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West Midlands - Liz HodgesVice- Chairmen: Judith Smart, Judith Brodrick WFU WEST MIDLANDS BRANCH Summer 2008 Newsletter Nationally the Food and consumer Issues Committee have just held their first e-meeting. Whilst there is nothing like face to face meetings and bouncing ideas off one another, the cost of getting a committee to London runs at £1000 per meeting, a lot to be found by the individual branches. So we tried an e-meeting. All in all it was pretty successful. Blue tongue remains dominant. The last thing the industry needs is for sick animals to be shown on television like the bse cow! School meals still appear to be high on the menu. Although it may appear to be boring, it is a matter of just keeping the topic in front of the ministers. Sarah has set out a response on the new labelling proposals. PLEASE EVERYONE - IF YOU HAVE INTERNET ACCESS THEN do have a look at the legislation that comes up for review and if you think there is something in it that you want to make comment on then DO let the Branch know and the Committee Chairman asap. You may be pleased to learn that in the Eastern Counties, bacon was well stacked in the Co-op stores. We just seem to have a local co-op with a penchant for purchasing Danish bacon. The national Livestock Committee met with DEFRA to discuss co-responsibility on animal health. It appears DEFRA seem to think that farmers were responsible for the spread of FMD in 2001 because of our poor biosecurity! Obviously he couldn't comment upon the 2007 outbreak and wouldn't on badgers - so letters have been sent to ministers and their shadows. Pesticide problems. Ionwen has written to Marianne Fischer Boel about the pesticide legislation that was passed in the EU. We are hoping that the legislation can be called in (there is a technical piece of legislation that enables a piece of law like this to be reviewed). Or most of us will be writing to our MEP's in the autumn - but I'll keep you up to date. I sent Ionwen an article from 'The Independent' on pigs - actually some of it just looked awful if you were not aware of how pigs are reared. Thinking caps on everyone - how do we overcome the reality of farming as not being brutish? At Branch level.
We have decided just to do one major cheese event this year ~ Moreton Show ~ the first Saturday in September. So volunteers please. Judy Goodman was asked if we could do one of 'our' stands for the Tenbury Wells Show. This year is their 150th Anniversary. This is precisely what we did and Jarka, Judy and I manned the stand Judy had spent £20 on vegetables; I hope none of you mind I had £10 expenses in total. After all this was taken out we have £18-70 left over which we spent on 'the little Crunch ABC booklet 'Norfolk member Lorna Richardson was instrumental in it's publication via Norfolk Agri. Soc and the Co-op ~ should we be pursuing 3 Counties? Last week I also met up with the Local Sourcing lass from Tesco (Jo Wren). She wanted to find out more of foods in Gloucestershire. Tesco appear to be getting on board over this local sourcing and want to do more. Some producers don't want to touch the company and that is very much up to choice - but if any of you are interested then give me a ring and I'll send your name to her (They are looking for a flower/Gladioli grower). Those who remember her, Liz Godsell now has her cheese into Tesco. So I said we'd probably do some local cheese tasting for them in say Gloucester or Cheltenham in the late autumn - provided we had some payment for it. Volunteers again required….but I am going to stick out for payment because I don't see why we should volunteer to help sell more for Tesco if they won't pay us some cash. If you disagree with me then for goodness sake let me know. At the Tenbury Show I met with the YFC youth worker and she has got £1.2m grant to look at social inclusion in rural areas. So what do you think are the issues? Is it nurseries that don't open long enough to reflect the hours spent travelling? Lack of affordable homes? Lack of rural businesses start up and sustainability? Getting labour? Lack of access to services, distances to hospitals, etc. etc. etc. - well put your thinking caps on - the cash is there. This is obviously for those in West Midlands Development Area. At our last Branch Meeting we passed a resolution that The President may appoint to work under her auspicies, for one year the retiring president to act as a roving ambassador for WFU. The reason for the resolution was to help the incomer into office and keep contacts going over that first year of learning. Judy G, Judith Smart, Jarka and I have been asked by National to be nominated to go to Highgrove for 'elevensis' with HRH in Sept. Because of the distances we have to travel we have decided to try a 'clustering' - or is that active 'cells' - - - makes us sound like some underground movement. Now I'm going to sound very ancient - it is very difficult for younger members with children to get baby sitters, and even find time to charge across the county for a meeting so if we and like minded people just keep it local and join up a quarterly with the rest of the branch it ought to make things a bit easier - hence we're giving it a try. Having said that, Lousie Manning has said she would be willing to give us a talk on her Nuffield Scholarship on 'WATER'. It would be easier for her if it was at her home. Welcome to Sarah Righton, New Farm, Dorn, Moreton in Marsh. Sarah has come up with a great idea for Moreton Show. At the Royal, Waitrose gave kids jars of cream and got them to go away and keep turning it. They returned to the stand with butter which they then washed. I had hoped we could have the Oil press on our stand - or the grain mill but looks like it may be cream. So has anyone got any old butter making equipment- scotch hands etc. etc.? Or we could make some cottage cream - anyone a cheesemaker?? NB SATURDAY 6th SEPTEMBER MORETON SHOW.
Liz February 2008 Update In January Liz Hodges attended a Food for Thought Seminar by Waitrose.
We also learnt a fact you may like to check out when next you are in any supermarket. The Left-Right split. People tend to enter the aisle on the left and so are met with cheapest (Value product) through to dearest (Premium product). We then worked through the process of a new product. Maximum costs were given in each stage in order that we as ‘children’ realised that everything had to work to a budget. Of course as we tended to be from the production end we were all about giving hope for the future in shares of profit, but the children apparently often wish to give back to the farmer any balances left in the budgets. As producers we are missing something quite profound here in our education of consumers. This store has a demonstration kitchen and Saturday mornings the Home Economist teaches children to cook – whilst their mums shop. This programme has been developed by Waitrose and FACE. It has the benefit of being used also for Enterprise for which the schools can obtain funding. There’s a good CD Rom and Teacher’s notes which I shall bring to the Spring Conference.
Judy Goodman receives her Fellowship of the Royal Agricultural Societies award from the Royal Show President, the Countess of Wessex Three Counties Show - 18 - 20 June 2004 Bulldog Bash
Strawberry Day 2003
Programme for 2003:
Heart of England Fine Foods Conference - 3 March 2003 To celebrate their tenth birthday, Heart of England Fine Foods hosted a conference chaired by Sir Don Curry and David Hughes. The message clearly was add value to your product as the only way to survive. It was unsurprising to see that many of these committed producers had at one time or another been branch members of WFU. 'Consumer attitudes to local food', survey is recommended reading. It appears that there is a 40-60-40 purchase of food - i.e. 40% of shoppers are price constrained and 40% are looking for something extra. These figures indicate that the central and widest band of purchasers fall into either poverty or affluence - according to the timing of pay day. Statistically therefore, when we are shown such figures, it is reasonable to assume that 25% of the marketplace is looking for something extra - something local and this is where we should aim to market much of our produce. If we are not marketing into that sector, we should be working on co-operating to that end. If we are looking at other demographic factors of 'our marketplace', then try over 50 year olds for memories of flavour of childhood and 'cookability' quality of food. How right we are in WFU to be beating the drum about food education. The quip 'each time you see a hearse go by, you've lost a customer' doesn't actually seem the way to create a sustainable future. That didn't dim the excitement of listening to people who have created their own companies, and above all are trading successfully. The message is: do your sums, take the risk, don't be afraid to change, don't compromise on quality and do your market research. Where does your product fit? If yours is going on the shelf then someone else's is coming off! One of the best speakers was Julian Hunt of the Grocer, now up-rated from a casual buy to a must. We cannot all produce for the premium marketplace. How sustainable is that market when progressively the next generation is having to pay for many items that the 50+ affluent received either free of charge or at much reduced rates? Liz Hodges Monday 10th March - another meeting to explain the EC proposals on CAP reform. The whole appears to be coming into a package. More January News Tuesday 21st January, 2003 - members rose at 4.30am to deliver a Farmhouse Breakfast to just over 200 hungry commuters at Moreton in the Marsh railway station. It was market day in Moreton and WFU delivered over 30 breakfasts to the traders (with only 1 objection from a 'Danish bacon ' market stall!). Undaunted, they then produced more goodies for the District Council Offices, the local housing association and various high street shops and the post office counter girls! WFU are very grateful for the donations of bacon from Knight Provisions Ltd, eggs from Peace Farm Eggs for Eggs and for the help of LIPS (Ladies in Pigs) in the use of their caravan. A excellent promotion in getting the message about the importance of breakfast over to consumers and making them more cheerful in the process! January News We have heard about congestion charging, the traumas of M25 travel and other perils that pervade the normal life of the extended commuter to the City from the rural depths of Gloucestershire. "Perhaps", says Liz Hodges of the WFU, "these things seem so unsurmountable because we make such statements without the benefit of going to work with a smile!" To the WFU this means we go to work without breakfast. It is a proven fact that having breakfast is good for you. Concentration levels, and general wellbeing are vastly imporved through this simple act of having anything from a bowl of cereal to a full blown - - - Great British Farmhouse Breakfast. Indeed such a breakfast will enable you to go to work with a smile. To prove the point on Market Day in Moreton in Marsh (Tuesday 21st Janaury, 2002), the doughty ladies of the West Midlands Branch of the Womens' Food and Farming Union combined with their 'sisters'' in LIPS (Ladies In Pigs) are parking their kitchen at Moreton station and treating the commuters to that much needed feast - reasons to go to work with a smile! Not only are the commuters letting the train take the strain of traffic jams, conjestions charges to come and all that, but they can have a breakfast as well. October News The Cheese Festival at Chipping Campden last weekend had a packed cheese sales tent. Some of the cheesemakers said they often did more trade at a 'Farmers Market', but the networking at the Festival was invaluable. Sadly the programme of events contained no list of cheesemakers present, so it is impossible to follow up some good buys! May News Judith Smart attended the Sustainable Food and Farming: Working Together in the West Midlands on Friday, 3rd May and took part in the "Ways to Improve Public Health" Workshop. Alan Michael, Rural Affairs Minister, was there and also Jane Brown who is Head of Land Management at DEFRA. This seemed to be a very positive meeting, it is the follow-up to the Curry Report, and how things can be put inot practice. There was a fair amount of consenus from all the different workshops, and I think that Advantage West Midlands seems to be pretty clued up about rural issues and is currently putting a lot of money into rural areas. I felt that, for once, this conference was of positive benefit and Jane Brown, from DEFRA in summing up promised that there would be positive action from these meetings, and although agriculture is tied to CAP, nevertheless, there are things that can be done in the UK. Programme for 2002:
News - October 2001Judith Smart went to NFU County Conference at Worcester, with many speakers, one standing out in particular, Richard Haddock. He has built with farmer shareholders an abbatoir and sources meat, vegetables and wheat to make pastry, etc. all locally. All jobs and returns are local to Cornwall. He said, for instance, that he sells a pastry with 17p worth of beef, with a bit of labour, etc. for 99p - HIS shareholders get the profit, not someone else. We heard that "things" are about to happen elsewhere, which I surmise will be more regional abbatoirs being built. www.wfu.org.uk |
