Where your Sealwood delivery comes from…
A big part of the Sealwood ethos is that customers know where the produce they buy comes from, along with the methods and practices involved in its production. We do our best to ensure the produce we sell fits our sourcing policy below as closely as possible.
Our sourcing priorities are:
- we try and source local produce first, from within about 30 miles (read more);
- if we can't source locally then where possible we look for organic, fair trade and or environmentally friendly products as applicable (read more);
- for a small number of items we source from outside what we define as local, where we cannot find the product more locally and/or we know the producer and believe their ethos fits ours (read more);
- during certain times of the year local produce may not be available for reasons of seasonality and we have to resort in some cases to more traditional wholesale sources (read more);
- in all cases we try and offer traceability, with information on the individual producers who have either grown, reared or otherwise produced the items which we range (read more);
- last but by no means least, at Sealwood we try and work with our producers in a sustainable way (read more).
Local first:
Our first priority is to source ‘local’ produce for customers. Local can mean lots of different things, but at Sealwood we mean within about 30 miles of our base in Willington. Many of our producers are located within this area, including some clusters in North West Leicestershire, as well as around Ashbourne and Melbourne in Derbyshire. This enables us each week to collect a whole range of fresh produce, including all fresh meat and vegetables, whilst keeping food miles as low as possible. As we add new producers within this area, our weekly collection run becomes more efficient, which also helps to reduce food miles. (back to top).
Organic, Fair Trade and Environmentally Friendly:
Sealwood is also about trying to offer as full a range as possible for a weekly grocery shop, complementing local fresh produce with other everyday items that cannot be found locally. In such cases we will usually try and source these items as either organic, or fair trade depending on the particular product and how reliable its quality is. We also range a number of environmentally friendly household items. Most of these products are sourced from Goodness Foods, in Daventry, who since 1976 have developed a health food wholesaling operation based on strong ethical and environmentally sustainable principles. For clarity, we have grouped the majority of these products into categories including our ‘Organic Store Cupboard’, ‘Fair Trade’, and ‘Environmentally Friendly’ (back to top).
Some exceptions to the rule:
There are a small number of producers who we either know through Farmers Markets or are aware of through our own research, who are a bit further away but we like their ethos and like to range their produce for our customers. These vary in distance up to about 60 miles away in the case of Yorkshire Crisps. They grow their own potatoes and turn them into delicious crisps in their unit about 10 minutes away from the field by tractor. With other such producers, where we can we meet part way or at a mutual delivery/collection location, again to minimise food miles (back to top).
Seasonalilty and all that:
During late-Winter to mid-Spring in England is a period affectionately known in vegetable growing circles as the ‘Hungry Gap’. This is when the range of available locally grown vegetables is quite limited. Last seasons crops are coming to an end and ground is being prepared and planted with the current years plants. For this short time we have to look to traditional wholesale sources until the range of local vegetables available starts to increase. Where possible and subject to quality this will still be UK grown produce. In order to maintain a good range of fresh vegetables we do offer a limited range of imported produce, usually from Europe to avoid air-freighting. The majority of any such produce is sourced via a local wholesaler, Daybreak Services, and all of the products we list from them identify whether they are English, or if otherwise their normal country of origin. (back to top).
Traceability:
We believe it is important that our customers are able to identify the producers or at least the distributor of each and every product that they buy. We also believe that to allow cutomers to make informed decisions, it is right to offer them information on the methods and values employed by individual producers. We have a 'Producers' page, listing all of the producers we currently range products from. In additon there is a link from each and every product to the individual producer or group of producers responsible for it. (back to top)
Sustainable Working:
Unlike supplying supermarkets, the producers who supply us set their own prices and terms of payment. We do not put pressure on them to reduce their prices. Many are only small operations and are often very reluctant to put their prices up. When they do it is because they have to. In the relatioinships we have built with our producer network we have found their pricing to be quite fair for the quality of produce they offer and the work that goes into producing it.(back to top)
