Are Vegboxschemes set to ease congestion?

A new website, www.vegboxschemes.co.uk has been launched to encourage a greater awareness and transparency of local box schemes.

New website to put local food back on the menu

These schemes involve locally produced fruit & veg being delivered to your door in a box and were pioneered by the Soil Association as an attempt to restrict and ultimately rationalise the distance supermarket food travels to get to our plate or their food miles. The schemes also highlight the seasonality of our crops and promote healthy eating in our children, whilst reducing the retail price in cutting out the supermarket intermediary.

Vegboxschemes has been launched to raise awareness of locally produced food and put the consumer directly in touch with the producers on their doorstep. Box schemes are now widely available throughout the UK but there remains limited public knowledge of their existence and how to locate them.

Jos Dewing, Co-Founder of Vegboxschemes.co.uk said:

“It is both astonishing and appalling that 95% of the fruit we buy in the UK is grown abroad. We want our kids to learn about food, where it comes from and how to use it to enrich their lives, but there is nothing enriching about the journey of an average supermarket apple and how much carbon is emitted in order to get it into our fruit bowl.

“The big supermarkets are squeezing the local UK growers in their mission to source cheap produce globally and the environment is being ravaged at the same time. We should all sign up for a box today and this site will help us all do it.”

Simon Deverell, Co-Founder added:

“We didn’t just want to highlight the problem, which is already being championed fantastically by so many leading ethical authorities. We also wanted to present the solution and a way that we can all help to stem the centralised and global supply chain.

“We all have a box scheme available to us and this site will allow us to recommend schemes, find schemes and discuss the progress of schemes in general. But the message is fun too; box schemes are great for children and very practical. They are full of surprises, they are educational and my kids love it when the box arrives. To see children excited about veggies and where they come from is so important and they are never too young to understand how food is produced and how it gets to their plate.

“Vegboxschemes.co.uk will only work with the input of both box scheme customers and providers and the website offers a user friendly platform to encourage recommendations for schemes all over the Country. Listings and usage is completely free of charge. For more information or to recommend a box scheme please visit www.vegboxschemes.co.uk

Did you miss our feature about Big Barn? If you are interested in buying food locally you’ll find this feature useful too – Big Barn

Wnat to find out more about some of the sustainability issues around food – start with a grownupgreen library search

grownupgreen - 07/10/06

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