with the arrival of summer sunshine, we are eating more salads and i’m thrilled that the british tomato is finally season is upon us. although tomatoes are available throughout the year, it is only in recent weeks that local arieties have ripened and i’ve been reminded that there is no comparison between the flavourless tomatoes available during winter and the sweet, tangy and delicious british varieties.

although i am growing tomato plants, they have only just started flowering and there is no sign of any tomatoes so i still have to buy them. the tomatoes provided by food4london are grown by brian and lorraine watts, who run the leonard ironside nursery at farthing common, lyminge, which i visited last month.  

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over recent weeks i have been spending some time with jonathan parker. when i first met jonathan he had just set up foodari, a foodie social networking and recipe swap website. since then his business has significantly developed to link food producers more closely with consumers. the initial focus is kent and london and, if you live in either of these areas and are interested in sourcing locally produced food at good value prices you should visit his food4kent or food4london websites.

jonathan believes that, by shortening the supply chain, he can provide high quality local seasonal food at prices which are comparable with the supermarkets. this is really interesting for me as, since we moved last autumn, i have struggled to find good value fish, meat, fruit and vegetables from local shops or markets. i’ve also had the incredibly frustrating experience of buying fruit, at what was labelled a farmers market, only to find that the flat peaches i bought had sainsbury’s stickers on them!

so, having already started buying some of my weekly shop via abel & cole, i am now using food4london in an attempt to support the kentish suppliers that jonathan works with. the quality seems really good (these same producers supply a lot of london’s restaurants via a linked business) and i like the fact that jonathan is committed to providing local products which are in season.

i’ve also been lucky enough to be able to spend some time in kent visiting some of these suppliers and learning more about their businesses. as a result i’ll be writing regularly in the coming months about what i learn, starting tomorrow with the serious business of growing tomatoes!