How Foraging Brings Us Back to Our Roots

In recent years, foraging has experienced a remarkable rise in interest – a growing movement that encourages people to reconnect with nature and the seasons. Though it’s currently gaining significant traction, the roots of this practice trace back millennia. For our distant ancestors, this age-old practice would simply have been a way of life – or rather, a necessity.

Interestingly, research even shows us that humans have a unique ability to distinguish reds and greens more effectively than many other mammals, a trait that has evolved over millions of years. This enhanced colour vision is believed to be fine-tuned to help us judge the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, an essential skill for foraging.

In today’s society, where many are desperately disconnected from the origins of their food and the people who grow it, foraging offers a way to reconnect with nature. A route back to the source.

SHIFTING SEASONS

Our UK sourcing team works directly with foragers from Wales to the highlands of Scotland to bring wild foods to you.

Many have rare profiles that are uniquely tied to their natural growing environments. Take Salty Fingers – succulent leaves full of tangy, saline juice – or Rock Samphire which harbours an intense carrot-like flavour with some herbal bitterness.⁠ Our wild products are often limited in supply and this is because the start – and end – of their seasons can be unpredictable.

Indeed, for the forager, the changing seasons are paramount to their practice.

In spring, woods and hedgerows come alive with edible greens like Alexander Buds, while Sea Purslane and Sea Beet flourish in sandy soil along the coast. In forests, foragers carefully gather Green Pine Cones and Spruce Tips.

Come summer, British landscapes are dotted with the bright colours of Meadowsweet and Damsons, while fragrant, creamy-white Elderflower blankets everything from roadside shrubs to forest edges.

Autumn ushers in an abundance of mushroom varieties including Scottish Girolles and Chicken of the Woods. It’s also a prime time for hedgerow fruits such as Rose Hips, Elderberries and Sloes, among many others. Meanwhile, winter opens up a new landscape of possibilities, with an array of nuts ready to be discovered.

wild garlic

Wild Garlic is one of the defining foraged plants of this time of year, thriving in shaded woodlands with its vibrant green leaves and distinctive aroma. We follow it through its entire life cycle – from Leaves and Buds to Flowers and Capers (with the exception of Bulbs) – working closely with foragers like Guy in Cornwall to bring this wild plant to you.

Sourcing wild food and supporting the foragers who hold valuable knowledge is an important part of challenging an industrialised food system that favours all-year-round availability, homogenised flavours and dependable yields. These resilient plants offer up valuable sources of nutrient-dense food while restoring our connection to nature through the truest example of seasonality.

Guy spends hours selectively cutting Wild Garlic from the forest floor, before meticulously sorting through his stock, removing any foreign leaves. This is labour-intensive work, demanding expert knowledge and a respect for the plant’s natural environment. Proper harvesting methods encourage regrowth, while overpicking can have the opposite effect. Each patch should be left for three or four years to regenerate.

our foragers

This duty of care is shared by all the foragers we work with. They prioritise preserving biodiversity and protecting the environment, ensuring that foraging never comes at the cost of depleting natural resources.

With this in mind, our foragers only collect from plentiful populations – leaving ample resources for wildlife and allowing plants and fungi to regenerate.

They understand that all plants are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) which makes it illegal to uproot any wild plant without a landowner's permission. Additionally, certain rare or vulnerable species are further protected, prohibiting picking or uprooting.

By adhering to these regulations, our foragers ensure that their practices contribute to the conservation of natural habitats and the sustainability of wild plant populations.

BRANCHING OUT

Imagine strolling through your local park or walking through city streets, not just to get somewhere, but as a chance to discover edible treasures hidden along the way. Though generally associated with the countryside, more and more city dwellers are turning to foraging as a way to reconnect with nature in the midst of busy urban landscapes – a practice that grows an awareness of surroundings and extends an opportunity to not only get out in nature but to pick, smell and taste it.

“Urban foraging is an intimate study and interaction with the living world around us,” writes London-based forager and author, Wross Lawrence in National Geographic.

Wross is part of a growing community of professional urban foragers in the UK, some of whom offer guided neighborhood walks. These walks teach participants how to safely identify wild plants, deepen their knowledge of their uses, and explore ethical foraging practices.

HUNGRY FOR MORE?

If you’d like to venture out and have a go at foraging in your own local area, ⁠we’d recommend joining a guided walk with an expert. Check out these important guidelines by Woodland Trust and Food Standards Agency on foraging sustainably and responsibly to help you stay safe and within the law.

You can also head to the Wild & Foraged section of our app to stay up to date with our latest produce.

Further reading and resources:

• Foraging: What to look out for each month, Woodland Trust
• The Forager's Calendar: A Seasonal Guide to Nature’s Wild Harvests, John Wright
• Identifying edible and poisonous wild plants, Wild Food UK
• How urban foraging became became the new way to explore a city, National Geographic