I do try and avoid the supermarket ( for lots of reasons I won't go in to here as I've covered it before) as much as possible and I've detailed over the years on this blog just how I go about doing this.
As it stands we get -
Milk and juice from a local milkman
Eggs from our own hens
Honey from our bees
Veggies and some fruit from the allotment
Local farm shop for fresh fruit and veg, meat and cheese
We make wine and beer, jams, cake and biscuits. We eat a diet that is for the most part unprocessed so have no need for ready meals.
We buy the staples in bulk from Infinity foods so things like toilet rolls, tea, coffee, pasta and rice which we store in the garage.
I should point out that there are no shops in this village and the nearest town and therefore supermarket is 20mins drive away.
But -
We've started over the last few months having veggie boxes from Abel and Cole. This helps to even out the peaks and troughs of allotment growing especially this year when time and the weather meant I don't think we got the harvests we would normally expect. This has been a huge success and it means we get to try out new veggies that perhaps a whole row of up the plot would have been a waste - what if no one liked it!.
More recently Abel and Cole have introduced an excellent range of basic staples like pasta and cereals which has made me question bulk food shopping. I've just spent the morning squaring up the garage; filling up the kitchen jars and containers and thinking about this. I'm going to try ordering things as we need them through Abel and Cole and see how we get on. The space in the garage would be handy and we are permanently trying to outwit mice ( everything in there is in secure boxes or cupboards but even so..) but whether I can quite get use to not having a back up pantry to call on I'm not sure. I can see perhaps the odd bulk order being placed as I like having the basics to knock up a quick meal but we'll see.
As I said previously I have to grab the odd thing from the supermarket ( cat food, crisps, and the odd kids favourite like fish fingers) but I certainly don't need to do the weekly 'big shop'. For all the other reasons to avoid the supermarket for me the time saved is the biggest reason to think outside the superstore


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