Sustainability

Buy local!

A lot of food in the big supermarkets travels hundreds and even thousands of miles before it gets to you. This uses a lot of oil in transportation and causes a huge amount of pollution – adding to climate change.

Money spent directly within your town with independent businesses or local farmers and producers stays within your community (providing them with a fairer price and helping create more jobs) – trade fairly with our own producers!

So buying local food can help support local economies, reduce the miles food travels and reduces the amount of packaging waste. You can also eat foods that are in season – enjoy them when they are plentiful and fresh – get back in tune with the rhythms of nature!

Food Co-ops / buying groups

Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, have produced a Food Co-ops Toolkit which is most useful for individuals and groups who are thinking of setting up quite small scale food co-ops that are going to be run on a not-for-profit basis mainly by volunteers.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

This is similar to a vegetable box scheme in that you can buy a share of mixed vegetables (and sometimes fruit) each week. Members

There are a couple of CSA's in South Gloucestershire - one has recently started up called Thornbury CSA which is based at the Camphill Sheiling School and is similar to a vegetable box scheme where members buy a share of mixed vegetables each week, meet the grower and have a say in how the food is grown and how the scheme is run.  For more information call 01454-416778 or e-mail info@thornburycsa.org.uk

The Soil Association directly supports the development of CSA farms and can provide practical advice and contacts, whether you are a consumer wanting to set up your own CSA or a farmer who would like to get involved.
 

Some tips

Take your own carrier bags or cool box to the farmers’ markets to save precious resources and cut down on waste.  Reduce, reuse, recycle!

Buy a big sack of potatoes with friends and neighbours or join (even start!) a local food buying group, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) or a buying co-operative.

Cycle, walk or catch a bus to your nearest farmers’ market or local food outlet. Not only will you work up an appetite for all that delicious local food, but you’ll get exercise too and help cut down on carbon emissions.

Grow your own food on an allotment (see allotments page)