Some more totting up

"The crazy thing is, I bet if they put those burgers back on the shelves and priced them at 10p there would be some people who would buy them."

David and Sylvia know what's in their meat

That's David Prince's take on the horse meat scandal and the sad thing is, I suspect he's right. Some people have such a poor attitude towards food that they really wouldn't care where their meat came from as long as it was cheap.

Neil and I have just returned from a trip to Highfield House Farm Shop near Chesterfield, and we got onto the subject  after having a laugh at the new sign farmers Sylvia and David have erected on their counter, which says "No horse meat here! Just 100% pure beef from your trusted local butcher."

It pretty much echos what I said on this blog when the scandal first broke about finding a good butcher if you really want to know what animals you are eating and in what conditions they were raised.

But shoppers have short memories and I reckon 'horse meat-gate' will blow over pretty quickly. Indeed, I've just driven past the huge Tesco Extra in Chesterfield and the vehicles were queuing to get into the car park. I visited the supermarket's website two days ago to compare the prices with those of our veggie box and a notice flashed up explaining what the firm is doing in response to the horse meat findings. But I've just logged on again to take a closer look and I can't find it, so it appears it's already been taken down.

Before starting the challenge to avoid the supermarkets just over a month ago, Neil and I would have been in that traffic queue heading for Tesco. But this morning we went up to Highfield House Farm Shop instead. 

Today's purchases from Highfield House Farm Shop

I know I've been waxing lyrical about how liberating it is NOT to shop on a Sunday, but we've had a really busy week, we've been out of butter and bread for four days now, so it was a case of needs-must this morning, and luckily the farm shop is one of the few places we've found addressing the convenience issue by opening seven days a week.

Unfortunately David and Sylvia's shop IS more expensive than the supermarkets. We're content to be getting great quality food from local producers and supporting local businesses, but we also realise that in order to do this we need to shop with a bit more care, so we wrote out this week's meal plan before heading to Highfield House. Our shop came to £30.50, but we're happy that alongside our £12 veg box delivered on Wednesday's that should feed us for the week.

I've listed our complete shop below, and how a comparable shop if we'd been to Tesco would have measured up. The Tesco shop came to £22.77 - with the biggest differences in price being in sausages and bread. This was £7.73 cheaper than Highfield House, but if you see yesterday's blog we saved around that total with our vegetable box delivery - so this week we've about broken even with our local shopping compared to if we'd been shopping at Tesco.


FROM HIGHFIELD HOUSE:

• 258g rib-eye steak from a Derbyshire farm - £7.89
• Six Old English sausages from free-range pigs 585g - £5.10 (note - Neil says these are so large and meaty he will probably eat two at a time, rather than his usual three so they should go further)
• Six white bread rolls - £1.69 (I'm afraid Tesco does pee all over these - we're used to buying a dozen for £1 at the supermarket)
• Six free range eggs - £2 (Not-Roger is cheaper at £1.25 but we missed him this week)
• 255g mature white cheddar - £2.01
• 165g lemon crumble Wensleydale cheese - £1.93
• 230g honey roast ham - £4.66
• 250ml Longley Farm Jersey double cream - £1.35
• 1 litre Woodthorpe Grange (Derbyshire) whole milk - £1
• 250g Carron Lodge unsalted butter - £1.49
• one white cabbage - 89p
• one garlic bulb - 49p

SIMILAR SHOP AT TESCO:

• 390g Tesco Finest rib-eye steak - £7.80 
• Six Tesco free range sausages 350g - £1.39
• Kingsmill six soft white rolls - £1 (or two packs for £1.50)
• Tesco free range eggs - £1.49
• 250g Tesco British mature cheddar -£1.88
• 175g Tesco Finest Wensleydale with cranberry and blueberry cheese - £2
• 125g Tesco honey roast ham - £2
• 300ml Tesco fresh double cream - £1.10
• 1 litre Tesco whole milk - £1
• 250g Tesco unsalted English butter - £1.49
• Tesco white cabbage - £1.12
• one garlic bulb - 50p