Paul Millard of the CLA writes . . .

I HAVE just returned from the CLA Game Fair – that three-day celebration of everything about the British countryside.

It’s the biggest event of its kind anywhere and it touches everything to do with rural life.

The key messages from the CLA’s food chain initiative at the Game Fair were about the importance of using fresh, local produce, about clearer and more accurate labelling of food products and about making sure our local and central governments understand the value of their purchasing power to the home market.

Currently only around two per cent of food currently purchased by the public sector is produced locally. While two-thirds of organisations aim to buy British or local produce the reality is very different.

Clearly any purchasing policy within the public sector has to be set against strict and understandable criteria such as providing value for money. Although the perception towards local food is shifting, cost and value for money remains a major concern.

But rules which prevent local producers even tendering to supply the public sector – organisations such as county councils, hospital authorities and military bases – should be re-examined and purchasing policies amended to enable individual public sector managers to look at sourcing food from local suppliers who can meet the agreed criteria.

We had the top three Defra ministers visit this year’s Game Fair and all of them were impressed by the CLA’s commitment to local food. The Government has promised to revisit this and to ensure that the £2billion spent by Government departments on food was spent on food which at least met British standards.

That still isn’t a commitment to even buying British but I suppose it’s a step forward – but the Government still needs to translate good intentions into actions by actually buying locally produced food.

I was surprised to hear from one of the award winning chefs demonstrating at the Game Fair that consumers were now putting more emphasis on local and seasonal than on organic.