What role do local veg box schemes play in creating a more sustainable food system?
It’s hard to know where to start when you’re looking to live more sustainably. Using natural products, taking public transport rather than driving, buying second-hand, refills, recycling and turning lights off, are all well-known, but making choices as a consumer can be overwhelming when there is so much information out there.
Greenwashing is everywhere in marketing, making it difficult to know what is actually helpful or truthful. But starting, or continuing, the journey to more sustainable living can be as simple as being more aware of the food that we eat. We all know that we need to eat more fruit and veg, but making sustainable choices on where we buy our food means getting to grips with the many underlying flaws in the current food system.
Our current, centralised, food system is broken; extortionate profits go to those in charge (supermarkets) whilst those who grow or make the food are financially exploited. Sustain’s report “Unpicking food prices: Where does your food pound go and why do farmers get so little?” released in December 2022, found that, after intermediaries and retailers take their cut, farmers are sometimes left with far less 1% of the profit.
Veg box schemes like ours, and other fellow Better Food Trader members, ensure that farmers receive a fair price for the food they grow. The recent impact study carried out by the Better Food Traders in 2023 revealed 3 times more of your food pound goes directly to farmers with every purchase you make from your local Better Food Trader or not-for-profit food hub.
In our current, centralised food system, supply chains are so long that, as a consumer, we have no idea of the journey our food has made, and the processes it has gone through, to get from farm to plate. In the UK, we have become increasingly reliant on imports, with the UK market currently importing 47% of vegetables and 84% of fruit. In light of climate change, statistics make for a very worrying read. Researchers from the global research programme SHFS (Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems) found that 54% of imported fruit and vegetables in 2013 were from countries likely to face high to extremely high water scarcity in the near future (by 2040) – a 32% increase since 1987. While 32% of imports of fruit and vegetables in 2013 were from areas defined as climate vulnerable - a 60% increase since 1987. In veg box schemes like ours, supply chains are short and transparent, allowing a direct relationship between the farmer, us, and you, the consumer. This direct relationship is the foundation to building a stronger, more resilient system where food security can be achieved.
A key component in a decentralised food system is the notion of seasonality. If we want to eat veg that is grown locally (in the local climate), then we need to eat seasonally. This is where veg box schemes like ours offer a real alternative to supermarkets. Celebrating veg that is in season while cutting the carbon emissions and the food miles. Our veg box scheme promises that no food is air-freighted and while we recognise that there are certain times of the year, such as the Hungry Gap, when we do need to look further afield, we do prioritise local growers within a 45mile radius of Manchester.
Of course, no food system can be sustainable if the soil on which our food comes from is not respected and nurtured. Organic certification gives you peace of mind that all the produce in your fruit and veg bags have been grown without the use of harmful farming practices and pesticides, where soil health is prioritised rather than neglected.
At Veg Box People, we want our customers to feel part of a solution to a more equitable and just food system. We believe veg box schemes are a great way to get involved with small acts of activism. With our grassroots beginnings, and shared ethics and vision, we hope you feel part of a wider movement which can create a massive impact collectively!
As an organisation, our aims stretch broader than just providing people with good quality, locally sourced produce. We want to see a shift in the food production world to become much more sustainable. We believe that doing what you can, in whatever scale you are able to achieve is important and valuable. If everyone shifted their habits in small ways to be more sustainable, then the world could be a much better place!
https://www.sustainweb.org/reports/dec22-unpicking-food-prices/
https://betterfoodtraders.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/BFT_Impact-Report_2023-Final.pdf
