Knowledgeable staff and in-store promotions can encourage customers to buy locally sourced food, says Martyn Jones


Between 19 September and 4 October, Morrisons will be among the many retailers promoting the diverse and delicious range of produce that Britain has to offer during British Food Fortnight.

Morrisons is a supermarket with a rich history in the UK, having grown enormously since its humble origins in Bradford in 1899. However, it has never lost its connection with local people and local producers.

Selling 100% British fresh pork, beef and lamb is what sets us apart from our competitors. We buy direct from British farmers and take the livestock to our own abattoirs.

We have recently taken our abattoir count to three; this extra capacity has been key to ensuring that we can offer fresh pork, beef and lamb that is all UK sourced and processed by us something unique in British supermarket retailing.

We work extremely closely with our British dairy farmers; as a result, our own-label fresh milk, cream and long-life milk is 100% British and about 95% of our block cheese sales are from British cheese. In addition, more than 90% of our yoghurts, butters and fats are British. Customers in Yorkshire will purchase milk from Yorkshire, and this is repeated in every region across the UK.

We strongly support the British fruit and vegetable farming industry and, as such, we have a large percentage of British fruit and vegetables in our stores all year. We believe in offering our customers a choice of seasonal British produce at its best. For example, this year we have offered early, mid and late season UK plum varieties, including Victoria, Opal, Reeves and Marjorie.

Forty per cent of the fresh fish sold on our counters is British. We are the first retailer to stock a Welsh fish range in 24 of our Welsh stores a move supported by the Welsh Assembly. We have a strict sourcing policy focused on sustainability and freshness and, where possible, our fish is locally sourced; our tilapia is from Yorkshire rather than Jamaica or Zimbabwe, and last July we became the first retailer to sell Cornish tuna (while in season).

We are the only retailer to label each fish on our fresh fish counter with full traceability detail; including scientific name, catch method and the area where it was caught. The labelling scheme is supported by the Marine Conservation Society.

So how do we let our customers know what we are doing? By employing 1,500 full-time butchers and 1,200 fully-trained fishmongers who speak about our British produce to customers on a daily basis. We believe this knowledge, alongside clear labelling of 'Best of British', 'Best of Scottish' and 'Best of Welsh' on products, contributes to an increasing demand for locally sourced food in our stores.

To support British Food Fortnight, we will be hosting a Best of British event in-store, celebrating the fact that we manage almost every aspect of our commercial operation in-house. From mid-September, activity will include food preparation demonstrations and in-store food tasting, with the freshest seasonal British food and produce available on Morrisons Market Street.

Our free customer magazine highlights the activity directly to consumers. The circulation is currently more than one million and continuing to grow, reflecting our business as a whole as we go from national to nationwide with 418 stores.


Martyn Jones is group trading director of Morrisons.