It's the time of year when fruit and veg a-plenty are in season, but being something of a product of my generation I know strawberries are coming into season and potatoes are particularly new at the moment, but little more than that.
Along with our family recycling efforts, I thought it'd be nice to also try to eat seasonal UK produce. But how to buy seasonal without trawling around a supermarket searching for the Union Jack?
I turned to trusty Ocado. As the partner company to Waitrose that makes a real virtue out of parading its UK suppliers on pack, shelves and in ads, I thought tracking down seasonal selections would be a doddle. How wrong could I be? I literally had to click on each item and scroll down to find out where it was grown.
I also tried the Tesco website. Strawberries were on special offer but I couldn't find any mention of where they're grown. While it's possible to shop everything from the Tesco Value range, it's impossible to only choose UK seasonal produce.
Another website altogether has come to my rescue. Eattheseasons.co.uk not only offers chapter and verse on what's available at any time of year both in the UK and Europe, it also tells you how to prepare your chosen produce and offers various recipes. It will even email you each week to keep you up to the minute on seasonal food.
I wasn't moved by M&S announcing it's going to stock brands. I do the occasional basket dash around Simply Food, but with a couple of bags of shopping coming in at £25, it's never going to be where I stock up on family fare.
However, my mum and her friends are typical M&S shoppers - more or less at retirement age, financially OK and appreciating the finer things in life without being flash. Who better to take advantage of M&S's plans to trial 350 brands? "Really! Why?" was mum's response when I broke the news. She, like thousands of others, is happy to pootle around at M&S but really likes the wider choice Waitrose offers for the main shop. She said parking can be problematic at many M&S stores - ruling out more than a basket for many.
I also wonder if by stocking brands, no matter how unique, M&S will lose the USP it has over other supermarkets. And if my mum and her friends aren't going to switch their main shop, I don't know who is.
Has the number of customer complaints about the price of goods increased recently?
