Warning: flown food

The Quillisascut Farm School's website has a great Sustainable Kitchen Handbook that outlines prioritizing considerations when sourcing foods. Number one is local & organic, followed by local, and only then organic. While geared to restaurateurs, it has implications for us as "everyday" consumers. Our co-op puts a label on every fresh item in the store, telling us where it comes from. So if there are two kinds of red potato, I can choose the one that didn't travel as far, even if it costs a few cents more. It's things like that that make me like to shop there.

I also love that they not only tell me the location of the farm that grew my food, but often the name of the farm, and even take the time to publish profiles of their different suppliers in our monthly member publication. (imagine Safeway doing this!) One of our favorites is the "Rent's Due Ranch." It's a great name, and their produce is consistently excellent-fresh, bursting with flavor and really local--about a 45 minute drive from where we live. I also love that they offer vegetable and flower starts in the spring, so I can grow the same things in my garden, while still supporting them.

Europe is, of course, well ahead of us on this. Amidst a big dust up about the irony of the Prince of Wales canceling a ski trip to reduce his carbon footprint, and then jetting to New York for two days to accept an award for work on environmental issues, Marks & Spencer, home of designer clothes and food, is introducing a scheme they call "Plan A," the implication being that there is no plan B. It affects everything the store sells, from vetting dyes suppliers use in clothing to reducing packaging with an eye to making all packaging fully degradable. Their stores will even test composters to produce biogas from past-date food and other waste.

Being island nations, cut off from the continent, Britain and Ireland have to fly in a lot of their fresh produce, or so goes the conventional wisdom. And here's the part I really like: M&S has committed to buy as much food from the UK and Ireland as possible, decreasing the amount of food flown in. In addition, they will label imported food as "flown" (rival Tesco will call it "air-freighted"). You can bet that when I'm in Ireland this spring, I'll be looking for that little airplane sticker.