This month, Caterer has asked kitchens in three different parts of the industry to join an experiment: to source as much regional British food as possible. With British Food Fortnight being celebrated later this month, we wanted to see what barriers were stopping chefs going local, and what business advantages there were for those who did.

But it's not just the timing of this marketing exercise for British food that prompts this debate. The recent report on food miles from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) once again highlighted the increasing impact that the global food industry has on the environment.

With Britain sourcing more of its food from overseas, the use of air freight to transport it doubled from 1992 to 2002. Carbon dioxide emissions, as a result, have leapt.

There are wider issues at stake. As highlighted in Caterer's four-part series about the supply chain (in our issues of 7-28 April), the Government has recognised that our own supply chain needs to change - to include more home-produced foodstuffs with shorter travel distances - if it is to have any chance of becoming environmentally and socially sustainable. Its own programme, the Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative (PSFPI), has tried to influence this change by turning its own spending power towards, for instance, smaller producers.

Reaction among suppliers and public-sector caterers has been mixed, not least because of tight budgets, stretched staff and issues of food cost, consistency and quality of supply - issues that also face the private sector when it comes to reversing the habits and altering the infrastructure that have built up over the past few decades.

But, just as there are challenges, there are also benefits. For both the private and the public sectors, concerns over traceability can be met more easily with local supplies. Better food can be put on the table - organic or locally sourced food is not always better, but small-scale farmers put a lot of care into producing food that is often that little bit special. It also encourages chefs to learn more about produce, and reskills their kitchen brigades.

So what does happen when three kitchens try to source as much local food as they can? A full report will appear in time for British Food Fortnight but, in the meantime, meet the three kitchens that are taking part.

Nottingham City Hospital
A hospital kitchen would not be the most obvious standard-bearer for the sourcing of more local food. With bulk buying, national contracts and an EU-wide tendering process, not to mention the increasing tyranny of budget cuts in healthcare, it hardly looks rosy for the ruddy-faced farmer down the road.

However, the catering provision at Nottingham City Hospital has always been a bit special, thanks to catering manager John Hughes. While some suppliers and caterers paid lip service to Defra's PSFPI, Hughes announced plans for a workshop, organised with the help of the East Midlands Food Forum, for 50 representatives from other hospitals, plus farmers, suppliers and wholesalers in the region.

His aim was to set out his entire menu for the year - what quantities were needed, at what price, and when - and thus create a methodical foundation to see if the PSFPI could be put into practice. Testing feasibility in this way was a reality check, but Hughes is not

one to be bogged down by negatives. "We can't get everything we need locally," he says, "but I think we can source around 20-25%."

That would be 25% more than before. Although this proportion is much less than that achieved by the other kitchens in this experiment, given that Hughes is in the public sector, his is the biggest challenge.

A local dairy, for instance, looks promising as the supplier of the 800 pints of milk the hospital needs each day. But that partnership could be put aside because Hughes has to complete the EU's competitive tendering process. "I can't specify 'Cambridge tomatoes', or that the milk needs to come from within 12 miles," he says. Moreover, the milk could cost 6,000 more coming from the local dairy. And as Hughes points out: "Given that many trusts have huge deficits, if you can save 5,000 or 6,000, the PFSPI is the first thing to go in the bin."

More positive, however, is the flexible "chef's special menu", which will allow the hospital kitchen to take one-off orders from a greater number of suppliers. Birmingham fruit-and-veg wholesaler Miner, Weir and Wills, for instance, has already said it will list what is less expensive each month. Hughes stresses that he wants to "stop cost being king" but, by being flexible and being able to do deals, he can spend more elsewhere. In other words, he can implement traditional kitchen management.

For head chef Chris Neale and production manager Perry Lewis, that will mean more work - but also, Hughes hopes, more motivation. "It will get the senior staff to have conversations with the suppliers," he says. "Yes, it means more work for me and for my staff, but although there's no compulsion, there is a moral imperative."

• Patient capacity: 1,000
• Meals served per week: potentially 21,000
• Current percentage of food sourced locally (estimate): 5%

The Fountain, Clent
When chef-proprietor Richard Macey and his wife, Jacqui, arrived at the Fountain pub near the north Worcestershire village of Clent in 1998, the food on offer was all scampi and chips, gammon and chips or quiche and chips - "basket meals," sighs Macey.

Within six months, though, his team had turned things around by improving food quality. All meat now comes from butcher Phil Paddock in Hagley, two miles away, while game comes from Severn Valley Game, based in nearby Highley.

But Macey wants to go further. Fruit and veg currently come from Price's Wholesale in Kidderminster, which gets its produce from the Birmingham market, where it it is very likely to have come from overseas. So Macey wants to investigate more small market gardeners.

The pub's handyman visits a lot of farms, so Macey has asked him to report back on any produce he could buy directly.

Price, though, is a problem. Macey says that he has never known smaller, local farmers to be cheaper than wholesalers, but he believes his local clientele are prepared to pay more for good food. He adds that supporting local farmers should encourage them to support him with their custom. "What goes around, comes around," he says.

Macey wants ultimately to have 70% of what he serves sourced locally - he sees this as a realistic target. "I have been a chef for 25 years," he says, "but you get into a rut, you get comfortable. You need a boost to look for new things. After all, you always need to be better tomorrow."

• Dining capacity: 62
• Meals served per week: 800
• Gross profit: 64%
• Current percentage of food sourced locally (estimate): 50%

Swinton Park
On the face of it, the easiest task in our three test kitchens falls to Andy Burton, head chef at Samuel's, the fine-dining restaurant at the Swinton Park hotel in North Yorkshire.

Swinton Park is part of a privately owned 20,000-acre estate, so the kitchen has a rich supply of produce from the surrounding land: game, meat from tenant farmers, local market produce and, perhaps best of all, the output of a walled kitchen garden, where award-winning gardener Susan Cunliffe-Lister (who is also chairman of the estate's limited company) nurtures herbs, vegetables and fruit.
Burton's part in the experiment came about when he decided to put all this produce to good use and introduce the Provenance Menu.

This will run alongside the restaurant's main menu (which already uses about 90% British produce) and will aim to use 100% local produce - apart from kitchen staples such as seasoning and olive oil.

By setting the kitchen such a difficult challenge, Burton is going to need all his skill in designing dishes and ensuring consistent quality. "At our level, consistency is at the heart of it," he says.

This can be hard to achieve. The garden produces its crops only in small quantities so, for example, there may only be spinach for a week. Farmers might slaughter only two cows at a time. A day-boat from Whitby might be offering just one or two turbot. "The point is, you know it's in small amounts, but it's the best," says Burton. "It will introduce chefs coming through the kitchen to different produce."
Another problem will come in winter, when the variety of ingredients reduces dramatically. But this, Burton hopes, will force the chefs to be more inventive.

Burton works to a typical 65% gross profit, but the expense of buying from smaller producers is balanced by the output of the garden. At any rate, like Richard Macey at the Fountain, Burton feels a responsibility to support local producers. "If you screw suppliers right down, they can't afford to grow such good produce," he says. "It's also bringing money into the local economy."

• Dining capacity: 60
• Meals served per week: 490
• Gross profit: 65%
• Current percentage of food sourced locally (estimate): 90%