The decision to buy local is a decision to support your local area.

Inevitably, buying local helps to keep local people in business. This in turn helps to create local jobs and a strong local economy. By spending your money with a local producer you can help lead to greater economic stability and growth within the local area, helping to safeguard and even create new jobs for local people, all adding to the local economic wealth.

By purchasing local handmade and homemade goods you are keeping traditional skills alive. By maintaining the demand for these items you help ensure the skilled techniques are passed on to new generations of producers. It also means that you will own a unique piece of local heritage.

However, there are many obvious benefits for you, too.

One is flavour. Local, seasonal food tastes far superior to the fruit and vegetables that have been picked long before they have had a chance to develop any flavour, just so they could travel thousands of miles.

The under-ripe, out-of-season tomatoes that we have in UK supermarkets have come all the way from South America, so it is no wonder that they taste of nothing.

Local food generally undergoes less processing because the length of the supply chain is shorter. The need to preserve the food for long periods of time is not necessarily needed so the food is fresher when it reaches you.

By buying local food, you are receiving the freshest possible produce, traceable back to the point of production.

The distance a particular food has to travel to reach our plate is commonly referred to as food miles. More transportation simply means increased use of fossil fuels and helps to protect the environment from harmful exhaust fumes and higher emissions, which contribute to climate change - something that affects us all. Hence, locally produced goods help to preserve our environment.

Buying locally also creates the opportunity for you to build a relationship with your supplier, learning about what he or she knows best — the local area. You can ask questions about how your goods are produced and make sure you are happy with the answers!