the Herefoodshire challenge is over
An unexpected blaze of glory for the end of the Herefoodshire Challenge year.
Maybe eating local food is striking a chord as a cheery and tasty antidote to an unpalatable diet of unrelieved recession crunch. If that is so, it will certainly be a help to our local producers and shops, who produce such excellent food and drink - and depend on our support.
Herefoodshire was spearheaded by one individual challenging themselves to eat and drink entirely Herefordshire grown and produced food and drink, plus Fairtrade marked products, for a whole year from February 2008 - with support from everyone else who joined in… growers, shops and consumers.
Is Leominster the tops for local & Fairtrade shopping? (PDF 19kb)
So Herefoodshire has been covered in :-
The Times Weekend on 7th Feb- marking the end of the calendar year
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article5676541.ece
A piece today on BBC Midlands Today. View Trish’s healthy diet of eggs, bacon and gin…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7893088.stm
Hereford Times came along to the Farmer's Market at Leominster on Saturday, to which we’d given a spirited ”I’m giving my heart to Herefordshire food” Valentine’s theme. There's a fine photo of Grove Farm's Fiona Bunting with some vegetable bunting up on the Hereford website - http://www.herefordtimes.com/ This may be joined shortly by a video of the amazing carrot cadenza. Not to be missed!
There are a couple of talks on Herefoodshire coming up in Leominster. The first is for Fairtrade fortnight and is a joint effort with Jan and Les Hardy, who will be speaking about their Fairtrade trip to Peru. It’s on Saturday, March 6th at the Community Centre at 7.30 and includes wine tasting, Traidcraft snacks and hand made Peruvian alpaca goods for sale. Then there’s another burst on Monday, 9th March at 7.30 at the Talbot for the Leominster Civic Society, who showed my Herefoodshire film earlier in the year.
I’m glad to say that more is on the way. Paul Wright, who made the Herefoodshire launch film (still up on the myherefordshire.com website), will shortly be making more downloadable shorts featuring local producers, retailers and cooks. And if we could find some money he could do even more!
Find out more about local food at;
The challenge is being co-ordinated by Celebrating Creation, a community arts organisation in North Herefordshire that has organised many local celebrations over the past 15 years.
Email herefoodshire@hotmail.co.uk for more information or view the press release (PDF).
See other related initiatives across the world
Choose products with the FAIRTRADE Mark and visit http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ 
for more information