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Tag: Food

Why (and how) to choose organic

Sally Hill | 31.08.10

Organic veg

You're in the market and two baskets of strawberries are on the shelf. One is organic, the other is not. What makes you choose one over the other?

Today, organic food is more present in the public consciousness than ever before. Most people get the general idea that food free from chemicals and pesticides is a good thing - for humans and the environment - but a lot of people still struggle with going organic.

Why? Aside from the issues of cost and availability, not to mention the rush of life that impacts our diet (ergo the success of fast-food), choosing organic means navigating an overload of facts, health advice and environmental and ethical concerns. That can be a bit daunting.

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organic food festival, organic, soil association, food, bristol

For Christmas, we sent a cow

Anna Guyer | 23.12.10

Send a Cow Christmas card We are lucky at Greenhouse to work with a team of creative and interesting people committed to making a difference. So this year we have chosen to honor their commitment by sending some rather unusual gifts on their behalf to families in Africa. From beehives to medicinal herbs, from goats to a donkey, the gifts we've sent reflect different interests or personality aspects of each member of our team.

We did this via one of my favorite organisations, called Send a Cow, a group that helps thousands of African families grow enough food to eat, sell their produce and develop small businesses that last.

I love them partly because I love cows, but even more because when you invest in Send a Cow's gifts, you are funding something that continues to give over and over. People who receive these livestock and farming support go on to share their success with others, too, so that every person who is helped by Send a Cow passes on knowledge and skills to around another 9 family members, friends or neighbours.

You can actually pick out what you want to send. Have a look at what we picked out for each of the people at Greenhouse:

Greenhouse team Send a Cow gifts

Send a Cow would love to have your support. Have a look at their work, and then check them out at www.sendacow.org.uk.

Give a gift that will change a life!

To all of our clients, colleagues and friends, we wish you the very best for the festive season and for a wonderful 2011. It has been a pleasure to work with you in 2010, and we look forward to continuing our conversations in the New Year.

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food, christmas, africa, gifts, send a cow

Greenhouse Weekly Roundup

Sally Hill | 07.01.11

'Trendspotting: the next big sustainability issues'
James Goodman and Martin Wright track the trends which will influence the coming year's sustainability debates.
Guardian Sustainable Business

'The Guardian's sustainability naivity'
Chris Milton disagrees and bursts open some interesting arguments based on the Guardian's list.
Sustainability Forum

bee and sunflower

Weekly Greenhouse Updates | Share +
ecotricity, soil association, sustainability, food, waste, anaerobic digestion, consumer, recession, sustainable business, electronics

Greenhouse Morning News

Greta Jonyniate | 29.02.12

News stories – 29th February 2012

Top news stories

Heartland associate taught 'biased' climate course at Ottawa university – The Guardian
Fukushima, a year on: 3,000 workers take on the twisted steel and radiation– The Guardian
RenewableUK unites with UK's largest union to drive green jobs – Business Green
EU vote expected to back plan to prop up carbon price – Business Green

Solar

‎Solar Investing – FT Adviser
Solar scheme hopes for 18th century home - This is Gloucestershire
‎Bristol City Council charts its solar potential – Solar Power Portal

‎Wind
‎
Wind myths: Turbines increase carbon emissions – The Guardian
Wind myths: Turbines can damage your health – The Guardian
Opposition groups kick up storm over windfarms in Wales – The Guardian
Cameron leads defence of wind energy policy – Business Green

Food
‎
Mexico City's floating gardens threatened by urbanisation – The Guardian
Food giants cook up sustainable beef masterplan – Business Green
Animal health 'a key part of keeping the world fed' - Scotsman
‎Seattle to Create Nation's Largest Public Food Forest – Treehugger

Ethical Finance
‎
What are the options for financing climate change adaptation? – The Guardian
Intelligent Energy fundraising nets $30m - FT
UK rises to fifth place in global renewable investment league‎ Solar Power Portal
Challenging year ahead for renewables investments – Ernst & Young‎ Environmental Finance

Interesting news

New Zealand's penguin power – The Independent
Lofty ambitions: why green roofs are the future of urban gardening – The Ecologist
The Ecologist meets… eco designer Alice Asquith – The Ecologist
6 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Company’s Carbon Footprint – Inhabitat

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solar, farming, wind energy, food, wind power, wind turbine, green news, wind, wind power news, solar news

Can the People’s Supermarket survive?

Greta Jonyniate | 05.03.12

In 2009, chef Arthur Potts Dawson saw that something was wrong with our high streets. 75% of people in the UK were shopping in stores owned by just four huge corporations.

People were in danger of becoming walking wallets when it came to their food, disenfranchised from the literal bread and butter of their lives.

But Dawson turned what could have been another doom-and-gloom campaign about every town in the country becoming a Tescoville into a positive solution: The People’s Supermarket.

With its bold, minimalist yellow and black branding and its direct name, the supermarket may seem like something from Orwell’s 1984, but it is anything but. The People’s Supermarket is staffed by local volunteers who have a democratic say in how the business is run. Members pay a joining fee of £25, agree to work four hours every month and are eligible for 20% of all their in-store purchases. Because TPS is small compared to Tesco’s, the members can realistically demand change, whether it is deciding which products go on the shelves or who helps manage the volunteers. The shelves feature products from local producers, like beer from the Redchurch Brewery in Bethnal Green and bread from the Flourish Bakery in Tottenham, as well as hosting the mainstream brands like Heinz.

At the back of TSP is the People’s Kitchen, which uses the supermarket's perfectly edible waste produce to prepare fresh cakes, salads and soups daily. The supermarket has been such a success that it has created 23 jobs and has won Local Retailer Award in the Observer Ethical Awards 2011.

So far so good. For anyone with a conscience this is all great – we can tick so many boxes: local, sustainable, ethical, community-driven, social, democratic. But it takes more than ideals and a shiny award to stock a shelf.

Tara Mulqueen, a manger of the membership team, explained to us that life on the front line of ethical shopping is hard. “Originally, we asked members to volunteer and receive a 10% discount on all products. But we needed more members. When we increased the discount to 20%, we doubled the number of members. People really responded to that tangible incentive.”

So people just wanted their food as cheap as possible? Is the ideal of community supermarket tarnished by consumer greed after all? Life is not as black and white as a bar code, Tara insisted. “Nearly all of the people who become members live in the neighbourhood, and they are the most committed to making the store work. I think it’s fair that they want something tangible in return for helping us. That way, they are a member, they are involved - not just a volunteer.”

You would have thought TPS would have no issue attracting people to the store. Channel 4 made a four episode television series about the supermarket’s early days, and the press has widely covered the supermarket’s progress.

But Tara told us that you should never underestimate the potential of word-of-mouth from the people you trust. “When we talk to our members about how they became interested with the scheme, most people tell us that it was through word of mouth. People who feel genuinely engaged by the idea are people who live in the neighbourhood and were told about the store by a friend or family member. We found people who came because they had read about us, or because they saw the show, they thought it was would be cool to sign up, but the reality is that stocking a shelf is not very cool.”

Is the People’s Supermarket a cool idea with a short shelf life, or the next big sustainable business practise? What do you think. It’s up to ‘the people’ to decide. After such a brave move and such progress – surely we want initiatives like this to survive and thrive?

The People’s Supermarket now needs our help – find out why in the next blog post.

Food | Share +
food, food waste, food shopping, shopping, the people's supermarket

How you can save The People’s Supermarket

Greta Jonyniate | 07.03.12

The People’s Supermarket is in trouble. Last month, the TPS had to raise £5,000 to keep the lights on. Thankfully the money was donated by passionate members and a generous Foundation, but the fight to keep a genuinely alternative option to the Big Four supermarkets continues.

The Camden Council continues to hound the supermarket for its business rate debts - all other creditors have compassionately agreed to freeze all debts until the business is in a better financial situation. But what can you - the contentious consumer - do to help foster a more sustainable solution to our shopping needs?

1. Petition: TPS is currently collecting thousands of signatures for its petition to have Camden Council reconsider the business rates that are applied to the supermarket. As a democratic body, the council should listen to what the people want. Visit the supermarket or its website to sign the petition or click here.

2. Shop: The People’s Supermarket is … a supermarket. And supermarkets don’t make money from good wishes or happy thoughts. It needs cold hard cash in the bank. The simplest way to do this is to visit the store the next time you find yourself in the centre of London. More importantly, try to make it part of your regular shopping experience.

Daniel Mulcahy, a store member, told us that the big issue is getting shoppers to return. “We get people coming in to try something different, but we need shoppers to treat the store as the place they get their weekly shop.”

Greenhouse PR can heartily recommend the People’s Kitchen broccoli quiche.

3. Volunteer: It’s not just shelf stackers and checkout staff the supermarket needs. “The most pressing issue at the moment is our legal status,” Daniel told us. “We need to rethink our legal status. We are currently a social enterprise, which falls under being an Industrial Providence Society. This is causing problems in terms of the business rates we pay, because whilst we are for profit and not a charity, our profit goes back into the store and it’s members.”

So if you are a hot shot business lawyer who specialises in Industrial Providence Society legal issues, this could be your moment to shine. And even if you are not so well qualified, becoming a member provides more money, more manpower and more outreach for the supermarket.

4. Attend an event: The supermarket runs events every week, with special weekend events. So far the supermarket has hosted a somewhat chaotic pet get-together, a tipsy beer festival, and a children’s day with face painting and home made toys.

Upcoming events include Fairtrade Pop-Up restaurant on running from the 9th March to the 15th March and a plant sale on weekend of the 25th March.

5. Get Political: “We were somewhat naive.” Daniel admitted to us. When David Cameron visited the store, it was assumed to be a good PR move. “But we didn’t want to be caught up with the whole Big Society message. We didn’t want to be used as a political football.”

Write to Labour run Camden Council to ask them to make a compassionate decision based on whether the supermarket’s ethos is valuable to society, Big or small.

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food, food waste, shopping, petition, the people's supermarket

“Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants” Radio 4 The Food Programme

Greta Jonyniate | 13.03.12

BBC Radio 4's Food Programme was brilliant this week - and is well worth clicking here to listen again. The programme features interviews with food writer and activist Michael Pollan, from the US, and Joanna Blythman, a UK food journalist.

According to Pollan, we are in the middle of a “big and very new experiment” by eating through industrialised methods. Is the experiment working? With type II diabetes costing New York $400,000 per patient, the US is just beginning to review how and what they are eating. The healthcare costs of the current system is set to be unsustainable, and Pollan believes that traditional, local eating habits could be the remedy.

Pollan is well known for his rule, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” This rule comes from his last book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, which contains rules to help us become better and more ethical eaters. Pollan’s rules are an attempt to fight against our thinking about food, which is trapped in a dichotomy of food as either “poison or medicine.”

Blythman has similar concerns about our eating habits. Her book What to Eat: Food that’s good for your health, pocket and plate contains 20 “principles of eating,” including “base your diet on real, unprocessed food,” “don’t buy food with ingredients you won’t find in a domestic larder,” and “boycott factory farmed meat, poultry, eggs and dairy.”

It was a fascinating programme - I began to realise that we may be at a turning point - when the economics of obesity and health problems associated with healthcare costs in the US in turn makes the politicians and regulators sit up and listen and consider the outcomes of our current industrialised food system. A very sorry state of affairs though - that it takes an economic and healthcare crisis to prompt politicians, regulators, and food manufacturers to think responsibly about sustainable food systems - and take the necessary action to change.

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food, food waste, joanna blythman, michael pollan, fast food, radio4, eating, the food programme

Sustainable Food for Thought

Greta Jonyniate | 15.03.12

To follow our previous post on the need for change in our industrialised agricultural system - here is a selection of four books that we think are really powerful and should be read by anyone interested in the sustainable food movement.

Michael Pollan's Food Rules: An Eater's Manual is Pollan's attempt to clearly direct the reader to becoming a better eater. The book contains 64 rules for a better life with food, including: “If it comes from a plant eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t," "Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the milk" and "Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.”

Joanna Blythman's What To Eat: Food that's good for your health, pocket and plate, is similar to Pollan's in that it contains a set of rules to help the food loving reader. Blythman's book also includes a list of Green, Amber and Red foods; foods that are fine to eat, foods that we should be cautious about eating, and foods that we should never eat.

Novelist Jonatha Safran Foer's Eating Animals is a memoir about his progession towards vegetarianism and a call-to-arms against the USA's meat industry. Foer does not flinch from letting the reader know all the grisly details that describe the life of a factory farm animal.

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation is the No Logo of the fast food industry. Schlosser documents the industry's targeting of children, its global reach and the health risks that the industry does not want you to know about.

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food, flavour, books, carl honore, eco sinner, fred pearce, slow movement, paul kingsnorth, real england

Meatout

Anna Guyer | 19.03.12

Fancy free food? This week, The Vegan Society will be giving out free food as part of Meatout, an international vegan campaign that promotes a meat free diet. On or around March 20th each year, Meatout supporting organisations attempt to get consumers to go meat free for one day and try out vegetarian and vegan foods. The UK Vegan Society is organising this year’s UK events.

Meatout is part of the USA not-for-profit organisation FARM’s campaign to end the use of animals for food. And FARM is not adverse to openly bribing consumers in order to attract them to their campaign: their Pay Per View van tours the USA, paying people one dollar to view a four minute film that documents some of the worse treatment animals have to suffer in a modern factory farm. The campaign also publishes how many people watched the film at each event the van visits.

FARM has also set up Meatout Mondays, a campaign that supports consumers to…well, the title says it all. This simple idea has its roots in the Meatless Monday campaign, set up by marketer Sid Lerner to be part of the Monday Campaigns (there is also Man Up! Monday, which supports young men to have STI tests, and Move It! Monday, which supports people to be more active). The Meat Free Monday campaign, set up by Paul McCartney, has a similar aim and the idea seems to be a core principle of the Green Party.

Regardless of how you feel about animal ethics, Meatless/Meatout/Meat-Free days have a positive affect on the environment. According to the United Nations, emissions of CO2 created by the livestock industry could account for 18% of global emissions. While meat production does not in-of-itself lead to environmental destruction (if done properly, it can lead to environmental biodiversity), our demand for cheap beef is leading to widespread rainforest destruction, as forests are cleared for new grazing ground for industrially farmed cattle. The meat industry can be wildly inefficient in terms of resources: for feedlot beef, it takes 33 calories of energy from fossil fuels to make just one calorie of energy for food.

So if you’re going to choose a day to go without a Big Mac…today would be the day.

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green living, food, meat, vegetarian, meatout, vegan, meat free mondays, meatless mondays