Notes on talk to GVEG Members by Trish Marsh, Herefordshire Sustainability Officer, held on Thursday 8 January 2009 at Peterchurch Community Centre

Trish explained that she had lived on Herefordshire grown food and drink, plus fairtrade products, for the past 11 months as part of the 'Herefoodshire' challenge.

Herefordshire is the most rural county in the West Midlands with 21.3% of the working population employed in agriculture,food, and tourism.

'Herefoodshire' promotes the county, its producers and products,an awareness of what's in season and where it can be bought, and local spending on food and drink, which leads to a radical reduction in food miles.

Trish said the quality and variety of the local food had been good, and even in spring local vegetables and fruit had been available.

A small shift in our spending would help support local jobs-for instance if just 5% of Herefordshire's 74,000 households switched £10/week to local produce, the local economy would benefit by almost £2 million a year.

She ended by saying that she had only one more month to go to finish the challenge, and that she had enjoyed using the local butchers and farmers markets where the producer to customer chain was very short, rather than the supermarkets who control so much of our food and where the opposite is true. The only thing she had found difficult to find produced in Herefordshire was fish!

After a question and answer session chaired by Vanessa Hembling,

the assembled host devoured locally made cake with their fairtrade tea and coffee, and agreed that yes, local food was pretty good.