On the 23rd September I received a letter from Sainsbury’s in response to the letter I had written them asking about “local” fruit and veg.
In answer to my question of “does local fruit stay locally to be packed”, the answer is pretty much yes. And to quote “The majority of our UK farms also quality inspect, pack and label products in pack houses located on their farms or close to their fields. Smome smaller gorwers who do not have their own pack houses send their fruit to an approved neighbouring facility for labelling and dispatch.”
So pretty good. “Some of our suppliers are part of our direct to stores scheme. This is where they deliver direct from their own farms or pack houses to their local designated stores on the same day.”
Other farmers who are not part of this scheme use the Sainsbury’s distribution system. The fruit is taken to a regional depot, collated and then sent out to stores locally, with produce generally arriving the day after it has been harvested.
Sainsbury’s finished by saying that they do their best ” to ensure the distance our products travel is as little as possible.”
It appears that Sainsbury’s are genuinely trying to reduce food miles where possible, which is great. Still waiting to hear back from Tesco.