A few snaps from Hodmedod’s fabulous book launch on Friday evening. It was a mammoth 6hr trip down to their beanstore but they threw such a good party. The tables were dressed beautifully, Henrieta’s bean-based cooking was a delight and it was inspiring to hear from Josiah and Nick on how much both the event and release of their book meant to them. Food pioneers the pair of them and we’re blessed to be able to call them our pals. A thank you too to my knight in shining armour, Harry from Brighton-based Wholesalers, Shrub for kindly running us back to my digs for the night. 

Christmas presents sorted for all yer mates here – Whole Food: a book from Hodmedod – Hodmedod’s Wholefoods

Good afternoon, Organic Northerners and Southerns alike,

Things were noticeably busier yesterday morning as I fork-liftied pallets into the warehouse. The ratio of loose bagged roots to boxes of salads and greens was up again too..soup and stew season is firmly upon us.

On the English fruit front, it’s always been apples and pears from here on in but last week we were approached by a wee community grower in Nottinghamshire called FarmEco who have kindly offered us some English Medlar so you’ll spot those available at the top of the list this week. Medlars want storing in a cool place until they brown or ‘blet’. The uglier they start to look, the sweeter and softer the flesh. Their flavour is similar to a spiced apple sauce and they’re great for preserves and jellies and the like.

I’m writing to you from the train again en route to summat called the Blue Earth Summit tmorra and I’m staying down south for the Soil Association’s annual Trade Conference on Thurs too. If any of you lot are about and free for a brew and a natter, please do get in touch and i’ll do my best to come meet yous.

One last thing on transport prices before I hand over to our Ell for the veg updates. You’ll all know energy prices are up and diesel is £2 a litre just now. Throughout the invasion of Ukraine and the more recent war in Iran, though all of our pallet hauliers have adjusted their prices accordingly, we’ve not moved our own van delivery costs at all. This is something we’ll have to be looking at in detail very soon as we’re certainly losing money each week delivering the veg out. One of us will be in touch with any changes that we have to make.

Our Ell’s weekly veg updates: 

• First up, Royal Oak has savoy cabbages, red sweetheart cabbages, white cabbages, dirty carrots, white and green kale, pak Choi and celebration squash.

• Pollybell has some January king cabbages. Chapel also has January king cabbages as well as red java spuds and twister spuds.

• Elsewhere, Roddy’s has some broccolini, cauliflower and mixed salad leaves, Flourish adds some Tosca onions and Simpson has leeks again.

• Next up, Hael adds some green cherry tomatoes and heirloom green cherry tomatoes and Trinity has some green lemon drop chillies.

• And for our Wednesday customers, Growing Well has Aleppo chillies, green kale and perpetual spinach and Moss Valley has chillies and coriander.

• On the UK fruit front, Carey has some pitmaston pineapple apples and Oakwood has added some more cox blend juice.

• From Spain, Biovergel add some bacon avocados, Camposeven some mini romaine lettuce and clemenules clems.

• From Holland, Zann adds some Pak Choi, mixed colour cherry tomatoes, coeur de beouf tomatoes, smeralda apples, cranberries and both red and white grapes.

• From France, Uni-Vert has some rougette lettuce, red peppered, red kuri squash, dalinette apples and clems while Bio & Bio has some shallots, oronules clems and sensation mangoes.

• Solagora are back on this week with sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, cherry vine tomatoes, plum tomatoes, ribbed black tomatoes, vine tomatoes and hass avocados.

• Our top picks for Dynamis this week are musquee pumpkins, parsley root, clems with leaves, feijoas and aloe Vera.

• To line your pantry’s we’ve got some unsalted butter from Netherend, macaroni and rigatoni from Fresh Flour and loads back on from both Cal Valls Pantry and Forest Wholefoods so as always make sure to have a good look through the list to see if theres anything you fancy.

I’ll sign off this week with a link to an online sustainability summit on Thursday 22nd October that’s run be a lass called Dr Veronica Broomes who I met at a food gig in Sheffield recently. The day pass is free and the aim of the event is to explore practical ways to integrate sustainability into business strategy, operations and supply chains. There will be panel discussions, fireside chats and more. Here’s a link to register for your free ticket…

Sustainability Summit For Small and Medium Business – Online | TryBooking United Kingdom

Have a top week everyone,
Sean, Mads, Alph, Ell and Team ON x

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