If your local pub serves local produce, then now is your chance to reward it!

The Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Honest Food has launched Local to Locals, a competition to celebrate local produce and encourage pub visitors to take more interest in the food they eat.

Visitors are asked to find out how much local produce is served and, if they are satisfied the pub is supporting local producers, can nominate the pub for an award.

An overall winner will be announced later in the summer and a winner will also be picked for each region of the UK.

The competition, which was first run in 2001, seeks to promote and support local producers and suppliers through raising awareness of the benefits of seasonal and local produce.

It is only consumers, either directly or through the pubs they eat and drink at, who can keep the food producers of this country in business.

We need to show the Government that there is a great demand for locally produced food in this country and that British really is best.

More than 400 pubs were nominated for Local to Locals 2001 and all those short-listed met a high level of excellence, among them North Yorkshire's Sportsman's Arms, Worcestershire's Talbot at Knightwick, Perthshire's Moulin Inn and Herefordshire's Boat Inn.

In the wake of the devastation caused by Foot and Mouth Disease, the competition gave much needed encouragement to food production in rural areas and the positive effect was felt right across the country.

Local producers depend on local outlets and what better way to sell local produce than to the customers of a local pub?

Nomination cards are now available from the Countryside Alliance at the address below or at www.countryside-alliance.org/ honestfood/

Helen Szamuely

Director, Countryside Alliance Campaign for Honest Food

London