Choose Cornish campaign is launched at Cornwall Food and Drink Festival encouraging residents to 'buy local'
The annual Cornwall Food and Drink festival has been used as the launch pad for a new campaign, developed by Cornwall Food and Drink and Cornwall Chamber of Commerce, which aims to spread the word about ‘buying local’ and generate millions of pounds for the local economy.
The Choose Cornish campaign launched with over 100 guests enjoying a Cornish cream tea at Truro Cathedral yesterday.
“We all have choices about what we buy and where we buy it from; that’s why we’ve called it ‘Choose Cornish’. We want to encourage people to make an active decision to do just that,” commented Ruth Huxley, Cornwall Food and Drink’s managing director, “very small changes by people or businesses individually can make a massive collective impact.”
Recently appointed chief executive of Cornwall Chamber of Commerce, Kim Conchie, added: “To all intents and purposes, this is a ‘buy local’ campaign and that’s nothing new. But we’ve noticed that one of the effects of the current recession has been a shift of focus, away from all the well- proven benefits of keeping business local to messages that are all about cheapness rather than real value for money. We want to rectify that.”
The campaign’s success will be measured against targets to ensure it is producing quantifiable benefits. Conchie continued: “We’re going to take a good look at actual prices too, because we’re certain that ‘local’ doesn’t have to mean ‘expensive’ at all.”