Posts Tagged ‘local food’

Loaf Needs YOU!

November 5th, 2009

cabbageLoaf has recently got through to the second stage of an application to the National Lottery Local Food Grants scheme, for our application to fund a local food campaign in Birmingham. This is great news, but we haven’t got the cash yet, there’s a lot of work to do before that happens.

My hope is that the little funding that we’ve applied for will kickstart a social movement around local food in Birmingham. I’m convinced there is people out there who care about food, and want to do something about it. If that’s you then I’d love you to be more involved – I want to get together a campaign group who will bring drive, enthusiasm, and action to help kickstart this campaign. If you want to get involved please send me an email to tom@loafonline.co.uk. I envisage meeting up once every month or two to share ideas, plan stuff, and of course, eat and drink local refreshments! When there’s a few people involved I will set a meeting date for end of November / beginning of December. If you don’t want to come to a meeting but want to support the campaign in another way, get in touch too!

Jewellery Quarter Farmers Market – 19th September, 9-3

September 17th, 2009

24 carrots?

24 carrots?

If you’re around in Birmingham this weekend, be sure to take a detour and spend some of your hard earned cash with the great local producers at the Jewellery Quarter Farmers Market – 24 Carrots. It’s only the second market since starting out and the site is already up to capacity. It coincides with British Food Fortnight,  occurring during the Harvest Festival. They say on their website:

24Carrots is adopting British Food Fortnight as it’s theme for the second market! There will be a guest appearance by local resident OJ (Kerrang & TV) from 10am and live acoustic sets from 12-3pm from a number great local artists!

Definitely pay a visit to Loaf favourites Beez Neez Honey (lime flower is very good), Kiss Me Cupcakes, and The Tunnel Brewery. And whilst you’re there, pop by the community stall and say hi from Loaf, as sadly we can’t make it until October 17th. But there is a free cupcake awaiting us, so it’ll be worth the wait!

Local Food Labelling – what you thought

September 10th, 2009

Thanks to everyone who voted in the local food labelling survey over the last few weeks. 90% (28/31) of you thought that it would be either quite or very useful to have a labelling scheme for food in independent shops and restaurants that indicated when it was locally produced. Loaf has put in an application to the Lottery’s Local Food Grants scheme to get such a scheme off the ground. It’s gonna take about 6 weeks until we here anything, but we’ll keep you posted with all the details if we’re successful.

Taste of Birmingham 9-12 July 2009

July 9th, 2009

taste birminghamTaste of Birmingham food festival starts tonight in Canon Hill Park, and runs until Sunday. It’s supposed to be a celebration of Birmingham and the region’s food culture, with 17 local restaurants taking part, and a host of food producers from the region exhibiting. Loaf will be there for the opening session tonight, and is equally hopeful and sceptical about what awaits. We’ll be on the hunt for local ingredients among other bits – a bit of research for the soon to be launched local food directory!

In previous years the cost has been somewhat prohibitive, but this year it’s much more reasonable (£10 advanced tickets), and is being launched by local agency Marketing Birmingham, so hopefully will be more in-tune with the local scene, and we’ll have less of the helicopter-travelling slebchef nonsense.

Expect a full review in the next couple of days, and some twitter action from the fest tonight – another reason to follow @loafonline on twitter! If anyone else will be twittering from the event tonight, leave you’re twitter name in the comments below.