According to Les Routiers' own description, the Les Routiers sign means "warm hospitality, individual character and local cooking".
In the 2002 Les Routiers Guide, managing director Nicolas Stanley writes that, despite the previous year's change of ownership, Les Routiers still maintains these guiding principles and, in addition, is "strongly committed to promoting many other aspects of good food... not least the greater use of local produce and regional foods".
He goes on to describe the company's "passion for distinctiveness in an age of uniformity and hospitality chains".
This ethic is echoed by editor Elizabeth Carter in the guide's opening article, "Eat the view", in which she claims that Les Routiers has actively begun a campaign to "decrease food miles" in order to focus on the use of local produce - which, she writes, is "invariably fresher, healthier and tastes better".
Local produce has now become a must for any establishment intending to produce quality food, so I was shocked to receive the Les Routiers' 2003/04 Suppliers Guide, in which many national suppliers are included.
One such company listed claims to be the "leading provider of fresh fruit, vegetables, salads and speciality foods" and which "distributes across the whole of Great Britain". Surely any hope of a customer receiving from it anything locally produced would be down to chance alone.
The beverage suppliers listed include Carlsberg-Tetley, Coors, Interbrew UK and Scottish Courage - all powerful national companies. The number of regional breweries forced into closure due to the aggressive nature of these trade giants is an indication of an ideology that focuses on the national rather than the local. Endorsing the Federation of Family Brewers would be a way of providing a national purchasing service while also supporting regional businesses.
Stanley personally encourages the use of these companies through the Suppliers Guide, and writes that trade with them should be "essential elements of your business".
Why is it that Les Routiers has chosen to trade with large national companies while its guide is full of integral hospitality establishments whose ethics Les Routiers claims to share?
The only reasonable conclusion is that it is of economic benefit to itself, potentially at the cost of individual establishments which are actively sourcing produce locally.
I will personally be removing my Les Routiers sign because I believe it has become tainted - and not by the messy stain it has been hiding.