win-win-win! [Laughter]

VL: It’s going to be a lot of fun. Now we’re hearing rumours there could be some famous faces dotted around the place.

PL: Definitely. I mean that’s the other really exciting thing because … because of what we’re doing and because of the philosophy we have we’ve got some amazing support from some incredible, high-profile people who’ve been really so helpful to us in terms of publicising this and in terms of taking part in the festival and helping us without asking for any money at all. So, great ambassadors that we’ve had have been Tom Parker-Bowles, Zak Goldsmith, Raymond Blanc’s been amazing, Giorgio Locatelli, you know all these people are going to be at the festival: Giorgio and Raymond are doing chef’s demonstrations, we’ve got Ashley Palmer-Watts from The Fat Duck who’s Heston’s head chef, Shane Osborne from Pied de Terre, I mean there’s a sprinkling of incredible talent actually as well as being high-profile and very well known, just showing what they can do and entertaining the audience as well. There’s lots of other stuff going on as well. We have a cookery school that I mentioned that Barney Horton’s doing but some of the things that you can get into which … a little bit hard-core on Thursday night you can come and actually take part in an exercise to skin a rabbit, so you’ll be shown how to do it and you can ….

VL: I thinking about I’m busy that night…

PL: Of course not, that’s where our food comes from, you need to understand this. But also in terms of cooking and baking bread, so there’s very much sort of that process of being able to get interactive with it and not just look and be a bystander but really get involved. We’ve got an … I have to say, I’m really excited about our workshops. The frustration for me, because I’m going to be working, I won’t actually be able to do any, but we’ve got about 85 workshops where this is a very different approach. Instead of sitting in a seminar and being talked to about food and drink, we’re putting together small workshops where you can actually come and learn about some of the best food and drink in the world but actually taste it and enjoy it at the same time. So, for example, we’ve got a workshop that’s caviar and champagne, we’ve got a workshop that’s oysters sourced from the best oysters from around the world, we’ve got a workshop that Alex James, the Blur cheesemaker now, is doing, talking about his cheeses and how he’s got into that whole way of life and tasting his cheeses as well. So it’s about experience. It’s not about being a bystander and looking at stuff, it’s about coming in and really engaging with it, tasting it, getting that whole sensory thing which is what makes the event so special for me and it’s the difference between reading about something or seeing it online of watching it on TV.

RG: And it’s crucial - that’s what food is. I mean, you know, it’s not like we’re selling derivatives or something. It’s not abstract. You can touch it, feel it, eat it.

VL: What a perfect place to end. And of course TV’s Vicky Letch will be there … that’s me … they didn’t even know.

RG: Of course.

VL: They’re going “Who’s she?” [Laughter] Thank you very much for talking to us. Now, if that has whetted your appetite and you want to go and get some samples of some wholesome foods do head down to the Real Food Festival …

PL: And don’t forget to buy it as well.

VL: And buy it. He just doesn’t stop, does he? [Laughter] And that’s on the 24th to the 27th of April. Now you can log on, is this right, to therealfoodfestival.co.uk and you can get your advance tickets there.

PL: Absolutely. If you buy tickets in advance they’re cheaper as well than buying them at the door, book in advance.

VL: You heard it here first, brilliant. Thank you so much and thank you. See you next time.

PL: Thank you, Vicky.

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