make our food message last
More than 18m people have switched on to Farmers Weekly’s campaign message Local Food is Miles Better.
But, with your help, we can bring it to even more people throughout the rest of the year.
There are four ways you can help our campaign live on by keeping the focus on local food:
Be a Farmers Weekly Food Miles champion, Support Scottish Food Fortnight and British Food Fortnight and take part in Britain’s Best Rural Retailer Award.
During our campaign we invited readers to become Food Miles champions by joining us to highlight the health, environmental and economic benefits of sourcing local food.
We want you to continue that support by displaying our free campaign car sticker with pride.
Stickers can be downloaded from our campaign website (via fwi.co.uk).
When visiting our food miles website you can still sign our petition calling on supermarkets to stock more local food and label it clearly.
Later this year, we intend to update the petition we presented to the supermarkets at the Royal Show (News, 7 July).
So please help us to hold them to account.
The website is a valuable free resource with key information about our food miles campaign.
So why not use it to promote the benefits of buying local British food?
Food miles hero
There is also a chance to nominate your own FW Food Miles Hero.
If you know someone who goes the extra mile to make sure food on consumers’ plates doesn’t have to, then help him or her win the recognition they deserve with a place on our Food Miles Heroes Roll of Honour.
We are also looking for examples of food that travels excessively long distances between producer and plate.
Previous nominations for our light-hearted Limp Lettuce award with a serious message have included asparagus from Peru on sale at the height of the English asparagus season, sprouts from Australia and mineral water from Fiji.
In September there are two opportunities to back local food in the form of Scottish Food Fortnight, which starts on Saturday, 2 September, and British Food Fortnight, which begins on Saturday, 23 September.
Scottish Food Fortnight will enlist the help of producers, consumers, retailers and the catering trade to highlight the best of Scottish food and drink.
Patron of the promotion Lady Clare Macdonald said:
“Scottish Food Fortnight provides the perfect platform to showcase the wonderful food that this country has to offer.”
As part of British Food Fortnight every school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is being offered a free guide to teaching children about food within the national curriculum.
Teaching children
This year’s event, themed Putting the Ooo back into Food, will focus on teaching children how to prepare and enjoy the best of British regional ingredients.
Teaching children about food is vital, says BFF organiser Alexia Robinson:
“If we don’t educate the next generation about how to cook and eat well we will become a nation which places its health in the hands of food processors.”
Britain’s Best Rural Retailer Competition, organised by the Countryside Alliance and supported by Farmers Weekly, aims to reveal the trader who most supports rural industry and puts something back into his or her countryside community.
There will be four categories:
Farm shop/food retailer, village shop/post office, best diversification and best traditional skills.
To be launched later this autumn, it’s your chance to help recognise the contribution of small-scale retailers dedicated to supporting rural communities and the producers that are their backbone.
Watch out for more information on Scottish Food Fortnight, British Food Fortnight and Britain’s Best Rural Retailer competition next month.
Meanwhile, thank you for helping to support our campaign Local Food is Miles Better:
Together we can make a difference.
Highlighting local food
- Be an FW Food Miles champion
Scottish Food Fortnight begins Saturday, 2 September. For more information phone 01436 679 882 or visit
scottishfoodfortnight.co.ukBritish Food Fortnight begins Saturday, 23 September. Visit www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk or phone 020 7840 9292 Britain’s Best Rural Retailer Award (Phone 020 7840 9200)
Be a Food Miles champion
Register your support on our campaign website (via fwi.co.uk) Sign our supermarkets petition on FWi Download a campaign car sticker Lobby anyone with the influence to promote local food