What worries me is that going the extra mile (often several miles) for what is often only a marginal imries.
Soon after I started, I remember Ruthie and Rosie from the River Café, during a Q & A at an early Ways with Words Literary Festival, asking slightly pointedly whether we could buy EVOO in Devon. So there have been improvements (you don’t have to go to the chemist to buy olive oil), but at the end of the day, we all need good, healthy food to live well and it’s in everyone’s best interests if it’s affordable to as many people as possible.
There used to be a word, almost a doctrine: utilitarianism. Since 1979 and Margaret Thatcher, it seems to have slipped from view. I don’t think Thatcher was opposed to widening access (think ‘right to buy’ etc.), but perhaps the longer-term consequences weren’t fully anticipated, and we’ve ended up in a place where aspiration has too often translated into ever higher prices and ever finer distinctions.
It’s a shame because, despite its drawbacks, it still feels like a worthwhile guiding principle. I’m not saying that the wealthiest five percent don’t matter – just that they don’t matter more than the other ninety five percent. Finding ways of justifying the price of the ridiculously expensive ain’t worth a hill of beans in this crazy world provement to what are already top-end products can, at times, feel a bit removed from everyday reality.
It’s not just dairy farmers and bean growers. Chocolate makers, olive growers, coffee roasters and cider makers are all singing from the same ‘single origin’ hymn sheet as a way of differentiating their product and often, but not always, justifying higher prices.
The challenge for the non-production line, small scale food sector should be how to increase their market share by making their wares more accessible, rather than what can sometimes feel like a quest to ‘never knowingly undersell’.