Biffo & Spanky Special Christmas Hampers - Made to Order

Hidden away behind The Farmhouse restaurant and the car park behind the local Tesco store in West Malling High Street is a wonderful little delicatessen called Biffo & Spanky, where you always receive a warm and friendly welcome from Mick and Richard.

Mick & Richard will make up a Christmas Hamper of your choice

Biffo & Spanky offers a special made to order Christmas Hamper service with a superb range of quality foods, fine meats and cheeses, quality teas and coffees, truffles, crackers, pates, caviar, dips, bread, olives, fine spirits, wines or fresh coffee beans.

Christmas Hampers - Made to Order at Biffo & Spanky

It is impossible not to be welcomed into this lovely, little barn where you can choose from their huge selection of special foods and ask for a Christmas Hamper that is made especially to your request.



Maybe Grandad loves those special cheeses or Grandma would love some Chocolate Truffles with her favourite ground coffee beans!  Why not pop in and ask for your very own  hamper to be made up.

And once you've chosen they will put your items into a lovely wicker basket and wrap it for you!. And all service comes with a smile and the odd "Christmas Cracker" of a joke!

Enjoy a coffee while you wait or give them a call on 01732 871717 to find out more......

How You Can Reap the Rewards of Local Shopping

Over the last decade the trend for out of town shopping has been clear. A lack of time and the promise of lower prices has meant that many families have done the majority of their shopping at large supermarkets, but now the tide does gradually seem to be turning.. and West Malling is a great example of where the High Street and Local Shops are supported and enjoyed by the people who live here and others who come to visit.

The popularity of shopping locally has been growing, and this is illustrated in the campaign that TSB bank used to re-launch last month. Using the strapline ‘welcome back to local banking’ TSB are marketing themselves as a local bank that serves the community, appealing to a growing feeling that people want to support local businesses. Figures released by the British Retail Consortium in April showed that the footfall in the High Street had increased 3.4% from the previous month, which seems to bear out the idea that people are enjoying the benefits of shopping locally. 

So what exactly are those benefits? Here are just a few of the advantages to shopping in your local town or village.

Become more connected with your local community. Commuting to work and popping into the supermarket on your way home can make you feel alienated from the community you live in, while visiting your local High Street can make you feel more involved. Combine shopping with a haircut, a coffee with a friend, or a visit to the local library, and pick up local news and developments as you go

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Abbey Arcade - West Malling High Street

Receive a more personal service. Smaller local shops may not be able to compete on price but they can offer a higher level of service with more personal interaction. Get to know your shopkeeper, ask for advice, or see if they can order particular products that you like. A trip to the supermarket often involves no human interaction at all with the advent of self-checkout, whereas a local shopping trip can be a really sociable experience.

Know the origin of your produce. After the horsemeat issues of the past year many shoppers have wanted to know more about the origins of their food. Supermarket labels will often give the country of origin, but very little additional information about where the product has come from and how it has been produced. On the other hand, when you shop locally, your shopkeeper should be able to provide far more details about the food chain, especially if you shop at a local farmer’s market where the produce will have come direct from local farms.

   

Biffo & Spanky Deli (behind the Farmhouse)

Try something different. When most people visit the supermarket they have a fixed route through the store, buying the same items they are familiar with every time. Supermarkets are generally too large for further exploration and we only usually try something new if it is on special offer. With smaller local shops however, it is far easier to investigate everything they have to offer, and to try out new flavours or varieties that would otherwise have passed us by. 

Enjoy a full sensory experience. While large supermarkets can be a little bland, independent local shops offer a wide experience of sights, sounds, and smells. Local retailers are starting to realise the importance of customer experience in competing with out-of-town or online shops, and are putting a lot of effort into making a visit to their store a unique and enjoyable event. A Saturday morning soaking up the atmosphere of your local shops can be more rewarding than a trip to the nearest retail park. 

Save petrol and get some exercise. Depending on where you live there are probably some shops within walking, or at least cycling distance. Leave the car at home and get some exercise, as well as reducing petrol consumption and helping the environment, when you visit the shops in your locality.

Local shops and services form the heart of our communities, and many people are starting to see the benefits of supporting them. In West Malling we’re lucky enough to have a vibrant centre with independent shops, cafes, pubs, restaurants, and a fabulous range of services. A visit to the centre of West Malling can be very rewarding, and you can be sure there will always be something new to catch your eye.

Why West Malling Farmers Market is worth a visit

One of the best things about living in the West Malling area is the fantastic Farmers Market that takes place on the 4th Sunday of each month. In fact the next market is just a few days away on 28 April 2013 and we can’t wait to browse the stalls that line the High Street; after all it’s what that beautiful wide road through the centre of the town was designed for.

West Malling Farmers Market

In the national media recently there have been a lot of questions asked about the produce we eat and where it comes from, especially meat and processed foods that we buy in the supermarkets. The concerns over horse meat contamination that have filled the newspapers have only highlighted the fact that as consumers we have very little idea what is in our food, and what happens to it before it arrives on the supermarket shelves. 

Local Produce from Local Producers

A huge advantage of shopping at the West Malling Farmer’s Market is that everything sold there is produced locally and we can have direct contact with the farmers and producers themselves, asking them anything we want to know about the food we are buying. We can choose fresh meat, fish, bread, eggs, fruit, and vegetables direct from the source, and support our local economy at the same time.

As shopping directly from local producers gains popularity, other ways of sourcing local products are starting to appear. A new online service called Farm Drop has begun in London and aims to spread all over the country. Their vision is to bring together regional groups of farmers and producers with local shoppers. The shopper will order online through the Farm Drop website and the farmers will bring the produce to a local venue such as a pub or community centre for a prearranged drop off.  

The ethos of Farm Drop is to use online technology to reconnect farmers and producers with consumers in their region, strengthening local communities. They believe that food sourced locally will be fresher, healthier, and simpler. They also believe that produce sold through Farm Drop can be sensibly priced without producers losing out, because the system will eliminate the transport costs and heavy mark-up often associated with supermarket food.
 

Located in the Garden of England, West Malling is surrounded by farms and local producers, yet a huge proportion of the food we eat is imported from abroad. We all have a fantastic opportunity to choose good value, fresh, local food direct from the producers, whether we visit the farmer’s market, buy from local farm shops, or even set up our own regional Farm Drop.

There is also a Farmers Market that has started at Offham.  This is run on the 2nd Saturday of each month at Spadework in Teston Road, Offham.  With the arrival of Offham Farmers Market too, the West Malling area is lucky to have the benefit of access to 2 markets a month where we can buy local produce and to talk directly to the people who produce it. 

More details on Offham Farmers Market and we will be letting folks know more about the producers and stallholders on the West Malling Local Shops website very soon.

In the meantime, with the warmer weather coming, it's a great month to visit a Farmers Market to catch up on what's available.