News and Features
Food for Life Community Co-op, Taunton by Annie Vickerstaff
If you are concerned about healthy food and the environment, and want to reduce food miles and packaging, while supporting a local enterprise that offers organic food at cheaper-than-supermarket prices, then Taunton’s Food for Life Community Co-op is where you should be heading I went to see how it all works, and spoke to Mark Gosney, of Taunton & West Somerset Mind, who organises the co-op. He is ably assisted by volunteers from Mind (both staff and service users) and I met Chris, Innes, Amanda, Garry and another Mark, all busy sorting out orders and getting them ready for collection. Mark explained that the co-op has been running for over two years and was initially set up by Jane Kendon with help from Somerset College of Art & Technology (SCAT). It is based at Mind in Canal Road, Taunton where, every Thursday, deliveries are received and orders processed. Some customers collect from there too, as it’s more convenient for them. Then the assembled food orders are taken to Chamberlain’s Cafe at the North Street Congregational Church, where the main pick-up occurs: customers often drop in for a cuppa and a chat as well as their food order and there’s a friendly, sociable atmosphere. So what can you get from the co-op? Well, pretty much everything! Veg bags start at £4 for the smallest, containing five different types of veggies, then £6 for seven types and £8 for nine, which is pretty good value by anyone’s standards I’d say. Somerset Organic Link supply fruit bags offering five different types of fruit for £4.50; six for £6.40 and seven, eight or nine for £8.60. In a typical small bag you might get three fairtrade bananas, two oranges, five apples, two kiwis, one lemon and four clementines. All guaranteed organic and as much as possible locally sourced. Meat and eggs come from Beech Hayes Farm in the Blackdown Hills: here traditional farming methods are used and you can order their famous Blackdown Bangers (part of Creech Castle’s Best British Breakfast award), as well as an excellent selection of chicken, lamb, beef, pork, mince, sausages, and free range eggs from happy hens (or ducks or geese or quail) Plowright Organic Vegetables at Over Stowey provide the fresh veggies and you can order trout supplied by Tracey Mill & Trout Farm near Honiton. These trout are raised in waters fed by the river Otter and stock levels are kept low to keep the fish healthy: they are fed on GM-free food. Tracey Mill also make yummy things like trout terrine and trout gravadlax. Being a community enterprise, the co-op is strong on local links and this month, volunteers are picking lovely fresh apples from orchards at House of St Martin, a halfway house for ex-offenders. Some salad stuff is grown here too in season. So if you’re on a budget but want to feed your family good, healthy organic food, are keen to keep the food miles down and like supporting worthy local projects, call Food for Life and get your order in today. Taunton Food for Life Community Co-op Chamberlain’s Cafe Behind North Street Congregational Church Taunton Open: Thursdays 12.30 to 3.30 Phone: office 01823 334906 or Mark Gosney: 07854 678847 Email: foodcoop@mindtws.org.uk If you don't live or work in Taunton, click here for other food co-ops in Somerset
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