'A Celebration of Local Food'

The Totnes Guide to Local Food, Shopping, Eating out and Places to stay 2008 is now available from many outlets in the town. You can now get the Food Guide free from Riverford in Town, The Totnes Museum, The Totnes Bookshop, Tickelmore Fish Shop, Harlequin Bookshop Willow Restaurant, some of the Friday market stalls, the Tourist Information Centre and many more places, Look for the sticker. Contact us if you would like us to send you a copy by post, please send stamps to the value of £2 to cover the cost of printing the Guide and post and packing. Or down load a copy of the cover here and the inside pages here

We hope to find ways to make the information in the Guide available on line, please contact us if you would like to offer help with this project. We are also hoping to use the Guide to promote the use of local food producers among business customers locally in the coming months. if you would be interested to hear more about our work, please contact us or come to our next meeting in Central Totnes (see TTT calendar for more info). You can see some info about our research methods here.

We are a small group of Totnes residents who have come together because we are passionate about local food, and want to encourage our fellow residents in their support of local producers. 

The Guide contains information about the food producers in the local area, concentrating particularly on those within 5 miles of the town, as well as those businesses: market stalls, shops, cafes, pubs, restaurants and places to stay that support them. We hope that you will use this information to play your part in supporting the development of a more localised food economy in the local area, which will sustain us all.

Structure & content of Food Guide

The first part of the Guide gives information about the market traders and food producers, as well as ways to get involved in local food projects, whether you want to grow your own, or campaign for more allotments. You’ll also find a map showing the location of these producers and activities in the centre pages. Not all farmers and growers are open to visitors, though, so we ask you to check before you visit.

In the centre of the guide you will also find some helpful tips about the kind of food available in the different seasons of the year. Something we’ve forgotten in these days of strawberries in November and constant prices all year round. 

The second half of the Guide will give information on those businesses which make the effort to source produce locally. You’ll find the shops, cafes, pubs, restaurants, and places to stay in the town, along with a handy map at the beginning of the booklet, which folds out to lay alongside the text.

Some businesses have told us quite a lot of detail about where the food items they sell or serve were produced. There are symbols in the text to show whether this was within walking distance (5 miles), from South Devon (a distance a fit person could cycle) or from South West England (you’d need to travel there by bus!).  

Get involved

We hope this booklet will inspire you and give you the information you need spend your money on food that has been produced and distributed in a way you can support. Some food producers, for various reasons, are not  trading as ‘organic’ but use methods which encompass responsible stewardship of the land and animal welfare. If in doubt, do ask, and check out the Wholesome Food Association which has several members in this area and is a low-cost, 'grassroots'  alternative to organic certification for  people who are  growing or producing food for sale 

We hope that everyone who lives in Totnes, or visits the town, will use the power of their spending decisions to support those traders in the town who sell locally produced food. If you can bring your own shopping bag and use some Totnes Pounds you’ll be taking serious steps to creating the kind of world we might all want to live in. If we want to protect the environment and want to trade in a currency that supports local business rather than the multi-national companies and the arms trade, we have to make the most of the action we can take ourselves.  

We are giving Totnes residents the means and the encouragement to exercise their power to develop a strong and sustainable local food economy in your town. We wish other towns and cities success in their own intitiatives and would be glad to hear of your efforts and ideas. The time to act is now. Support your local producers, and use your local high street shops and markets, or they will not survive. 

Contacts

If you have any questions about this project, or you want to get involved please contact localfooddirectory.totnes@transitionnetwork.org