Yorkshire Farmhouse is one of our Hubs. We work with 9 across the UK covering 13 regions. On a very basic term level they consolidate suppliers products and distribute them into our nearby stores, allowing very small suppliers to sell their products within a major supermarket.

However Yorkshire Farmhouse, run by Rachel and Amanda on the Potters Family Farm, is a great example of a hub who do so much more – including sourcing products, coaching suppliers, working with them on packaging and new products development etc.

We offered Alexia Robinson from British Food Fortnight (www.lovebritishfood.co.uk) a chance to come and visit, so she travelled up from London and I picked her up from Thirsk Station.

We had a chat with Rachel, talked about my plans for the year, British Food Fortnight, had a look around the farm and then were joined for a fabulous Yorkshire lunch by Andrew Jones who supplied us with some great Yorkshire Pies and Pasties. We also had Bleikers Salmon, Shepherds Purse Cheese, Foster Bread, Yorkshire Outdoor Sausages and Harrogate Spa water. It was a toss up between who was the star on the day, the great food or cute new Jack Russell puppies in a basket in the office.

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This week marks a new milestone in our drive to make sustainable products both affordable and accessible. We have unveiled a new machine in Asda Barnsley that allows our customers to refill laundry conditioner pouches rather than having to take a brand new bottle. Why bother you might ask – well how about the fact that not only does it save 96% of packaging weight but also saves £3.70 over 10 refills – that makes it around half the price of an equivalent branded conditioner. It’s really easy to use – as ably demonstrated by Sarah in the video.

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We released our latest income tracker this week and as predicted there was a clear worsening trend in December. Families were on average marginally worse off year on year – the first year on year decline we have seen since March 2009 when equity markets were at their low point.

This decline has been primarily driven by increasing transport costs and low income growth. Next month we will see the impact of the VAT increase on consumers. No doubt this will increase the pressure on disposable income and I would expect to see an even worse decline in the tracker.

As it’s my first post of the year, I thought it might be worth taking a stab at how I think the economy will pan out over the year. Inevitably I will be completely wrong!

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So the Baby Event has been going down really well, but some of you have been having problems finding the £25 car seat. I asked Andy the man at the helm of the baby buying team what’s going on?

This is what he had to say:

“Sorry we let you down on this one – our supplier only delivered a third of the volume they had committed to and therefore we let you down on this line. Rest assured it’s never our intention to use ‘sales hooks’ and not have stock for you to buy, we try and keep our shelves full for the whole 3 weeks of the event. We are looking to put extra checks in place for our next event to ensure the supplier does deliver in full.”

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Where will you be eating in 2010? What is the future of food? Who knows.. I am not about to start predicting the future here. But I can tell you a bit about what’s happening, what’s growing and fill you in on some exciting new restaurants which are changing the way we eat.

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