A few shots from a very busy day down in Westminster last week with the Fruit & Veg Coalition. Special kudos to my local MP, Tim Roca for taking so much time out of his busy schedule one day before the budget to learn about and show support for what we’re trying to achieve here at Organic North. Also had a wee natter with Jezza for a bit but he mainly seemed to want to bang on about his allotment 😊

Good afternoon Organic Northers,

It feels like ages since I’ve been over newsletter writing duties!

As our Ell has been covering over the past few weeks, I feel like I’ve been here, there and everywhere with work of late with Sustainable Food Places seminars and various organic conferences and Soil Association gatherings. These culminated last week in a trip down to the Palace of Westminster for to host a reception lunch for MPs at the official launch of the UK Fruit & Veg Coalition (of who we are a founding member). Following that, Sustain hosted an afternoon launching their fab Bridging The Gap Report that we have also been involved with via our work with Lucy Antaland the Queen of Greens project in Liverpool. This report hopes to inform national policy on how with just a wee bit of government support, many more folk would be able to afford and have access to good food. In turn, this could really positively impact local and circular economies, public health and the environment too.

I was down there with two of our esteemed growers (Roddy from Roddy’s Organicsand Nick from Bagthorpe Farm), I enjoyed meeting many friends, colleagues and allies down there and the day was an eye-opening experience in so many ways. I got to chat to a few MPs including my own local MP in Macclesfield, Tim Roca who seemed really impressed with our work and is keen to help support what we’re doing. The reception for the work we’re all collectively doing and that very much includes you guys too was really good all day so thank you and well done for being part of summat that’s feels like it’s really starting to gain some traction! A long old bloody day it was too…I ended up setting the world to rights ‘til about 4am over some beers with the very impressive Lee Robb who runs Carrick Greengrocers 😊

Gourmet, micro farmed mushies from Garstang!

For any newbies here, we introduced Wyreside mushrooms to our list earlier this year – and you loved ’em. These lovely Lion’s Mane beauties are grown by Paul and Hayley just over from us in Lancashire. Not only are they immune boosting, brain boosting and full of vitamins, they’re seriously tasty too. Subtly sweet and earthy, we recommend cutting them into chunky slices and cooking them just as you would a steak.

Now onto the fruit and veg updates:

• Starting in the UK, Royal Oak has added some baby celeriac, baby cavolo Nero, and red java spuds. Newfields has Kalette tops, sprout stalks, sprout stalks with tops and sprouts tops.
  

• Elsewhere, SKEA are back on the list with a variety of spuds including red Heidi, gatsby, arran victory and Colleen while Pollybell has some red cabbages and Roddys has some 10kg celeriac.
  

• Kindling are also back on the list this week with some limited amounts of salad for us, they’ve loose kilos and half kilos and some bagged too.
  

• On the UK fruit front, we’ve got some pinova apples from Carey and Stardance apples from Mole End.
  

• From Spain, Biovergel has some fennel, garlic and lemons. Campo has some large dragon fruits. While Gospa adds some cherimoya, clems with leaves and the first of the bitter Seville oranges for you marmalade lovers.

• Elsewhere in Europe, Vasco has some shiitake mushrooms and purple sweet spuds and Zann has added mixed chilli peppers, cucumbers, clems, limes and passion fruits.
  

• From Dynamis our top picks are the chilli hot mix, lemongrass, nasturtium root, apple patte de loup, clems with leaves and kumquats.
  

• And lastly to line your pantry’s, we’ve got lots of festive mixed jams and marmalades from Hembridge this week. Each box contains 3 different jar flavours.

• • Mixed Christmas Preserves – Christmas Pudding Marmalade, Plum & Cognac Jam and Autumn Chutney
    
• • Mixed Jam Box – Plum Jam, Raspberry Jam and Blackcurrant Jam
    
• • Mixed Boozy Box – Ale House Chutney, Plum & Brandy Jam and Whisky Marmalade
    
• • Mixed Marmalade Box – Seville Marmalade, Whisky Marmalade and Lemon & Lime Marmalade
    
• • Mixed Supper Box – Piccalilli, Salsa and Ale House Chutney

I hope your Christmas scheduling is all going to plan and if you’re in any doubt about our plans for the next few weeks, especially if you’re a new customer and haven’t worked with us at this time of year before then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Have a fab week everyone,

Sean, Cathryn, Mads, Ella, Alphin and the ON team x

It’s officially December and the run-up to Christmas is in full swing! 🎄

Snapped above is our very own Christmas Holly with her wreath from Trinity – she’s been in the festive spirit since early October, so we’ve got some catching up to do! We’ve had a fresh delivery of our mulled winter warmers from Luscombe, as you lot have been loving them. Plus, we’ve got plenty of parsnips and sprouts – stalks, tops and all – for all your roasting needs.

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