Fight to be 'local' heats up in British food

By Rina Chandran and Amie Ferris-Rotman

LUDLOW (Reuters) - Even before it had opened, supermarket Ludlow Food Centre saw a flurry of letters in local newspapers from readers calling for a boycott of a new rival Tesco outlet in the local store's favour.

Its spacious wooden shelves with piles of loose fruits and vegetables -- and a policy of selling local produce -- appealed to a fast-growing minority of British shoppers wanting to ditch convenience and revive the eating habits of the past.

"We have forgotten about the joy of waiting for the first English strawberries in summer, and expect asparagus even at Christmas," Managing Director Sandy Boyd told Reuters.

"Thanks to supermarkets that simply airfreight everything all the time, we have no concept of seasonality now -- which when you think about it, was also more environmentally friendly," said Boyd, 51, who had earlier developed a farm retail shop at Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, for the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.

'Local' is the new battleground of the world's most advanced retail market as food stores of all sizes rush to cater to shoppers' concerns about climate change and food provenance. Whole Foods Market, the world's biggest organic and natural foods chain, arrives in London on June 6.

Competition is so intense in the 125 million pound grocery sector supermarkets are slugging it out with six-figure advertising campaigns aimed at proving their local credentials to claim a slice of the premium market.

At Tesco, where a third of British shoppers buy groceries, people can buy "localchoice" milk from a nearby dairy -- for around 6 pence extra per litre. Waitrose, a smaller supermarket group owned by its employees, boasts that it brings its local produce from no more than 30 miles (50 km) away.

Yet with criticism of supermarket might still mounting, hundreds of independent farm stores are springing up, seeking to provide an alternative and cash in on shoppers' desire to be closer to the land.