Introducing the Food Assembly

At our recent Bike and Food Festival we invited along a local food project called Food Assembly.

For those of you who couldn’t come along on the day we did a short interview with the organiser so he could tell you more about the project and how it can support our community in committing to buying more locally produced and seasonal food.

Hi, my name is Stuart, I’m from Dalkeith and I’m setting up something called a Food Assembly.

Food Assembly is about putting communities back in touch with their food producers, something we have lost in the last couple of generations.  It’s important to me that what I feed myself and children is top quality, not prepared some unknown place hundred if not thousands of miles away.  Its great to hear from farmers how your food is actually prepared, but being busy, can make it difficult to track down every local producer, so when a friend of mine, who is a bee-keeper, told me about Food Assembly it was too good an opportunity to miss out on. So I decided to organise one right here in Midlothian.

What is Food Assembly?
Food assembly is like an on-line farmers market. You can buy at anytime day or night and pick up is once a week, in the Justin Lees

How does that help me?
Do you worry about what goes on when food is prepared hundreds of miles away and you don’t have access to see what is done before you buy? FA gives you the chance to speak to the people who actually grow it, prepare it and make it. This gives you confidence that what you feed yourself and your family is good wholesome food, as nature intended it to be.

Why is it good for the local community?
All of the food comes from within 150 miles. In the case of Eskbank FA, we have producers from Pathhead, Carrington, Haddington and a few other places in between. This means that the money you pay goes straight to the producer and stays local. So everybody benefits.

But isn’t local and organic food more expensive?
Not necessarily. There is no middle man involved and no trucking the food around in giant articulated lorries.  That all costs money – and you pay for it. This way the producers set a fair price and everyone benefits.

So, how hard is it?
Really Easy.  Pop onto the website and register, takes 2 minutes, and have a look at the wonderful locally produced food.  You can order as much or as little as you like as often as you like.  Some people only order for special occasions like Christmas, to get special items that you don’t see in the shops.

If you do sign up, you’ll get notification for our opening night which will include a taster section, so come along.