About Local's Best

My decision to leave a successful career in Public Health to set up my own business doing something completely unrelated initially raised a few eyebrows…

After all, people kept reminding me, I had spent ten years studying for a degree, masters and PhD and a further five years clawing my way up the career ladder! But the truth was, I no longer found my work challenging and I desperately wanted to find something new and stimulating.

At the same time, my interest in the provenance of food was kindled by two people – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in his television series ‘Escape to River Cottage’ and Rick Stein in his book ‘Guide to the Food Heroes of Britain’. I had always loved good food but was finding it increasingly hard to find. Watching ‘Escape to River Cottage’ in which Hugh grows his own vegetables and rears some livestock reminded me that vegetables don’t grow on supermarket shelves and animals destined for our plates don’t have to come from intensive farms .

And so I decided to set up a business, initially called Provenance Fine Foods, which sold food from the best small producers in the UK. But whilst Provenance continued to grow, the courier’s frequently let me down and something didn’t feel quite right. I wanted to deliver local food to local people and I felt distant from both the producers and my customers who were scattered all over the UK.

And so in March 2007, I decided to rename the business ‘Local’s Best’ and focus on what I was most passionate about, good quality local food. I absolutely love working with local food producers. I always have my wellies in the van for visiting farms and there is nothing I like more than chatting to the producers about the weather or bemoaning supermarkets!

I love watching the selection of vegetables changing with the ebb and flow of the seasons and knowing that the free-range meat not only tastes fantastic but guarantees a good quality of life for the animals and a fair price for the farmers. And what a delight it is to meet my customers or chat to them by e-mail. Without exception, they are warm-hearted people, perhaps good food only appeals to good people…

Sarah Wadd,
Local's Best Proprietor

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