On Tuesday 28th February the Procurement for Good consortium visited the Cambridge Food Hub, the wholesale arm of Cambridge Organic.

On Tuesday 28^th February the Procurement for Good consortium visited Cambridge Food Hub (the wholesale arm of Cambridge Organic)to learn more about their work and to meet the growers who produce some of the organic fruit and vegetables available at the Cambridge Food Hub.

The day began with a discussion at Cambridge Organic FoodCompany’s HQ at Haslingfield, a small village two miles from the Cambridge city boundary. Colleagues from the consortium were briefed by Duncan Catchpole, Alice Guillaume and Dean Jenkins from Cambridge Organic about the organic fruit and vegetable business they run, which is made up principally by two parts:wholesale and a veg box scheme.

Duncan, founder of Cambridge Organic, explained how the organization had grown since 1998, and was now delivering up to 1,000 vegetable boxes to residents in and around Cambridge each week.

Duncan explained how his team of around twenty people pack and deliver organic vegetables in two types of box – a premium box where the customer has more influence over the contents of the box, and a cheaper box that is filled with a standard offering. This flexible approach, and attention to different customer needs, he added had the positive effect of ensuring minimal waste each week.

Duncan talked to the group about the importance of relationship to the success of the box scheme. The same individuals packed the boxes and then delivered them in the van to the customer. This, he said, allowed the individual to pack and deliver the vegetables and to keep ongoing personal relationship with each of the veg box clients.

The wholesale marketing channel is currently focusing on local shops as well as restaurants and cafés. The hope is that this stream can be expanded to supply the public sector such as local schools and a local children’s hospital that is currently being built.

We continued to explore what we mean by ‘local’ as a group in our conversation. For Cambridge Organic it means Cambridgeshire and the surrounding counties. Although, as the group conceded, even the most well-intentioned local sourcing suffers in the hungry gap around this time.

The themes of ‘local’ and ‘relationship’ continued as we jumped into an assortment of cars and travelled to visit some of the growers that supply fruit and vegetables to Cambridge Organic.

First on our visit was tea and cake with Adrienne and Tom at Sweetpea Market Garden, an initiative being developed with agroecological principles in mind at Manor Farm in Caxton. The discussion centred around the enormous amount of water needed to sustain the farm, the challenges of growing organically alongside nature, and the real difference things like refrigeration make to the lives and livelihood of smaller scale organic farmers.

Following a brief pitstop for lunch at the Red Lion Pub we then visited The Prospects Trust, a farm that refers to growing people as well as produce. After a further cup of tea(important to keep the momentum of the research trip) we heard about the vision of the site to approach growing food holistically, and its ongoing mission to provide a place of education and fun.  After a brief tour of the yard and the polytunnels we explored the newly planted nature reserve contained in the bottom 18 acres of the farm.

 We rounded off the day with a visit to Waterland Organics, a CSA with a box scheme that had been running for over thirty years. The site, run by Paul and Doreen, is a treasure trove of organic gardening insight. During our visit to Waterland we continued our discussions around the challenges of organic growing (Badgers and Brian May this time), the importance of regulatory and political support for organic growers, as well as  conversations about the complexities of importing hard-to -find tools across the Atlantic.  

Thanks to all the Growers and the Cambridge Food Hub for their hospitality. We look forward to our next visit to the hub to continue our discussions about how the consortium can support growers to develop their relationships with procurers across the public sector.  

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