Sutton Farm’s VegBox scheme
FareShares tends to sell out of fresh vegetables pretty quickly most weeks. Leave your shopping until Friday and you may well be disappointed! Taking advance orders would too much hassle, but you could be sure of getting your fresh veg from FareShares every week if we were to become a pick-up point for Sutton Farm’s VegBoxes.
Sutton Community Farm is a not-for-profit social enterprise growing fresh vegetables using organic principles that offers a range of boxes, or bags, of seasonally fresh vegetables each week. One orders online in advance for an organic produce delivery the following week and collects from a designated pick-up point.
If you are interested in collecting Sutton Foods VegBoxes from Fareshares on Fridays or Saturdays, please let us know by e-mail or in person when you come to shop. If you want to try their service, Jamyang, the Buddhist centre in Renfrew Road, which is close by, across Kennington Park Road, already acts as a pick-up point and they also have a wonderful courtyard café, if you haven’t tried it.
Palm Oil in Kingfisher Toothpaste?
A FareShares shopper pointed out that it said on the box that Kingfisher toothpaste contains palm oil, which is vegan but its production does affect animals. Kingfisher dropped off PETA’s list of non animal tested brands, possibly because of the orangutans in Sumatra that are endangered by rainforest being cleared to grow palm.
Kingfisher has in the past contained sodium lauroyl sarcosinate (SLS) derived from palm oil. The company ‘have written assurances that the Sumatran palm oil that we use comes from sustainable managed estates. The growers are working closely with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on a Palm Roundtable initiative and are founder members of this organising committee.’
SLS is a ‘dispersant’ commonly used in toothpaste to make it foam, but may also cause mouth cancer! Consequently, since Autumn 2012, Kingfisher toothpastes have been made to an SLS-free formula.
However, it takes a while for stock to work its way through wholesalers and there are still SLS tubes in the supply system. The boxes and tubes clearly state which type they are in the list of ingredients, so do check ingredients on the box before you buy if this is important to you.
#HOWDEWEDOIT: Non-Dairy Milk
FareShares is almost certainly the cheapest place to buy organic soya milk, at £1.05 per litre of Sojade which has become so popular that now we also stock six packs (£6.30) to last you all week.
Among the alternative milks, the most popular must be Hazelnut Almond flavour Rice Dream. ‘Praliné’ usually refers to nuts that have been caramelised, but despite the deployment of this term on its packaging, the nutty rice milk contains no added sugars, yet it’s subtly sweet! It is really good in coffee and ‘at MDFD HQ we love it poured on our cereal for a morning pick me up!’ Allowing that MDFD HQ – ‘My Dairy Free Dream’ – is likely a dismal corner of an ad agency, a good point is well made: try making porridge with Hazelnut Almond Rice Milk and then drizzle maple syrup over it!
Sometimes, we stock Lima Hazelnut Almond rather than Rice Dream, which some connoisseurs prefer, claiming it’s flavour to be ‘more hazelnutty’. The RRP of the Lima brand is higher than Rice Dream, but FareShares charges £1.64 for a litre of either, which is cheaper than any price you will find on the internet. How do we do it?
FareShares’ June Meeting
Fareshares’ June meeting will be held on Sunday 15th at The Pullens Centre, 184 Crampton Street, SE17 & you are invited! If you think you might like to get involved with Fareshares, or you used to be, this is an opportunity to meet the people behind the scenes, or to catch up with old friends.
A pot luck supper is served at 18:30, upstairs, before the meeting takes place downstairs at 7:30pm. Please bring food to share. All prospective and past members of Fareshares are welcome to eat with us, but only present members of the collective may participate in its business meeting.
Volunteers’ Box
We have some fresh signage on FareShares’ facade – so everybody should now know what our opening times are! – and we also have this lovely handmade box for new volunteers to signal their interest. Here it is:
