Image Credit: Lucie Jung
The Food Assembly and six producers from Glasgow are gathering to offer fresh and local food to their customers.
The Food Assembly is the British version of a French network of communities known as ‘La Ruche qui dit Oui!’ which offers fresh food from local farmers and was launched in the UK in July 2014.
The network is now spreading all across Glasgow to offer high quality food and support small local producers.
The Glasgow Food Assembly gathered for the first time on 8 February 2016 at the Drygate, the UK’s first experimental craft brewery, to deliver the orders that customers had made on the online shop a few before the event.
The Food Assembly in Drygate, by Lucie Jung
In order to shop with the Glasgow Food Assembly, the customers first need to create an account on their website. Then, they have to select the products they want and finally, pick them up on the day of the assembly.
The network is now preparing its fifth assembly and discussing about future ones in Glasgow.
Geraldine Pitt, Food Assembly’s host, started organizing the gatherings in the UK in November of last year. She said: “The whole initiative takes about 12 weeks: finding producers, organizing venues, growing members, etc.”
The popularity of ethical and local producers is growing steadily in Glasgow and the network is gaining new members.
The concept of the Food Assembly is widening and will from now on welcome not only food producers but any ethical local producers to take part in the process. One of the new participants is Carishea, a business that will be selling cosmetics for the network.
Geraldine Pitt, the Food Assembly’s Host in Glasgow
A lot of people from the city and beyond gathered on 8 February at Drygate in the desire to meet local farmers and food makers and enjoy fresh products grown within a radius of less than 150 miles from Glasgow.
Johanne Deffarges, a customer at the Food Assembly, said: “Back in France, I used to shop at the exact same thing and the food, the meat, the vegetables… Everything was so much better than in supermarkets. Obviously, when it opened here, I had to shop there.”
The Food Assembly is also a way to help small-scale producers to promote their business all around the city while reducing food waste thanks to the online process the customers are going through to order their products.
Thomson McKenzie, a participating producer of the Assemblies, stated: “We’ve always been promoting the business of good food. The Food Assembly is giving us the chance to actually widen out the scope of people we can hopefully reach. And in some ways also, to reduce waste.”
The Food Assembly will be taking place in the upcoming weeks in Drygate, usually on Mondays. Further information can be found on their website.
Music: www.bensound.com
Published in Maze mag: http://maze-mag.com/the-food-assembly-offers-a-new-way-to-shop-for-fresh-local-food-in-glasgow
