Foodies invited to shop and swap

Monday 02 June 2014

The Island’s cooks, bakers, canners and gardeners are being invited to meet up and trade their homemade and homegrown bounty at a big food swap this weekend.

The free food exchanges are becoming increasingly popular in the UK and America and the National Trust and Jersey in Transition hope their event on Sunday at Grève de Lecq Barracks in St Mary will encourage more Islanders to get swapping.

The National Trust for Jersey’s Event’s Organiser Karen Evans said: “Although trendy, food swapping is not new. No doubt many an early erseyman agreed to swap services for food in lieu of currency or shared excess harvest with a neighbour.

“But modern-day food swapping was born not of necessity but rather the desire to create a community of those who love all things handcrafted and yearn for a more personal connection to their food.  No money will exchange hands, instead people will be exchanging food, which is a fantastic way to diversify your larder and hopefully it will have a real community spirit, food really does brings people together.

“This is the first food swap that the National Trust for Jersey have been involved with and we want to spread the word far and wide, across the Island, to get everyone interested and participating, from cooks to bakers, brewers to canners, forages to gardeners.   Food-swapping events are a brilliant way to get rid of gluts and show off your baking and growing skills, as well as it being a very sociable atmosphere.”

Once all the homemade, home-grown and foraged fare has gone on display at St Mary’s, swappers will get up to an hour to check out and sample what’s on offer before bidding for what they want to take home and deciding who they want to swap with.

The swap starts at 2.30 pm and the Trust has these tips for swappers:

       You get what you give -  the more items you bring to swap, the more you’ll take home;

       Exchanges are one-for-one so be sure your items are sized accordingly: a loaf of bread, a pint of jam, a quart of soup, a dozen eggs;

       Don’t forget to make it look good - attractive packaging and marketing will help you “sell” your wares;

       Provide detailed ingredient lists -  other swappers may be unable to eat certain ingredients.