from John Maxwell-Jones, Burgess Stores, Goudhurst, Kent
Sir; I was interested to read two news items in the latest edition of The Grocer (August 31)  Marks and Spencer actively switching to free range eggs for its prepared meals and the story about Waitrose promoting local food producers in its stores  although the chain admits it might only be one local product in a particular store.
As the owner of Burgess Stores, a village shop with 170-plus years of retailing, our business has always stocked and sold local products, so in a way for us this is not news.
We offer more than 700 local products which, by today's standards, is news, but while the multiples have resources to provide a stream of news items, the independent sector does not.
There are a great many other businesses like ours in rural areas which are much closer to local producers than any supermarket. More than a third (4,500) of the 12,000 village shops are members of the Rural Shops Alliance in 22 counties in England and Wales. As a member of the national steering group I recently presented a paper, Local Food/Local Retailers to members. It looked at advantages for rural retailers and how they could identify and source local products and at the problems involved.
One is distribution and the alliance is studying this where trials are taking place. Despite distribution being a problem for producers, the number of food miles at the local level are significantly fewer and probably almost negligible compared with the food miles products travel to reach the supermarkets.
As well as benefiting the rural retailer, stocking local products has many other advantages for the rural economy. It ensures the producer receives a realistic price and, in addition to environmental advantages through reduction in food miles, village shops contribute employment and tourism.
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Sir; I was interested to read two news items in the latest edition of The Grocer (August 31)  Marks and Spencer actively switching to free range eggs for its prepared meals and the story about Waitrose promoting local food producers in its stores  although the chain admits it might only be one local product in a particular store.
As the owner of Burgess Stores, a village shop with 170-plus years of retailing, our business has always stocked and sold local products, so in a way for us this is not news.
We offer more than 700 local products which, by today's standards, is news, but while the multiples have resources to provide a stream of news items, the independent sector does not.
There are a great many other businesses like ours in rural areas which are much closer to local producers than any supermarket. More than a third (4,500) of the 12,000 village shops are members of the Rural Shops Alliance in 22 counties in England and Wales. As a member of the national steering group I recently presented a paper, Local Food/Local Retailers to members. It looked at advantages for rural retailers and how they could identify and source local products and at the problems involved.
One is distribution and the alliance is studying this where trials are taking place. Despite distribution being a problem for producers, the number of food miles at the local level are significantly fewer and probably almost negligible compared with the food miles products travel to reach the supermarkets.
As well as benefiting the rural retailer, stocking local products has many other advantages for the rural economy. It ensures the producer receives a realistic price and, in addition to environmental advantages through reduction in food miles, village shops contribute employment and tourism.
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