How far has your food travelled?

I rushed into M&S and bought some tomatoes on Saturday, didn't really look where they came from although I usually do and they weren't the kind I usually buy.

They were from Poland, SueDonim!
I suppose no different than buying tomatoes from Spain, although I do try to always buy British.

I feel as if M&S has let me down.

Poppy2 are you on the wrong thread?
I do sympathise!

We have most fruit and veg in England but the English farmers are so greedy ,it cost an arm and leg to buy British . Then they moan we are buying from abroad . How can the fruit and veg travel by plane and still be cheaper ? Just goes to show its rip off Britain .

Callistemon it wasn't so much the fact they were Polish, although that is an issue as we produce our own in the UK at time of year, but the fact that six tomatoes cost 75p. How can they be so cheap? How much do the pickers get paid?

GrandtanteJE65 we may be doing people in poorer countries a favour in the long run by not buying the green beans etc that they produce. Many of the workers have had their rural farmland/smallholdings taken from them by force or by deception and where they once were able to support their families with their small area of land, they are now dependent on the big agricultural companies for employment. These companies have them over a barrel and pay the least they can get away with.

Sea bass fillets - Turkey
Baby plum tomatoes - Belgium
Blueberries - Poland
Bag mixed green beans, broccoli & carrots - Kenya
Non-alcohol beer - Germany
PG tips - Kenya

Organic chicken - UK (no location)
Organic tofu - Devon
Organ butter - Somerset
Free range eggs - UK (no location)

Why are locally grown produce on market stalls so expensive? I would love to buy my veg from them but can't afford it. So it's masses of plastic packaging, miles of travelling and feeling guilty for not supporting local growers for me.

Consumer demand dictates unfortunately and sadly. It's all fair and well saying buy local produce but I have yet to find it cheaper than the big supermarkets and I live in the countryside!

Bustertank
how can the fruit and veg etc
Average monthly wage in Poland €468.
SueDonim
Read up on how the Italian Mafia have taken over the tomato growing trade in that country and how they are exploiting illegal African migrants.
Worse than Spain!!!! That's how we get our cheap food. Not me though, I don't support any country that treats people like this.
What are the beloved eu doing about these horror practices: nothing!!!

Another fact on the exploitation of people producing food/drink.
Of the total value of coffee around $200 billion a year only 10% stays in the country of origin

Everyone needs to think about buying British products as much as possible especially after Brexit. It's no good complaining about companies shutting down and putting people out of work if you haven't bought their goods to keep the company thriving!

Petra I have recently read about the tomato 'mafia', I think in the Guardian. I was so shocked! It's another thing where one needs to read the labels.

Bustertank there's no such thing as cheap food. Someone somewhere pays the price, be it the end purchaser or the exploited agricultural labourer. Same for clothes and many other things.

I think we should all buy what’s in season here in the U.K. , and there’s plenty of it.

The big supermarkets do have cheap offers but that’s just to get you in the door to buy dearer items. Now I’m retired I have the time to do my research and I might go to more than one store to get things at the best price. Luckily, most of the places I want to visit are within a fairly short distance of each other so I’m not driving round using up fuel and just making environmental issues worse.

I was just rather shocked that it was M&S SueDonim, selling these tomatoes. I know they were cheap, but thought that was just because they are in season.

So much for their 'adverts' when they are showing the ITV weather presenters around their farms - I don't suppose they'll be showing the ones petra mentions where African workers are being exploited.

there's no such thing as cheap food. Someone somewhere pays the price, be it the end purchaser or the exploited agricultural labourer.
It's often the farmer who has to subsidise the special offers etc. No wonder so many give up.

We are not able to be self sufficient in the UK....not enough land, not enough animals, not enough fruit farms etc. We struggled during WWII....and that was with rationing, digging up everyone’s gardens for veg....and limiting the amount of meat we were allowed to eat....and that was with a vast number of the then much smaller population away fighting. We now have several million more people here....most are British having driven away our EU workers,; we have a population with huge expectations in terms of what they eat now compared to the 1930s, but equally a population not willing to fruit or veg pick.... whilst buying local is great....if we Brexit we ensure all our imported food has thousands of miles travel instead of a few hundred.

Food in the US is absolutely, utterly, flat out, disgusting- I'm talking you might as well throw salt on a loofa and call it a cuke- You simply know when a vegetable has been over fed with fertilizer- And the only time to buy "near by" produce, which is heavenly, is Summer- Unfortunately, the acreage in the US reserved for producing corn is soy is huge- Cash crops trump feeding the masses nutritious fruit- Most everything here is imported and awful by the time it reaches our tables-

I can remember the slogan “buy British” back in the day when we were seen as the sick man of Europe. Then we joined the EU and have never looked back.

Buy British seems to be returning though.

I try to buy only produce witha Saltire on the pack ,you can get fab Scotch Tomatoes if you look and most other veg, turnips and carrots and lettuce . leeks and syboes and potatoes ,obviously not citrus fruits but apples and pears and Clyde Valley Victoria Plums and home grown cherries and loads more .I buy from a Sunday market where the sign says" if its not grown here we dont sell it so yes we have no Bananas". With lamb from the other side of my village and beef from a local farm shop ,milk delivered to my door from the hill opposite my food is very low on mileage My OH was fishing at the weekend so thats in the freezer from just 25 miles away
.

We would all love to buy our veg locally but we don't want our knickers pulled down and our bottoms smacked . Surely the government should step in and by buying British would cut down our carbon foot print but I don't see why I should pay more .

I buy all my fruit & veg in local corner shop & Greengrocers in Town, most is grown very close to where I live in Devon. I also use local butchers, it may cost a bit more but the quality is very good. I also have veg boxes delivered, all locally grown.

Ever since I watched Simon Reeve's programme that showed the exploitation of workers and environmental damage by huge (enormously huge, can be seen from space) nurseries in Spain I've always looked to see where fruit and veg come from.

Scottish cheese is kinda meh except for Highland Caboc, and one doesn't want to eat that all the time, so I'm glad it's now easy — a few years ago it wasn't — to get French and Swiss cheeses here as well as some of the better English ones.

Global Britain ☺️

We try to grow our own veg, but failing that, keep to as local as possible. Always, free-range organic eggs, organic Welsh milk and butter - we live in Wales!

Yes, I was also shocked that it was M&S selling them, Callistemon. I left them on the shelf. I think the other supermarket who had them was Tesco. British toms were in stock yesterday and all the fruit I bought was British, too.

There is a new organic farm shop opened within walking distance, so we stuck our noses in. £2.50 for a tiny punnet with 15 raspberries in, £1.50 for a small cucumber, I don't think we will be shopping there!

I feel cross with myself but I was in a rush!
Some of Tesco's mushrooms used to come from Poland, I'm not sure if they still do.