Nothing beats supporting the local community, especially in times of crisis. We’ve listed five great places to source your local groceries – from locally grown fruit and veg to cheese and artisan bread, cakes and other sweets. Featured photo of the goats at Geertjes Hoeve by Jurjen Drenth Locals Utrecht It started as a pop-up store, but Locals Utrecht is now certain of a shop on Vismarkt until the end of this year. So this platform for local Utrecht makers, where you can order weekly parcels of delicious local food, now has a physical base. They sell fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese, eggs, meat, traditional bread, cakes, sweets and biscuits, and alcoholic and soft drinks made by Fungi Factory, Roze Bunker, Twisted Jams, De Koekfabriek, Mesjokke, Keen Coffee, Brouwerij Eleven and De Veldkeuken. What’s more, the initiators Mart and Daan will be there armed with hot coffee and freshly made rolls. > Vismarkt 2 localsutrecht.nl Nieuw Slagmaat It’s a great bike ride or walk in itself: the journey to the Nieuw Slagmaat farm, close to Fort bij Vechten and the Nieuw Wulven forest. Here, yhey do not only grow kiwis, apples, pears, plums, cherries, red currants, kiwi berries, peaches and nectarines, but they also have a large vegetable patch with beets, pumpkins, courgettes and other vegetables. All the fresh products are sold in the farm shop, as well as meat, dairy, cheese, eggs, jams and fruit juices (without additives) they make from their own fruit and lots of other locally sourced products. Feel free to check out the animals on the farm and have a cup of coffee, tea or juice while admiring the view. > Marsdijk 5, Bunnik nieuwslagmaat.nl Koningshof A great trip to the eastern edge of the city: on Saturdays you can head over to Koningshof, an urban agriculture initiative. From a market stall, they sell fresh products from their own garden and greenhouse. To ensure nothing is lost, what is left of the harvest will be processed in jams, juices and chutneys. Besides Koningshof’s own products, you can also buy other tasty stuff from local initiatives, such as the syrups by Roze Bunker, dried sausages made by Buitengewone Varkens, fresh eggs from Biohof, cheese from Bioboerderij Miltenburg, fruit juice from De Slagmaat, ice cream made by NICE and lots more. > Koningsweg 135A koningshof-utrecht.nl De Parkwinkel You could best describe this initiative by Landhuis in de Stad in Oog en Al park as an online neighbourhood supermarket. De Parkwinkel aims to provide platform for the local food chain, make responsibly produced food more accessible to everyone and pay the producers a fair price. In the online shop you will find, among other things, Zwamsap’s kombucha, fruit from the Nieuw Slagmaat farm, wine by Wijn van Jaap, Wilder Land tea, Fungi Factory’s oyster mushrooms and beer brewed by the Hommeles brewery. deparkwinkel.nl Geertje’s Hoeve This farm close to De Haar Castle is a great place for kids to get a taste of real farm life. They can give the lambs a bottle of warm milk, feed the goats, ride a pony, cuddle the animals, play on a straw circuit or drive a toy tractor around the farmyard. The old barn has been converted into a restaurant. The farm shop sells local and artisanal products, such as meat, dairy, eggs and cheese. Geertje’s Hoeve is famous for the products they make using the milk of their own goats, such as the many different varieties of goat cheese, goat milk, goat ice cream and feta cheese. > Thematerweg 5, Haarzuilens geertjeshoeve.nl/engels