- Title: Food File - Series 4
- Date: 16th March 1995
- Summary: Channel Four's popular, hard-hitting Food File returns for a fourth series, celebrating good food and revealing weak links in the food chain. Nutritionist Amanda Ursell presents some of the regular features. These include Dishing It Up, a series of passionate reports on food issues; Trade Secrets which looks behind the food on our plate to discover what we are really eating and buying; and World in a Stew which brings other people's staples to the screen. In the first Dishing It Up, food writer Charles Campion launches a Food File SOS - a Save Our Shops Campaign defending small and specialist food shops from the threat of the superstores. While no one doubts the convenience of supermarkets, the death of the small shop spells trouble for local producers, car-less consumers and for everyone who enjoys shopping for real food. Charles Campion loves shopping for food, and believes in exercising the "shopping muscle" that gets lazy when confronted by the convenience and uniformity of supermarkets. He goes to Tenbury Wells in the West Midlands - a haven for the individualistic shopper, with five butchers, a working bakery, fish shop and several greengrocers. It is a sharp contrast to nearby Dudley, where the high street has been devastated by the Merry Hill out-of-town shopping centre, nicknamed "Merry Hell" by local residents. In a personal plea to viewers, Charles urges buying just one item a week from local butchers, bakers, grocers and other small shops, thereby guaranteeing their future. This will increase choice in the high street, provide outlets for small suppliers offering quality produce, help cut down the environmental cost of driving to out-of-town superstores and maintain our reputation as a nation of shopkeepers. The SOS campaign continues throughout the series with a weekly visit to some of the oldest food shops in Britain. A number of independent retailer organisations will distribute SOS stickers to their members - small and local shops - in conjunction with Channel Four, helping to get the campaign to the grassroots. In the last few years sales of olive oil has rocketed. It is currently considered a fashionable and healthy addition to our diet. Anne Dolamore, author of The Olive Oil Handbook, reveals the quality of olive oil can vary as widely as wine. There are hundreds of varieties of the product available at different prices, but is it always what it seems? Scott Thomas is the chef at Delicious Blue in London, where he serves a sophisticated version of Australian cuisine. New Australian cookery is as much influenced by Thai and Malaysian flavours as by sun, sea and "barbies". For World in a Stew Scott has come up with a combination of new and old with "Barbecued Red Snapper in Banana Leaves", flavoured with lime leaves, coconut milk, lemon grass and ginger.
- Description:FOURTH SERIES OF THIS VERY SUCCESSFUL INVESTIGATIVE AND INFORMATIVE FOOD SERIES.
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Documentary and Factual
- Producer:Stephens Kerr Ltd.
- Programme Episode:Episode 1
- Transmission Date:16/03/1995
- Rights:On Request
- Decade: 1990s