89% of People Buy Locally

I’m all about shopping locally and will often go to local farmers markets and farm shops to help the locals so I was delighted to see this new statistic on local shopping!

Research from The Cookery School at Braxted Park in Essex revealed that consumers believe that supermarket giant Sainsbury’s offers the best range of locally produced food & drink, and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver topped the poll for actively promoting the use of local produce in cooking. Runners up were The Co-Op and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

The research, undertaken at the Essex Festival of Food and Drink as well as via an online survey, found that buying locally produced food and produce is important to nine out of ten (89%) of people. Three quarters (73%) of people who buy locally do so to support local producers, while 43% believe that local produce tastes better, and 30% found the quality of food produced locally to be higher.

The research also found that half (49%) of consumers actively check the packing of food to see where is was produced. The same amount also check the label to see whether it is British and if the food is from free range animals. Of less importance to consumers is whether food is organic, with only 20% checking the label for this particular criteria.

Duncan Clark from The Cookery School at Braxted Park, said:

“At our cookery school we source the majority of produce from local producers for exactly those reasons. From fruit and veg, meat and fish, right through to beer, wine and preserves, Essex can justifiably claim to produce some of the very best food available in the UK today.”

For more information about The Cookery School at Braxted Park click here.