What we do …

Food systems are complex, overly so in our opinion, they’ll never be simple but we believe they can be simplified.

So in a nutshell this is what we do. We get what we can from local producers - bread, milk, dairy, fish, meat, in season fruit and vegetables and when we can’t, we go further a field.

Our process is simple, we start in the nearby radius maybe 10 miles or so, bread, milk, eggs, meat, fish will always come from here, year round. In the bountiful months for UK growing a large proportion of veg also, we love nothing more than when our veg boxes are 100% filled by local small scale producers and year on year we are in truth surprised at how often we can achieve this and with great variety - the best thing about this is the quality, we probably don’t bang on about it enough, mainly because it’s hard, almost impossible to quantify, to word, but it’s a different thing, a completely different way of eating and nutrition, the easiest meal times, just simple good ingredients, no need for recipes and faff, good produce does it all for you, we love it.

After phone calls or chats with our local suppliers we go to our main chosen wholesaler, they connect us with a much larger world of suppliers and they supply Class 1 (quality assurance classification) produce. This doesn’t mean however that from here we begin blindly picking from the entire shelves of world produce, they equally connect us to a larger network of growers in Cornwall as those from further distances. So our next step will be seeing what is available from other parts of Cornwall, larger farms perhaps that do not have the infrastructure (often it’s time) in place to deal with us directly.

Hopefully our process is becoming clear now, hopefully it was before, it’s certainly not rocket science. After Cornish produce our radius grows, in fact it’s not a radius at this point, we go up! We cross the Tamar, South West, English (we love our apple suppliers from Kent amongst other things) all things British. We’re more than happy with all British boxes, it’s farming systems we can see, regulations and quality levels that we know, it’s coming to us on a lorry and not a plane. (n.b … that is not to say production methods, quality etc are enitirely perfect just because it’s British, the push for cheap produce, lower costs and efficiency have massively taken it’s toll on British agriculture)

As the winter lengthens though, our reliance on a wider radius increases. Europe produces incredible produce, you don’t need us to tell you that. The wonderful thing about this for us is that we have been able to build up relationships with suppliers that we don’t even know via their produce - there’s a spinach from Provence (oooh!) for example, we’ll get it as often as we can, it’s wonderful, big, thick leaves, arrives to us loose packed in a wooden crate, last week with a couple of wind blown, browned Oak leaves settled amongst the vibrant green. All very romantic, but it’s not about that, or maybe it is, we know this produce now, it shows it’s story, every time the quality will be there, the consistency, there is a care from the grower that shines through just looking at it and it’s certainly there when eating.

Each year our supplier notebook gets a little bit fuller, who’s good and importantly when. We look forward to squash season, winter greens and summer salads. When we come across great producers, we keep hold of them.

Romance aside and honesty at the fore front, fruit is our biggest head scratcher when trying to tick our three main boxes; quality; sustainability; and locality. Eating habits have gone global, nutrition is important and we believe it’s a big ask for people to return to entirely pre gloablisation foods. So we come back to our entirely un-ingenious system, closest first and consideration always.

Better get back to it! Look forward to seeing some of you when you’d like a box, orders in by 8pm Tuesday, as always.

Cheers ‘n’ gone!