It’s fair to say, supermarkets are pushing out the traditional ‘high street’ shopping as we used to know it, and with that, our community suffers. You might be thinking “well, the supermarkets are cheaper and convenient”, and while that might have some truth in it, what cost does that really have?
Soon, if we don’t look at how we shop and the impact it has, not just on our community, but our health (more on that later), we will lose the fibre of our county… our food!
If you take look on the back of the packet of 95% of the food in the supermarket, you will see that it’s made up of so many ingredients, many of which are unpronounceable words that don’t mean very much to the average consumer, and don’t really sound like food. So much of the food we buy and consume is actually ultra-processed foods and isn’t what we need to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
“They’re designed to look good on the shelf, last for a really long time, be cheap and make people want to keep buying them”
– Victoria Amran, The Cornish Food Box Company, who are on a mission to bring you food you can feel good about.
Victoria (Tor) and her sister, Lucy, came to chat to us on our podcast, The F Word, all about this, and how they are trying to change how we think about food and where it comes from.
Lucy and Tor are the founders and directors of The Cornish Food Box Company, created with an aim to bring you food you can feel good about.
In this episode, They talk about how the supermarkets have changed the way we think about food, basically not having us think about it at all. We don’t have to think about it because it’s just ‘there’.
Tor says, “Supermarkets are really innovative”, and Lucy continues, “They’ve got really, really good at selling you a pile of stuff which isn’t good for you, and you don’t really need.”
Not only are the supermarket foods impacting our health for a myriad of reasons, explained in the podcast, they’re also harming our planet. With issues such as food security and food waste, we’ll notice a shift in how the current style of food consumption is affecting our cupboards and our climate.
By making the change to local and sustainable, you’ll be supporting your community with things grown, caught, raised, and reared from possibly just down the road, by investing back into Cornwall, and eating better, of course.
And, before the worry of ‘cost’ crosses your mind , it’s absolutely affordable for us to make the switch.
According to Tor and Lucy, if every household in Cornwall were to spend just £10 more a week on local food, it would generate over roughly £130 million for the rural economy in Cornwall!
A bit of maths here (something we love!):
Cornwall has approximately 270,000 households. If each were to spend £10 per week over 52 weeks on local produce, this would equal £140.4 million per year!
And, the Wider UK impact of this: the UK has around 28 million households. If each of those were to spend the same £10 per week over the 52 weeks, they would add £14.5 billion annually for their local economies!
While £10 per week might be harder to find in these tougher financial times, choices can be made in most circumstances to allow for this change. For example, if you’re a coffee lover, perhaps swap a couple of large coffees that week for a veg box?
As Tor said in the episode, veg boxes and veg deliveries have often been referred to as a luxury, but actually, they’re the most normal thing.
“If you buy a veg box from us for 12 quid, you can cook meals from that for a week, but people will spend 13 or 14 quid on three large Costas”
– Tor
Checking this against the current Costa menu, it’s absolutely spot on, if not more!
3 x large lattes with two shots of coffee and a shot of your favourite syrup will cost you £18.27! Instead, you could opt for a medium Seasonal Cornish Veg box for £17, or a large one for £1.78 more (at £20), giving you a box designed for a family of five, containing around seven to ten varieties of seasonal produce, always containing potatoes, onions, and often carrots, too!
There is so much that we delve into in this episode, it’s best if you hear from Tor and Lucy themselves, so we’ll hand it over to them.
You can listen (or watch) their episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0mxCmRM9AbxlahhsHVsequ?si=42f3f774acd34f86
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/23-food-miles-supporting-local-reducing-waste-and/id1783132303?i=1000683456247
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXMZBtEXwrE&t=30s
For more information around ultra-processed foods and food security in the UK, Lucy and Tor are offering free 30-minute workshops for local businesses! Get in touch to with Tor tor@thecornishfoodboxcompany.co.uk
Tor also recommends a brilliant book for further reading, called ‘Ultra-Processed People’ by Chris van Tulleken. You can find this on Amazon, but like our food, let’s shop local. Perhaps contact your local bookshop to see if they have this title in stock.
For more conversations with brilliant local businesses and professionals, head over to our YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcast channels to find our back catalogue!
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Words by Megan Searle-Thomas