The 200 mile bread

Champions of Local Provenance… But The Bread travels 200 miles!

Matthew Rymer
Jul 22, 2017 · 3 min read

Why should this matter? Let me explain.

There is a burger van in a layby near us. He does a good trade with his bacon sarnies packed with bacon for £2.50. I have never had an issue with these kinds of business because they never claim to be anything they are not. They buy their meat from anywhere and the consumer pays the price and takes their choice. They are not claiming any provenance premium.

Then, I discovered he has put up a Local & British sign. Why? Because he buys from a catering butcher a few miles away. What is he buying? EU bacon at cheapest wholesale price, of course. When the claim is not matched by the fact, the problems begin.


Restaurants Claiming Local Provenance Need To Do Their Farm Work

When I eat at an expensive restaurant that charges a provenance premium and boasts about it (as I did yesterday), we as consumers have every reason to have heightened expectations.

Living Happerley means of course I challenge the source of ingredients before I order. The bread came as complimentary and I asked where the flour was from. Imagine my surprise when the waitress returned and says: “Chef doesn’t know [not surprising], but the bread is from The Lake District [very surprising].”

The Lake District is 200 mile away.

And why does he not cite the bakers or the town? Perhaps because The Lake District is rather a beautiful and rural region — perception counts where the provenance cannot.

Wrong! Provenance matters.

When you pay a substantial sum to eat out somewhere that plays so strongly the provenance card, you expect the chef to do his homework: to spend time with suppliers, to engage and source to season to an extent we, as busy people, have not time to do. Living Happerley helps you understand the difficulties and challenges of sourcing food with provenance. To order from a round robin of wholesalers is simply not good enough.

If there is no provenance care in the bread (and let’s face it, who commonly asks where bread is from?) then you begin to doubt whether they do source all their main ingredients from the food heroes they trumpet — the artisan local producers.

I am now checking out whether my chicken did indeed come from http://www.woolleyparkfarm.co.uk/ — as I was told. I know most restaurateurs are honest and employ passionate chefs who care increasingly about provenance. However, it takes only a series of cost efficiencies to drive a change of suppliers while the marketing, from menu to website, still champions what the diner trusts they are eating.

In this restaurant, the chicken is listed as ‘Cotswold Chicken’ on the menu. When I ordered a few months ago the same chicken, I was told this was the breed of chicken. I have now been told the supplier. Let’s see if they match. I do smell a bit of a rat. I shall keep you posted…

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