Who Connected You to Your Food?
Regional food groups are the unseen connectors behind the food we love, and their survival depends on all of us.
Think of the best thing you ate this year. Chances are a grower or maker you'd never heard of was behind it, and somebody made an introduction to get it to you.
A small producer with no sales team met a buyer who couldn't afford a mistake, and a third person who knew them both vouched for each. That person is the most overlooked figure in the food system. They are also the most important.
For decades in England, that person has often been a regional food group. After the Curry Report in 2002, the case was made for funding them publicly, because they build durable relationships between buyers and suppliers based on provenance and trust. Nobody notices the connector until they disappear.
It's tempting to cast the supermarket as the villain here. But for most of us, the supermarket aisle is the food system, and the real question is whether a small producer can get through that door at all. Taste of the West helps producers find new routes. They open retail doors. They handle the groundwork. They give buyers the confidence to say yes. Without them, small suppliers face procurement alone.
Taste of the West shows a way forward. It is now a community interest company run by volunteer directors. It operates without public grants. Big and small producers hold the line together.
At Metropolitano (MoM), we've seen why it matters. We run regenerative community markets for over a decade and incubated 30+ food businesses. A good product is not enough. A stall becomes a business through connection. The first loyal customer, the first retail partner, the neighbour who tells everyone else.
Food is a human right. That right needs connectors to make it real. Connections is social infrastructure.
Ask your shop for a regional product by name. Tell a neighbour about a producer you love.
Retailers must give small suppliers real shelf space, not a token ‘local’ corner. Public investment in connection protects jobs and resilience. It protects the character of what we eat.
Somebody made the introduction for your favourite food. Who makes the next one?
Follow our journey @movimento.metropolitano
