Food — if everyone lived as we do we’d need 3 planets to support us

Q: What percentage of our food do we buy or grow here in Portobello?

On aver­age we travel 136 miles each year to shop for food. That means that the aver­age house­hold of 2 adults and 2 kids gen­er­ates 500 miles of car emis­sions in the quest for food.

  • The CO2 emis­sions for pro­du­cing, pro­cessing, pack­aging and dis­trib­ut­ing food eaten by a UK fam­ily of four is about 8 tonnes a year.
  • 95% of fruit and 50% of veget­ables eaten in the UK are imported.
  • 25% of HGV mileage in UK is accoun­ted for by food haulage.

A: PEDAL suggests: buy local and grow local!

  • Shop loc­ally, cut travel and sup­port a thriv­ing High Street
  • Grow loc­al: expand urb­an agri­cul­ture through allot­ments, gar­dens, waste­land, parts of parks, involving and edu­cat­ing chil­dren and adults