On Saturday the 31^st of July 2010 from 10am-1pm, True Food of 61 Grove Road, Emmer Green, Reading, took up the call from the Real Bread Campaign to celebrate Local Loaves for Lammas.

In bringing the ancient harvest festival of Lammas right up to date, True Food joined Real Bread bakeries, traditional mills, farmers’ markets other local loaf lovers all around Britain. To mark the occasion, True Food got all floured up for the day, starting with a toast breakfast at 10:15am followed by a morning of bread demos a baking workshop (with bread to take home!) and finishing with a fun competition.

The event was hosted by Reading’s own Freestyle World Porridge Making Champion and local food advocate Anna Louise Batchelor. Anna Louise said “Bread is close to my heart. It’s a staple British food and something we in Reading eat everyday. Local Loaves for Lammas is a great opportunity to find out about real bread made by local bakeries, you know the real stuff with a crust! The event was great fun, a chance to try making your own bread and to find out more about Reading’s community owned co-op True Food”.

Let's hope the weather agrees! During July and August we are offering a jar of Real Organic Barbecue Sauce for half-price and a free pack of bamboo skewers when you buy any two packs of  our Laverstoke Park barbeque bonanza meat, vegetarian grilling sausage or tofu-weiners.  

You can also stock up on sustainable charcoal, fairtrade disposable barbeques, paper plates, organic ketchup, local salad ...

Read more for more information and a great barbecue recipe.

June 19th to 3rd July is Co-operatives Fortnight. In celebration of their members and volunteers during this period, True Food is displaying a specially commissioned poster at the shop and markets. The poster was funded by a generous grant from Co-operatives South East. After the AGM in May we took photographs of members in the RISC roof garden. We than asked them to complete the sentence "I am involved with True Food because ...". The final poster shows eighteen individual photos with their quote printed underneath. Reasons for being involved range from “… it offers excellent value for money, organic & fair-trade products and involvement with local business.” to “…if you want something doing properly, you can’t beat doing it yourself.”

MERL (Museum of Englsh Rural Life) are showing a film about one of our local suppliers, Tolhurst Organic Produce. The film runs during the museum's opening hours and shows a year in the life of this organic, stockfree farm.

If you haven't been to MERL it is well worth a visit. On Redlands Road, near the Royal Berks hospital it is full of old photos and quirky artifacts but also makes links to food and farming in the present. The Tolhurst film runs until the 16th July so you can find out about the farm and then come to True Food to taste the produce.

We have started taking regular orders for meat from Laverstoke Park Farm, a biodynamic/organic farm near Basingstoke (27 miles from the True Food Warehouse). As well as the usual selection of lamb, beef, pork and whole chickens Laverstoke Park have Water buffalo. You can buy buffalo sausages, burgers and mince as well as milk and delicious mozzarella cheese.