HOW many miles does it take to make your favourite pizza?
That’s the question the Marsden and Slaithwaite Transition Towns grassroots campaign group and Edibles grower co-operative, of Slaithwaite, will be asking this weekend.
Shoppers have become increasingly concerned about where their food comes from and with simple ingredients it’s easy to tell.
Labels attached to your fruit, vegetables and meat let you know where the produce has come from.
But with something like a pizza, which contains numerous ingredients of different origins, the challenge is much tougher.
Indeed many of your favourite pizzas – be it from the supermarket or your local takeaway – may contain ingredients from distant lands, such as flour from Canada and garlic from China.
Add together imported cheese, olive oil, tomatoes, herbs and other ingredients and your pizza leaves one huge carbon footprint.
That’s why the Marsden and Slaithwaite Transition Towns group (MASTT) and Edibles, of West Slaithwaite – a produce grower and educational co-operative – are creating a ‘100-mile pizza’. The idea is to produce a pizza where the total distance travelled by all the ingredients is 100 miles or less.
You can taste Edibles’ latest project at their 100-mile Pizza Night at Edibles’ Cow Shed, Paddock Farm, West Slaithwaite, on Saturday. The candlelight supper includes a locally sourced pizza cooked in one of Edible’s homemade clay cob ovens, salad, puddings, local cheeses and live music performed by a string quartet from Kirklees Music School.
The evening, where you can bring your own wine, costs £15 – but you get a £2 discount if you walk or cycle.
Rosie Lonnon, of Edibles, said: “We grow our own tomatoes so that shouldn’t be too difficult.
“We can’t have Italian mozzarella so we’ll use a Lancashire or Yorkshire cheese.
“We can get some Slaithwaite salami and home-grown basil. Getting olive oil may be a bit more difficult.
“Our cob ovens are built from clay in our field and local stone.”
Ms Lonnon added: “We’re eating food and we have no idea of where it’s coming from or what pollution it’s causing.
“Hopefully our pizza should be one of the most environmentally friendly pizzas ever made.”
For more information email: rosie@edibles.org.uk
MASTT and Edibles will be hosting a ‘Guess The Miles’ pizza competition at Colne Valley Local Food Festival, Carr Lane, Slaithwaite, on September 9 (11am-4pm).
Visitors can taste and contrast a pizza with a huge carbon footprint with one of Edibles’ local pizzas. For more about the competition and Colne Valley Local Food Festival visit: www.slaithwaite.coop
