A Shout Out for the Local Shop

April 2020

First a big thank you to those great souls who are keeping our village fed and watered. Im talking about the staff of the bakery - the Pump Street Bakery - and the village shop - the Orford General Store Without these 2 outlets the 700 hundred or so souls of this village and the people in the surrounding area would be dramatically worse off food wise particularly in these days of unavailable on line deliveries.

Currently a waiting time of 4 hours is not odd for the Ocado site, only to discover there are no available slots anyway. Tesco, another supplier in this area, has no slots either and the much more local suppliers are taking no new customers. You can drive to a shop and take your chances with what’s available or you can thank your lucky stars you have a local service offering most of what’s needed to eat like a queen at home.

The Pump Street Bakery is a special thing, a real luxury, producing a range of breads and pastries and the now well known Pump Street Chocolate. In normal times it also has a cafe serving good coffee and food although its worth noting for future brighter days, there s not much on the menu for the vegans of this world.

However daily life for our household’s generally plant based table is much improved by Pump Street’s wholemeal sourdough. And, when the bread has passed its best, John, my husband makes a vegan bread and butter pudding with no eggs but plant milk, fruit, spices and marmalade. Many prefer it because it doesn’t have that eggy custard vibe, instead there s a great taste of warming spices and the special texture of the milk soaked sourdough (recipe to come on Instagram’s twoveganadventurers)

The bakery is still open during the mayhem brought on us by this terrible virus. Special thanks to Zoe and Michelle who keep the produce flowing. A new service is starting enabling on line ordering if you re a local. This is not only an attempt to keep the business going but a way of looking after the local community

At the heart of this hamlet there’s also an amazing Aladdin's cave, the Orford General Store. The range of food is carefully arranged to defy the small size of the available space There’s fresh meat, smoked fish, 30 types of cheese for non vegans. Beer and wine and ready meals, some locally produced. Then, holy of all holies, there s plenty of stuff for plant eaters, starting with an extensive range of local veggies as well as supplies from London’s Covent Garden

At the moment the rhubarb from down the road is bright pink and delicious making the most more-ish crumble. The local purple sprouting broccoli is near the end of the season, but is still going and as tasty as ever. Eat it blanched and then fried with garlic and chilli, in soup mixed with a selection of other brassicas or in a white sauce, made with plant milk and made specially savoury with yeast flakes.

Inside the shop, there are ingredients for whole meals for plant based eating days There s tofu, soya yoghurt, and plant milks, different varieties of tinned beans, tinned tomatoes and lentils, spices, various rice varieties and pasta, plant spreads and a couple of locally produced vegan hummuses from Purely Pesto (purely pesto/Instagram). We are addicted to the butterbean, mint and lime on toast. We eat it most days for lunch with a bowl of different homemade soups. I wonder if this new order will stay with us post virus, whenever that is.

The Orford General Store has also increased its local deliveries to 30-40 a day - order by email, pay by phone and, low and behold, your food appears on the doorstep, a god send for those who can’t get out or or are at risk and have been asked to self isolate.

There are some 96 suppliers who are used to keep the store well stocked although there is still a shortage of toilet rolls and hand sanitiser and flour. So far though the shop is still reasonably full of stuff, certainly enough to put good food on the table at home. All of this is courtesy of the two Susans, owner and manager, respectively and Emma, Laura, Ed, Sharon and Bradley. They re indeed key workers To them massive thanks.

Shops like these are real treasures in the best of times but in times like now they are a real lifeline There are some 46,000 so called convenience stores across UK town and countryside. The total number has been dropping and the offer from each store varies tremendously depending on the locale Some are more like newsagents but others, like ours, are a combination of grocers green and otherwise, bakers, off licences, butchers, ready meal suppliers and much more.

One thing is for sure if you have a small grocer near you try and use it for more than the occasional purchase. Talk to them about what you want to buy and maybe they ll stock it for you. Keep them going not just your local supermarket. It s up to us the buyers

For now a big shout from your customers to local stores for keeping us supplied in these troubled times.