From farm shoppers to fans of Fairtrade, find out which eco foodie tribe you fall into with our handy spotter’s guide
The Organic Shopper
Amelia’s swapped the Range Rover for a Prius, and finds it much easier to reverse into those tiny spaces in front of the Organic Shop, even if there’s just no room in the back for her collection of hemp bags for life. Still she knows she’s helping the environment, and can guarantee the collection of nubbly vegetables she buys each week are completely pesticide-free – even if they do take an age to peel. Her teenage boys are taking longer to convince, and wish that she would just buy them Coco Pops instead of the usual Organic Moonshine GM-free Flakes that dissolve into mush in their cereal bowl…
Seen at: the Organic Shop, Stopford Road and Leaders in town.
The Fairtrade Stalwarts
The Carlton-Smythes are fanatics about Fairtrade produce, and hardly buy anything that doesn’t carry the little green Fairtrade logo. They’re terribly ethical, and often lecture their children over supper (sustainably-sourced fish and chips of course) about the evils of the commercial giants and the poor slave cocoa bean pickers in Africa), so much so that 3-year old Charlie sobs if his nursery doesn’t serve Fairtrade chocolate biscuits for snack. Sophie tries to stick to the Fairtrade section in the supermarket, and always stocks up on Fairtrade brands like her morning coffee, but secretly thinks it doesn’t taste as good as her favourite Douwe Egberts.
Spotted at: the Co-op
The Farm Shopper
Amy and Dave are proud to be supporting their island by buying local produce, and as Easties, it makes sense for them to swing into Holme-Grown on their way home from work. They try to make their meals as locally-sourced as possible, a fresh crab or two from Captain Lobster, salad leaves from Fungi Delecti, fresh tomatoes from the farmer down the road, a selection of cheeses from Classic Herds and some chutney from La Mare vineyards. Or at least that’s what they do in the summer. In the seemingly-endless ‘cauliflower and cabbage’ months of the winter, their principles slip a bit, and they gorge on juicy kiwi fruit, bananas and tangerines and try not to think of the food miles…
Spotted at: Rondells, Holme-Grown
The Homegrower
Andy dug up the flowerbeds when GST came in, and planted tomatoes, lettuces and aubergines. After a bumper crop the first year, he’s never looked back and now the back garden is a maze of glass cloches, raspberry canes, mini polytunnels and rhubarb forcers. His longsuffering wife has to find ways of cooking all the different vegetables he gets obsessed with growing – the chillies being a particularly painful period. She’s put up with most things, but the hydroponic herb garden she’s just discovered behind her best sheets in the airing cupboard might be the last straw…
Spotted at: his allotment and the Trinity vegetable show, showing off his giant marrow
The Eager Composter
Ian and Pam at number 24 thought there was something wrong with their drains for weeks, until they noticed the rotting smell was coming from the new wooden contraption next door. ‘It’s a composter!’ announced their neighbour Brian cheerfully when they called round to investigate. ‘Everything goes in it – potato peelings, plate scrapings, household waste…’. Living downwind, Ian and Pam could tell. Perhaps it’s a good thing they don’t know about Brian’s plans to build an enormous wormery… right next door to their fence.
Spotted at: roadside stalls, trying to sell his bags of pungent home-made compost
The Amateur Chicken Keeper
Perhaps a garden flat in St Helier wasn’t the best place to keep chickens thinks Emma as she tries to avoid doing serious damage to her fingers with the staple gun she’s using to build her Buff Orpingtons a chicken run. Egberta and Eglantine are the two new additions to the family, who’ll keep them in freshly-laid eggs, and a tikka masala or two when they get too long in the, er, beak. It’ll be a great learning experience for the kids, she thinks to herself, as she dusts off the brand new Egg-lu that her chickens will call home. Shame she hasn’t noticed the neighbours’ ginger tom looking hungrily at her new purchases over the garden fence.
Spotted at: the library, renewing her copy of ‘How to keep your Hens Happy’
