Look to the skies

Whilst most of the world has been cruising towards a climate emergency, we've known for a long time that the way food is grown, sourced, made and delivered has a huge impact on the planet. And oh lordy, how we love this blue/green sphere. It's why we're here.

Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough agree that air freighting food costs the earth. Sending things by plane uses up to 100 times the amount of carbon emissions than using boats.

Did you know that blueberry imports in the summer to the UK from the Ukraine has increased by 200% in the last couple of years? And guess how they get here? Yep, by plane. And guess where you can grow blueberries in the summer? Dorset.

Here at Abel & Cole we’ve never airfreighted a thing. Our zero air miles policy is just one of the things we've done to minimise our carbon footprint. (And we deliver to you once a week, not because we’re lazy but because our van routes are planned with ultra efficiency and the planet in mind too.)

The eagle eyed among you will see things like bananas and blueberries (and a few other things) in our shop a lot of the year.

Our British fields are wonderful and we love them, but mango groves they are not. To keep things interesting we extend the British seasons by bringing things across the land and sea, mostly from Spain but other countries too. If anything comes from further afield, it’s always by ship, never by air.

If you’re really keen on British only veg, we have a box for that. Our All British Organic Veg Box has set contents and is the purists pick. 

And we love that we are lucky enough to work with some brilliant farmers like James Foskett  who’s aims are of a certain altitude; lofty. He grows organic sweet potatoes in Suffolk so we don’t have to import them from overseas (saving tonnes of carbon). 

At the apple core of Abel & Cole there's always been a hunger to design a better way (a greenprint, if you will) to help you find food in the most considerate and caring way.

So when you think about the small changes you can make to help with climate crisis, look to the sky and keep your food on the ground.