A Revolution in the Transportation of food – The Tres Hombres

The Tres Hombres

Have you ever met someone who changes everything for you?  They way you think, the way you behave, they way you look at the world around you are in so many ways mirrored by the people you spend time with. I have in the past  eighteen months had the chance to spent time in the Caribbean, in Portsmouth and in Falmouth with a group of pioneers. Revolutionaries who dare to live their dream of ethical, sustainable transport of fairly traded goods.

Until that point I’d never considered how the baking ingredients I use are transported.  I go to the supermarket and there they are on the shelf.  Given the choice I’ve always bought British fairtrade and organic slices, chocolate and ingredients, but the one thing that never entered my head was how do the ingredients that I use to bake with get from one side of the planet to the other?

When I met Mott Green and Arjen Van der Veen of the Tres Hombres last year my approach to the way we approach food fundamentally changed

The effect of meeting them and understanding the principles that they live by  was one that has fundamentally changed who I am and what I do. I reviewed my meaning, my reason and my focus and made a decision that I would change the way I approach how I teach, and it would be without compromise. I recognised that Mott, Lucy and Arjen are part of my tribe, and to approach the way I  teach sourdough will need to  bring my values to the forefront of the way I teach. I am going to stand by my personal convictions as I teach, and include social justice, environmentalism, sustainable eating,  as part of the way we teach.

The Mediterranean diet is far more than just the food.  It is about a way of life.  It is about connecting the soil systems, the farmers, the millers and bakers and the people I teach. It feels right. The understanding that was so much part of the way I learned to bake was that bread was central to community, and linked everyone in the village to each other. I knew the children of the farmers who we would buy our cheese off, and our pate, and vegetables.

Perhaps up until now I have been reticent about the place of this.  Activists and conviction has not always been welcomed, but now I now this has to be the foundation, or I am not being true to myself.

This short film by the Sustainable Food Trust has captured some of the moments I spent with the crew and the founders of New Dawn Traders. Thank you to the Trust for their kind permission to share it.