To ask how important it is to buy things made in your own country?

[FortunesFave]

To you I mean.

Do you ever choose something over another item because it says it was "Made in England" or wherever you live?

If so, what are your reasons?

I'll always pick Scottish meat, eggs and vegetables where possible. Our eggs and potatoes are always local and it's nice to support local business and there's less miles. We're cutting down meat to reduce our carbon footprint and eating local helps.

That said, with most fruit and some veg we'd be very limited by staying local/in seaaon and I want oranges, bananas, grapes, strawberries out of season.

Apart from food, I don't think that I've come across many things made in the UK. How can I choose them if they aren't available?

I don't usually look for this information.

From an environmental standpoint, I try to only buy food produced within a 100 miles of my home. The only exception to this March when I buy fair trade fruit to bridge the hungry gap.

For me it's an environmental thing, eg with food miles. So it's not necessarily about things being from England, but more about trying to avoid things that have come from a long way away. Eg I'll always buy French or Spanish wine rather than Australian or South American.

I try and and buy meat, veg and fruit from as locally as possible, to cut down on food miles, and I prefer to buy clothes made in the UK as they're less likely to be made in sweatshop conditions. And I was delighted when I found that the sofas we liked were made in the UK.

For manufactured goods, it's much harder though. Even if you buy a Ford made in Dagenham, it's likely to have an engine made in Spain, and electronic goods always seem to have been made in the far east.

I think it's really sad that so little is actually made in the UK these days. And what is made tends to be very expensive. I was gobsmacked by the price of vintage Ercol furniture a while ago, until I looked up the price of their new stuff.

Bloody wish I'd bought my Shaker dining chairs when you could pick them up for £25, it's hard to find them for less than £100 apiece now.

A few years ago, I went through a stage of trying to only buy food produced in the uk but found it difficult to identify the origin of lots of things. Then my income reduced and I couldn't afford to continue. Now, if it's a product I know is produced in the uk, and particularly fruit and veg, I wont buy it if it's been imported e.g apples, potatoes. This is partly to reduce food miles and also to support British farmers.

I'm really trying to pay more attention to where the things I buy are made, having never really given it a second thought in the past. Currently needing to buy a new washing machine and was just about to click purchase on a particular make, reviews were excellent, price good etc but then decided to do a quick google. Quickly discovered made in China by manufacturer with alleged links to the forced labour concentration-style camps.

Have found a washing machine made in UK by a company called Ebac but unfortunately out of stock at the moment and they do not currently have a model large enough for my requirements (ideally hoping for a 10kg).

Does anyone remember when loads of stuff was manufactured in the UK? I remember Christmas decorations, clothes, toys, all kinds!

I wonder if we'll ever have that again?

If an item has been produced in the UK then I can trust that people were probably not exploited to produce it, that waste was disposed of responsibly and that the energy to produce it was lower carbon than many places.

I also try to keep food miles as low as possible though I have no choice with bananas and oranges. That generally means seasonal produce.

I buy Scottish whenever possible.
Everything else I try to buy as close as possible eg European over other wines to reduce as food miles. But I also pick UK/ EU to get reassurance about workers rights.

Ethical shopping is very important to me.

It is very important to me in all areas food, clothes, etc wherever possible. Am doing work to my house - a lot of work - and i may not stay local in terms of materials but i m buying reclaimed ones so it is miles (France) vs. Made new which in this case i think it is better.

Re local food. If you are eating strwaberries out of season whether from the UK or Spain, they have been grown in greenhouses that are very very bad in terms of emissions. You are much better off buying fair trade bananas kiwis pineapples in january. They would have been grown in season in their countries, bought fair trade and ok travel miles but thats a lesser evil than the greenhouses emissions.
The best thing would be to eat local AND in season but indeed are we going to accept the limited offer? I say we should but most people wouldnt want to revert to the food we had when we were growing up (80s).

Yes I buy locally produced things ( especially food) whenever I can. I use our local food co operative and in other shops purposely look for labelling of, not just country of origin, but region.
Fortunately I don't eat bananas, oranges or grapes, so that's not an issue...I'd rather have Cornish cauliflower and Cornish brie!

I do when I can - certainly fresh meat, fish etc. Trouble is identifying it on websites - bought some lovely bedding from an English brand - but it was made in Vietnam.
I would live it if sites would specify that on the product description.
But more importantly would love it if we had a bigger manufacturing sector.

I use the giki.earth/ app when food shopping. You scan the barcode & it tells you where the product’s from, how sustainable the process is, etc.

I also buy meat from the butcher rather than the supermarket. Several reasons - it tastes better, I'm supporting local farmers, and I hope that I'm also supporting animal welfare (as I believe the animals are more likely to have been treated humanely than the mass produced supermarket suppliers).

Recently bought a new pram from a British company. They're obviously proud of this fact, as they've stamped 'British Made' in huge letters all over what is otherwise a lovely pram. If I'd known, I'd have bought something else, I'm all for supporting UK companies but I'm going to be a tad embarrassed pushing around the Brexit-Mobile......

Like Fuzzy, a lot of my food is bought from the local Food Hub, so Cornish veg, milk, bread, cake, cheese, meat, fish. Local producers benefit...and very few food miles at all. Some of the meat comes from 2 villages away, and the veg from fields I can see from my back bedroom window. I use a local butcher and cheese shop if I want anything else.

Another one here who buys food as locally as possible, the one thing that seems to come from the eu 9 times out of 10 but since discovering Richmonds meat free sausages we’ve never looked back!

As a rule I only buy British meat in particular. Britain has some of the highest welfare and environmental standards of farming in the world.

Yes I buy Scottish where possible.

I wouldn’t buy or drink wine from anywhere outside Italy, France, Spain and possibly maybe Germany after learning too much about new world production methods. But I rarely eat anything nice enough to go with wine and it just doesn’t work as a beverage.

I almost always buy food from the UK and local food where possible - we have regular farmers markets etc here. I try to buy goods from domestic businesses and as ethically as possible. Even if it's not perfect, I think it's important for businesses to see money going towards more ethical consumption so that they are encouraged to move that way.

I buy local food as much as possible. I try and support local businesses but i presume a lot of their materials/products come from abroad. I do believe it keeps peoole in jobs and makes thd area nicer.

Not even slightly bothered about this. Made/ manufactured in the UK, what does that even mean? It could mean assembled by immigrants in UK factories using imported parts and machinery so the only UK part is the location of the factory.