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The Food Programme: Locally Sourced Food

Locally Sourced Food

21/10/2007

BBC Radio 4 - The Food Programme, Locally Sourced Food

Sheila Dillon asks whether the major supermarket chains can offer locally sourced food.

Sheila Dillon asks whether it is possible for the major supermarket chains to offer locally sourced food.

“Local” and “regional have become two of the big buzzwords in food right now but what exactly does local sourcing mean? 

Sheila Dillon hears how the major supermarket chains are finding new ways to source food from suppliers closer to their stores . 

Reporter Sarah Parker visits a Tesco’s producer road show in Surrey, where potential suppliers get to meet the supermarket’s buying team. Caz Graham visits a regional food hub in Cumbria set up by Asda to get more local food into its stores.

Michael Pollan who champions local food in his recent book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, tells Sheila why he believes a new movement is growing of people interested in buying food grown locally. 

Six months ago the Earl of Plymouth estates, with grant help from DEFRA, set up a local food centre just outside Ludlow in Shropshire called the Ludlow Food Centre. Sandy Boyd, Managing Director and creator of the Food Centre explains his approach to sourcing local food.

Sheila Dillon discusses this increasing interest in local food with Patrick Holden, director of The Soil Association, the largest organic group in the UK, and supplier of vegetables to supermarkets and with Sir Don Curry author of the 2002 Curry report on the future of British Farming.

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