What’s in your kitchen?

Unsurprisingly, quite a lot of veg. Although we send out pretty much all the vegetables to customers, we do have a special room with all the spare stuff that does not get used up. Add to this what I pick as I wander around the farm checking the crops and we are never short of fruit and veg.

In fact, my wife often groans when I get home with yet another crate and start on another industrial scale cooking project. I reckon we must consume about ten times the national average and still love it. I find it hard to believe how little vegetables people eat, but then I am obsessive.

How would you sum up your food philosophy?

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Supermarkets would rather throw food away than have empty shelves

Geetie Singh

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Root manoeuvre

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It's fairly simple. Eat good quality food, prepared with love and grown not too far away.

People have got so far removed from their food and how it is grown. They have lost confidence in their own judgment and are easy prey to advertising promoting processed, sugar, salt and fat laden crap. Add to this the progressive loss of kitchen skills over the last two generations and we are in trouble.

Food is an intrinsic part of culture. I can’t get motivated in the kitchen if I don’t feel connected to my ingredients. Connection, confidence, accessibility and affordability are key to everything we do at Riverford.

If we are going to change the lamentable way most people eat it will have to be by making it fun and helping them to discover the pleasure of preparing and sharing food. Preaching and guilt will never work.

How has British food and our attitude to it changed in your lifetime?

I regret the obsession with the exotic and abandonment of culinary traditions that dominated the 40 years following food rationing. Things are getting better now.

I am really excited by the rebirth of gardening because it is a sign of people taking control of their lives rather than being passive, malleable consumers being led to the trough by supermarkets. People are paying more attention to what they are eating and realising that there is no substitute for using good ingredients.

What annoys you about food culture in Britain?

Food should bring people together. Instead, it has become a divisive issue where class and education - more than income I would argue - determine what people eat, their health and, in turn, how long they live.

I bitterly resent the way organic food, in the hands of supermarkets and a few brands, epitomises our peculiarly British class system. It is seen as the food of toffs with more money than sense. It is frustrating that this perception of exclusivity undermines our own and our co-op growers’ work to keep the prices of our boxes down, often to the extent that they are cheaper than buying non-organic veg in a supermarket.

What is Britain’s best-kept food secret?

Behind closed doors we have a growing army of fantastic home cooks. We have some of the world's best, most knowledgeable and cosmopolitan cooks feeding their families wonderful meals day in day out. I suspect most of them seldom watch a cookery programme because they are too busy cooking.

It drives me nuts when French or Italian tourists judge us by the boil-in-a-bag crap produced in most pubs or the overpriced poncy food served at most top-end restaurants.

Do you prefer eating in or eating out?

I am pretty fussy which normally means I would prefer to stay in. For me, sitting down to a meal with family and friends is essential to my happiness. Sometimes, just gathering in the kitchen or garden is the best possible place to share food.

What is the next big food trend?

I hope and believe it will be pragmatic common sense built on basic cooking skills and good ingredients and even a bit of gardening. A bit of help from Jamie Oliver, home economics, and cooking classes at school might help.

Food fashions have little lasting impact on the way 95 per cent of people cook, eat and live. The cultural influence of parents, friends and family are far more important. Trends portrayed on TV and in the papers can even have a negative impact by making the gulf between the reality in the kitchen and aspiration unbridgeable. Has cooking become a spectator sport? I hope not.

To find out more about Riverford organic vegetables visit www.riverford.co.uk

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