The great food debate

Rachel Pegg asks passionate advocates of each view for their reasoning and stands well back.

For
Martin Grimshaw is a local Green Party campaigner, organiser of monthly eco-talk shop Greenspeak and is studying for an MSc in Environmental Assessment and Management at the University of Brighton.

"In 1996 I had an epiphany in front of the milk cartons in my local supermarket. It was the day they changed from cartons to plastic bottles, at the time not recyclable. For me, it was the last straw: I walked out and never looked back. Within a few weeks I couldn't believe I had ever been fooled by the supermarket myth.

As well as my shopping trips becoming more enjoyable and quicker, perhaps the most surprising bonus was how much money I saved. My local newsagents and convenience stores sold yoghurt made by a small local company. It was the best I'd had in ages - and half the price of the supermarket equivalent.

I didn't know about it because either they wouldn't sell to the big guys or the big guys wouldn't buy their product.

Ten years on and we understand much better the crippling burden of food miles. It is suggested that for the average person about a third of our carbon footprint arises from the food we eat.

The unseen world of global supply-chain management, the logistics of getting products from source to shop, is rich, powerful and insane. The reality now is the food you buy may have criss-crossed the planet before arriving at your plate.

For example Young's Seafood and Dawnfresh announced last autumn they would start shipping prawns to Thailand and China to be peeled, then shipped back and finally sold as scampi here, axing 190 staff from their operations in Scotland in the process. Alarmingly, cases like these are now the rule rather than the exception.

Moreover, while our attention is on "no frills" city breaks, air cargo is increasing faster than passenger flights.

Rose Bridger, a food system consultant, told me, "There has been a massive expansion in recent years in the airfreight of perishables: fruit, vegetables, flowers, fish, meat and ready meals. That requires considerable infrastructure, such as refrigerated or frozen storage on board and in large warehouses at airports, where it might be kept for long periods before arriving fresh' in your home."

Back on the High Street, our desire for more choice has left us with precisely the opposite. In every other place I have lived there has been a central daily fruit and veg market, something this city sorely misses. The growth of farmers' markets and the redevelopment of the Open Market on London Road, then, are very welcome.

We are fortunate to still have a handful of small grocers and shops, while the popular Sussex In The City in The Lanes focuses on food sourced from within 50 miles of Brighton. We need to use them or lose them.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of excellent organic veg box schemes in the area, delivering locally grown produce with minimal packaging.

I currently use Barcombe Nurseries, whose salad bags are the most delicious (and nutritious) I've ever tried. Like the yoghurt mentioned earlier, it's just not possible to buy this stuff in your supermarket.

A valid counter argument is we cannot make a Ugandan farmer pay the price for our flights to Mallorca.

However, it is also possible unfair trade is one of the causes of poverty.

Large areas in developing countries are now devoted to growing luxury food for export only, starving local communities of water and staple crops, while returning flights might be loaded with low quality food aid.

While the issue is complex, aiming for more local and organic food, with a healthy splash of fairtrade, will help you reduce your environmental impact drastically - and support farmers and traders, while improving the quality of your diet."

Against
Nick Lang, head chef and owner of gourmet restaurant La Marinade in St George's Road, Kemp Town, Brighton.

"It is not feasible at all for me. It is bizarre that people are fanatical about buying their food locally despite the fact we live in a global economy. Half of our labour comes from abroad. If people want local food, how come the supermarkets are so full?

People want the cheapest things. The public want a deal but they want quality. Shops such as Lidl where you can buy a pair of trainers for £5 are always full. We all enjoy the benefits of products made overseas which cost a fraction of what they would if they were made here.

Our lifestyle is geared towards this. It is about quality. I buy all French poultry - duck, chicken. We do use local seafood but there is lots of seafood you can't get round here. Even things such as mussels, you do get them here but most of them come down from Scotland where they are rope-grown. You only really get sea bass here. We don't have cod. We get our cod from the Atlantic, that is ecologically sound.

What about French cheeses, Italian cheeses, oriental spices? I could go on.

We are now used to eating fruits which aren't in season. When I was a child we only ate strawberries in the summer when they were in season and that was nice but today our palates are used to eating all kinds of fruit throughout the year. As a chef, I enjoying eating the variety of things that are available.

For me, the bottom line is that the food tastes good. I remember when Anthony Bourdain, the writer of Kitchen Confidential, did a talk at the Old Market. He was asked about the whole green issue, about local produce. He said, "If it make me glow in the dark but tasted good, I'd still eat it". I suppose I am of that persuasion.

It is also a misunderstanding that organic food is better for you. Recently it was revealed some supermarket organic pork had twice as much fat and salt as the non-organic. Everybody equates organic and local with better. That is illogical. Every local foodstuff around the country would therefore be the best.

But some are going to be better than others.

If you are putting on fine dining and you want to get something better, if the price is driving something from the other side of the country, so be it. I use a Spanish supplier which is importing quality from Spain and I use a couple of quality French suppliers. Local suppliers always tend to be small.

I have got issues with cost and scale. You can use local lamb but a lot of the time, if you want a specific cut, you can't find it. I use a cannon of lamb. You will find it quite difficult just to get that one fine cut from a local producer.

Coffee, chocolate and sugar are essential. I can't possibly dream of not using them. For me it isn't an issue because I wouldn't even consider trying to use local food. We are a small business. There are so many cost issues here. Restaurants struggle to stay going. I think people need to take a reality check. Really people want too much.

We live in a society where everyone has such sophisticated desires but at the same time everybody expects a bargain. The British are the worst when it comes to food.

In France, it really isn't an effort.

People expect to pay more for good quality food.

On the one hand they talk up the green game and have vague, wishywashy opinions. They've seen a programme about McDonalds ruining the meat industry in Jamaica and they've got half-baked ideas about what it should be but there are totally unreasonable expectations about what they can get in these circumstances.

Buying local is expensive.

People want what they're not prepared to pay for."