Breakfast with John & Jules

Despite the sodden summer and heavy rainfall, this year has produced a big harvest in the South East and generally quality of the grain has been quite good compared to the rest of the country. So why have food prices still gone up?

John speaks to Jonathan Tipples vice-chairman of Assured Food Standards who explains all:

After all Jamie Oliver's and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's efforts to persuade us buy organically farmed chickens and eggs it seems that the credit crunch has forced to us abandon ethical shopping to buy the cheaper produce because that's all we can afford.

However, more and more people are keeping their own chickens and sales in chicken houses have gone up in the South East. And, as people are increasingly growing their own vegetables there is a now a greater demand for allotments in the county.

Helen Howard has taken the idea of 'grow your own' a step further. In a small terraced house in Littlebourne, near Canterbury, she has started the business of hatching, growing snails. It's all going so well that she's now supplying local restaurants and she can't grow them fast enough. John went to meet her:

For more information on locally grown produce: