STONEY STREET CAFE

MORE POERTY

2006-10-19T05:33:00.000-07:00

Ken Champion & Julie Jeana

present

'MORE POERTY'

First thursday of every month @ 7.45pm

2nd Floor

Stoney Street Cafe

Click on the link below for more Poerty info

http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk

Easter Weekend

2006-04-15T03:17:00.000-07:00

Easter is here...

Stoney Street Cafe would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter!!!!

Room Hire

2006-02-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

Our multi-Function rooms are now available for hire.

Private Dinners Buffet Partys Drinks Partys Breakfast Meetings General Meetings Discussion Groups Gallery Space

Views over looking Borough Market & Southwark Cathedral

We Want Real Food by Graham Harvey

2006-02-20T10:39:00.000-08:00

We Want Real Food

In the past 50 years vegetables on sale in the UK have lost 24% of their magnesium, 27% of their iron and 46% of their calcium
Beef has fewer of the omega-3 fats that once made it a healthy food
Milk from cows kept in sheds is depleted of vitamins and the cancer-fighting CLA that helped to make this a fitness food.
It is time to stop the rot! The campaign for real food begins with us, whether we shop at farmers' markets, organic suppliers or at supermarkets. We Want Real Food sets out what we can do to win the fight back for food that will stop us damaging our health - in fact, a fight for real food. So dig deeper and get more from your food. For more information on the We Want Real Food Book and Campaign click on the link. www.wewantrealfood.co.uk

Stoney Street Cafe is glad to be hosting a series of evenings where Graham Harvey will be speaking. Copies of his book are on sale in the cafe.

8 Stoney Street

Borough Market

London SE1 9AA

We read it and loved it. What do you think????

Valentines

2006-02-17T05:12:00.000-08:00

Valentines

We celebrated here on the second floor with a select few friends and colleagues and it was a lovely evening. Thankyou to all that came along it was great to see you. Please feel free to leave comments and any questions regarding our rooms and services. Once again thankyou...

2006-02-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

We here at the cafe welcome discussions from our customers relevant to the food industry and anything else they wish to tell us. So come on and let us hear your views....

Supermarkets are spoiling the market for the small independant food producer...

We at Stoney Street Cafe support small independant food producers from all over the UK and will promote their products from our fantastic Gallery and Cafe in Londons 'Borough Market' http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk

The consumer is taken for granted by the big chain stores who dictate choice...

2006-02-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

Not available from a supermarket near you...

In the 1960's the UN FAO and the WHO laid plans to create a set of standards for food. This operation was given the name CODEX.
This standardisation would extend right down to the production of a single type of individual cheese. For example, were you to buy a chedder cheese in Somerset, it should be made in the same way as in Shanghai. CODEX meetings take place 4 times a year. Yet sitting at the table dealing with international cheese standards and representing the USA is Kraft Foods, one of the largest industrial cheese makers in the world and a company determinedly set on the road of universal pasteurisation. This approach to food standards is not consumer led and is almost wholly a matter of trade, politics and profits on behalf of governments and corporations.

The supermarkets tell us they are demand led. That may have been so in the early daysbut having now created the supermarket environment through monopolistic practices they now surely lead that demand. Quite simply, people buy what is available on the shelves.
When offering an explanation as to why te supemarkets set such stringent regulations for producers/suppliers, resulting, not only in considerable waste but also uniformity of product appearance on the shelf, Lord Haskins, former chairman of Northern Foods and Express Dairies and close advisor to PM Tony Blair said:
'Customers now shop with their eyes and not their mouth. They want food without a blemish because they assume it will taste better. The consumers are to blame but the supermarkets aid and abet them by encouraging such attitudes.' (Sunday Times July 17 '05).

Let us be clear. We consumers are not to blame. We will buy what is available. We are quite capable of making educated choices.

But if Haskins is correct and we are now buying with our eyes and not mouth, then what better endorsement do we need for buying on-line, relying on photographs and descriptions. With free and wide choice determining selection, we need not be stuck with products of uniform size, exaggerated shine and frequently diminished flavour.

Value may NOT always be measured by appreance and the supermarkets should beware of patronising the consumer or underestimating us as to our assumptions of taste.

Shopping for food should not be reduced to an exercise in bland uniformity, akin to completing a tax return. Merely filling a trolly with excessive packaging, to stand in a queue and win loyalty points in a store endlessly changing its shelving arrangments in a cynical exercise to confuse us so as to keep us longer, is not shopping. It is survival. Were this the best way to achieve value and quality we should be queuing behind TV chefs and hoteliers in our local supermarkets. We are not. They know better of course (despite some high profile celebrity endorsement) and use local suppliers - who provide better taste and value.