About Local Food Advisor

Our Story

How did all this start.....?
In early 2008, after escaping a London commuter lifestyle, Allan and Maggie Ure started up Local Food Advisor to help consumers and businesses search for award winning food producers locally, regionally or nationally. During the course of 2008, a database was built of the UK's top food producers, retailers, local food restaurants and Farmers markets, which was combined with the latest search technology to transform the way you can search for quality food. Initially based in Reading, the office has now moved, along with the founders, to South Devon, where they are trying to live more sustainably.

Although the name is similar, we are not connected with the lottery funded Local Food Adviser function, an element of the Local Food Programme. you can find their site here: http://www.localfoodgrants.org/

What is local food?

To many people local food means food produced within a few miles of where they live. To others it means food which tastes of where it came from - food produced with traditional local farming methods or using local skills and recipes, often based on native animal breeds and plants suited to the local environment.
Either way it should mean great tasting food which is produced with respect for animals and the environment. At localfoodadvisor we let you choose - you can search for award winning food locally or nationally amongst the UK’s top 4000 award winning producers, suppliers, local food restaurants and Farmers Markets.

How do we know that they are the best?

• They are recommended by top celebrity chefs such as Rick Stein, Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall and the chefs from the Great British Menu (in total 1500 recommended producers and suppliers)
• They are the winners of the key industry and media awards like ‘Great Taste’ (the UK Food Oscars) and the English Wine and British Cheese awards where we list over 300 winners as well as food awards from the National press. We also list all the main Regional Food awards such as the Taste of the West and Scottish Food and Drink awards.
• They have been Certified by the key organisations responsible for; Organic produce (we list 900 organic producers), Rare and Native breed producers (we list almost 400), Environmentally friendly farms, Certified butchers, guaranteed ‘local’ Farmers Markets and many more.

Our aims

Along with promoting great local food producers and suppliers we wish to;

Help the Environment

We want to help people to buy locally and combat climate change - food is responsible for one third of UK households impact on climate change!  We list over 400 Farm shops, 400 Farm gate sales outlets, 500 Delivery/Box Schemes as well as over 800 Farmers Markets to help you reduce food miles.

Support Animal Welfare

The animal welfare standards under the UK Organic Certification schemes ensure very high standards of care – significantly above ‘free range’, RSPCA ‘ freedom foods’ or other similar categories. We list 900 producers from all the main certification bodies in the UK. We know that Rare and Native breeds are almost always reared with higher welfare standards. You can do your bit to support them by using our list of almost 400 suppliers and 80 rare and native breeds.

Promote Regional Cooking

One of the great pleasure of travelling in France is the excellence of the Regional cuisine, Cassoulet in Languedoc, Bouillabaisse in Provence, Choucroute in Alsace. We would love to see ‘Modern British’ cooking progressing through a renaissance in Regional cooking, based on the quality of the local produce, local recipes and specialist local food restaurants. We have listed by Region, in addition to the best local producers, native breeds of animal (see above) and their Regional origins, 100 traditional regional specialities and where to find them, almost 300 ‘local food restaurants’ (see below) and some great traditional Regional recipes (also below).

Encourage quality ‘local food restaurants’

We wish to promote local food restaurants which serve British Cooking (modern and traditional), use local produce whenever possible and are of a high enough standard to be recommended by the key Food Guides such as the AA and The Good Food guide. In many cases they also serve traditional Regional recipes.

Preserve traditional recipes

Help to preserve those wonderful traditional regional specialities like Lincolnshire Haslet, Yorkshire Parkin, Forfar Bridie, Craster Kippers, Camarthen Ham, Maids of Honour, Bath Chaps – we list 100 and where to find them.

If you would like to help these efforts please register to become a Friend of Local Food Advisor.