Do you know where your chicken comes from?

Before starting this experiement with living without the supermarkets, I often bought RSPA approved chicken but honestly didn't really know how my meat was being reared.  Reading some of the literature that came with my Abel & Cole delivery gave me a bit of a rude awakening.  Apparently 860 million chickens were reared for food in 2007 and most of them were intensively farmed.  According to A&C these chickens are bred to grow faster than they would naturally, which cripples them under their own weight.  They have a shorter life span and are given less and less space. Even if that doesn't move you, they have 21% more fat, 30% more saturated fat and 50% less vitamin A and 100% less Omega-3 fatty acids than organic chickens!!!  Some quick online research backed up A&C's claims ... will make me think about meat a lot more carefully in future.

Week 3

Abel & Cole - big success!  Placed order no 2 today.  Also enjoying the veg box from Stanhill Farm. Meals since last Wednesdays delivery:

Homemade broccoli quiche with salad and fresh bread
Poached cod fillets (from freezer) with new potatoes, carrots and fresh broad beans
Individual steak and mushroom pies (Dennis of Bexley), homemade potato wedges and carrot/swede mash
Toad in the hole, mashed potato and carrots
Vegetable stir fry
Homemade cottage pie

Found a nice little grocer in Rochester High Street this week while I was on the way to my Mum's house and added spaghetti hoops, unsalted rice cakes and dates to the store cupboard, as well as some nice juicy plums to the fruit bowl.  Chatting with the store owner, I discovered that businesses have to pay commission to get change from the bank - even small businesses like hers!  I was appalled by yet another way that small shops are being penalised.

Gave in and visited the Co-op at Northumberland Heath for prawns and cat food - I went for Co-op own brand thinking it might be more ethical than Felix, but cat not impressed.  Later in the week I found a pet shop in Bexleyheath shopping centre that stocks Felix - hooray!

The Tesco Metro store on Bronze Age Way (just round the corner) is close to opening now.  It occupies a building that until recently was a pub.  I learned from the pet shop owner in Bexleyheath that there is another Tesco store planned for there too- not far from Asda!  Another strike against the local shops.

Seven days in ...

Spent today mentally listing the things that I was running out of and had no idea where to source - except of course the supermarket! Living without the supermarket is not easy ... until you discover Abel & Cole online ordering :-).   Have just placed our first order for a range of things I would normally buy from Ocado, from baked beans and kitchen roll to chocolate and even pepperoni pizza, which no1 son will be pleased to see.  Even managed to order no 3 son's baby yoghurts - hooray.  All food organic and mostly British.  Feeling optimistic again, even though stiil need to source cat food and prawns.

First veg box arrived from Stanhill Farm today: onions, new potatoes, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, fresh broad beans (still in pods), cucumber, spring onions and broccoli.  Nice selection, which with six eggs came to just over £10.  Added broccoli and spring onions to the veg we had in the fridge from our Saturday shop for a healthy stir fry - yum.

PYO and the Farm Shop

So the lack of April showers that we have been enjoying with trips to the park and picnics has apparently adversely affected the stawberry crops - we picked a grand total of ten nearly ripe strawberries (well 13 if you count the ones DS ate on the way).  PYO bit of a failure, but DS had lots of fun in the fresh air.

The Stanhill Farm Shop was lovely and we bought some nice fresh bread and doughnuts as well as some fruit and veg.  A bit miffed that the apples were from New Zealand though ...

Dennis of Bexley (our favourite butcher), as always, had plenty to offer, but very pricey.  We limited ourselves to some minced Scottish beef, pork and caramelised onion sausages and minced beef and onion pies (the latter made on site) and spent twice as much as we would have on Ocado.  From experience it will taste much nicer though.

Looking forward to our first delivery of veg from Stanhill on Wednesday evening.

Day 1 - mixed success!

We, DS and I, set out at 13:00 not for Morrisons just three minutes walk away but to our nearest 'parade' of shops, which includes a green grocer and pet shop.  A bus ride there (£2.20) and to our first failure - the pet shop doesn't sell sachets of cat food, which our finicky pussy cat will only eat.  It also highlighted another challenge of non-supermarket shopping - small shops are difficult to get a buggy around!  Still undeterred we went to the green grocer and we seemed to spend a fortune on a few items to tide us over until the weekend, when we plan to go strawberry picking and to visit the shop at Stanhill Farm.

While we were out we also supported our local cafe, which pleased a hungry DS, who, managed to woo two old ladies with waves and air kisses. 

We also do a weekly shop for my partner's mum and we haven't subjected her to our experiment (yet ;-)).  So I tried to get the items that she wanted that were unavailable at Ocado this week in the Co-op, figuring they have the best ethics of the supermarkets, but was thwarted when it came to the 5" cheese and tomato pizzas on her list.  So reluctantly on the long walk home, I popped into Morrisons to get those.  I did, however, take the opportunity to compare the prices of what I had purchased at the green grocer with those in Morrisons and apart from paying 10 pence more for a cucumber and getting two less nectarines for my £1.00 (though the ones I picked looked much juicier), there was little difference in cost.

So at the end of day one, we've not spent much more than normal, but I've managed to incorporate more exercise (walking) and have engaged more with my local community (people serving in small shops without queues are much more willing to engage in a chatter) than I would have during my normal trip to Morrisons.  I did also relent on the cat food front and buy this from the Co-op ... though an alternative source is high on my list for research!

The challenge

OK, on a country drive taking in local farms, 'pick your own' signs and farm shops, I said to my lovely OH "how about we try living without the supermarket for a month?".  Like me, he resents wandering round soulless supermarkets and big chain stores at the weekend and we both feel we should be doing more to support local independent shops and farms.  So he was game and now I am researching how we can source all of the things we normally buy from the big supermarkets (we are a modern family with my partner's 19 year old son and our 14 month old baby boy, plus a very demanding pussy cat making our weekly shopping basket nicely varied LOL).  But we are also keen that we do not pay significantly more than at the supermarkets.  I thought I'd start this blog to record how we get on and also hopefully to inspire others to venture outside of the supermarkets too.  Of course if there's anyone out there who has already started down this road, any tips would be gratefully received ...

First step, signing up for a veg and fruit box scheme.  I am in the process of signing up with Stanhill Farm in Wilmington, which is our most local scheme ...