Written by Graeme Brown from the Single Step team
After the relative calm of the summer holidays, Single Step Co-op will be getting busier, both with customers returning refreshed from their holidays and a new cohort of students. Excitingly, our fruit and veg suppliers will be at the peak of their productivity and the range of produce available will be at its best.
Packing fruit and vegetable boxes for home delivery is a delight at present, the only difficulty being deciding what to leave out. Highlights at the moment include carrots with long luscious, leafy tops, glossy green cabbages and fabulous fresh greens from our local veg suppliers.
As part of our effort to reduce food miles we source as much from local producers for our boxes as possible. For instance, Growing with Grace in Clapham ensures a steady supply of kale, chard and Spinach. Growing Well, just up the road in Kendal, supply their share of green leaves, and at various times have sugarsnap peas, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and courgettes. Our main supplier of fruit and veg is Organic North, a Manchester based Co-operative. They source organic produce from the UK and from further afield, for example oranges and avocados. As a co-operative, they share a similar outlook to us and their ordering system allows us to find the nearest possible suppliers of items we can’t get from local farms.
Eating seasonally is a key part of eating sustainably, and produce tastes best when it’s in season. The flavour really is worth the wait. You may have been enjoying the Jersey Royal potatoes from Single Step, at their best in the summer months or maybe the Isle of Wight cherry tomatoes. We’re already looking forward to that new year treat, juicy blood oranges from Spain, do check those out if you’ve never tried them!
Incidentally, if you don’t fancy carrying your shopping home, we deliver fruit and veg boxes twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays. We’ll also drop off your shopping on those days for a small fee! Deliveries are to LA1 postcodes only.
We’re celebrating 50 years of trading in Lancaster this year, which is a fantastic milestone to achieve. Some of our regular customers have been coming to the shop for decades. And yet, we still have people coming to the shop who have lived in Lancaster for years and weren’t aware of our existence, situated as we are at the end of an alley. So if you find yourself at the top end of Penny Street, do drop in and say hi – we’re just at the end of the alley between Ado’s and Pizza Aquila.
You can meet the Single Step team at Lancaster’s Harvest Market on 11 September.
Lancaster’s Seasonal Markets are coordinated by the Closing Loops project as part of the FoodFutures network.
