Off The Shelf #1: Planting The Seed

Hello! I’m Liam, also known to some of you as the Slothy Chef.

First things first: I think it's time to reveal the tale behind my 'Slothy' alias. Some have asked if it’s to do with the slow-cooked style of barbecue I’ve been peddling. Others muse that it must have something to do with the environment (sloths… surely the original tree huggers?)

Sorry. Nothing quite as clever or worthy as that. The truth is it’s because ever since I was at school I’ve been told I bear a striking similarity to the furry fiends. 

The chef bit? If you've ever been over to my place or come to one of my barbecue pop-ups - or if you were one of the teachers I learnt from at Leith's during the cooking course that got me out of the house during lockdown no.3 - hopefully you'll agree I bear a striking similarity to one of those, too.

So what's Off The Shelf - a newsletter about sustainability and food - got to do with the Sloth?

When I launched my first barbecue pop-up last Summer, I knew I was only going to feel really good about doing it if everything we did was sustainable. Meat (let’s face it, the main draw of a barbecue stall) gets a bad press when it comes to its environmental footprint, and that’s understandable. There are some horrendously cruel practices going on out there, and certain farming methods can have a detrimental impact on our planet.

But I don’t think that means we shouldn’t eat meat at all. It’s delicious and nutritious. We’re omnivores, and I don’t think meat-eating, done responsibly, is at odds with a healthy, functioning eco-system. So when we debuted at Woodoaks Farm last year, it was important to us that any meat we sourced, cooked and served would come from an animal that was responsibly reared, humanely killed and sustainably processed.

So off I went, naively, in search of a gold-plated solution. “Simple” I thought. “I’ll just Google all the local farms and butchers and see who’s got some contented, organically reared cows and pigs, make sure I know everywhere they went after leaving the farm, and then all the meat I cook can be traced back to the idyllic Hertfordshire field where the animal roamed."

Turns out, it’s not that simple. “Farm to fork” is a beautiful concept, but as a small business, I found it challenging to execute in practice. There weren’t many organic farms around, for a start, and I couldn’t find a butcher who could supply a large quantity of meat that I considered “local”. In the end, for my first few events, I went with a catering butcher based in Bristol who was listed as an approved supplier on the Soil Association’s website, with their organic standards certification. This place processes meat reared all over the country, but couldn’t be specific about where each joint had come from. With the Soil Association’s stamp, though, I could be confident that animal welfare was a priority, and farming standards were high. I just couldn’t yet tell the story I’d set out to tell.

Same with vegetables. Sure, there are some great distributors out there which can provide information on the British producers they source from, but it’s not ubiquitous. The UK only produces 54% of its total vegetable supply, importing the rest. 84% of its fruit comes from abroad.

This experience got me thinking: when so many people seem to be keen to promote sustainability, why hasn’t it been easy to land straight onto a true farm to fork operating model? What’s wrong with the food supply system? But then: is anything even wrong with it? Am I being naive? Does everything we eat really need to come from the farm down the road to be considered sustainable? Is sustainable food all about tracing supply chains? What else should I be considering?

The answers to the above? I don’t know. And there are a hundred other questions to ask. So I’m going Off The Shelf to dig a little deeper. And also to mix metaphors along the way.

Join me every week as I explore what sustainable food is all about, and we can work through some of the answers together. I’m not here to preach. Ultimately, my aim is to get us all thinking and by doing that, we’ll get better informed. Let me know what you think in the comments below. If I can start a conversation with even a few of you, I’ll be a pretty happy sloth.

And a better chef.

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WHAT TO EXPECT FROM OFF THE SHELF

🦥 This will land in your inbox every Saturday.

🍃 It won’t be War and Peace.

🦥 I’ll ask a key question each week and start to try and answer it.

🍃Sometimes I won’t get to a conclusion and I’ll pick it up another week.

🦥 I’ll round up some interesting nibbles for thought.

🍃 I’ll put the spotlight on a sustainable food enterprise.

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HOW CAN WE STAY IN TOUCH?

📸I’m on Instagram where I chronicle my cooking @slothychef

👤Same deal for Facebook Slothy Chef

🐦I’m starting out on Twitter - and I need some followers! @slothychef

📧 Drop me a note at info@slothychef.co.uk

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GROWING OUR COMMUNITY

🪴 I’ve got big ideas about building a community around this subject. I hope you can get involved. It would mean so much to me if you could share across your networks using the button below.

❤️ It also helps massively if you could give me a sign that you like this!

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UNTIL NEXT SATURDAY…. SLOTHY OUT

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