A new range – called Local Choice – is being launched to provide customers with a variety of products sourced from Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, and will be available in both the Market Rasen and Caistor stores.

A number of new lines form part of the range including cheese, ice cream and frozen yoghurt, mustard and chutney, haslet and chine, curry pastes, flour, cordials, wine, cyder and ale – all produced locally.

The range also includes old favourites which have proved popular with local shoppers like beers from local breweries Batemans and Tom Woods.

It also encompasses products from the national-award winning Lincolnshire Quality Beef, Lamb and Pork scheme – which sources meat directly from 90 county farmers – and Gadsby's bakery, based in Southwell.

Each of Lincolnshire Co-operative's 69 foodstores will have a dedicated Local Choice section, and members will be able to benefit from a 10 x Dividend offer on all local products from Monday, September 29 until Friday, October 10. The normal Dividend on local produce is 5x.

Michael and Mary Davenport make cheese at Cote Hill Farm at Osgodby, and use milk from their own herd of Holstein Friesians and Red Poll cows.

Their Cote Hill Yellow Cheese, an aromatic hard cheese in yellow wax, is part of the Local Choice range.

Michael said: "It is great to see a variety of local producers, with a variety of different foods in this range. It gives me a buzz to be recognised as a Lincolnshire business – it's not just a faceless product. It's very exciting."

Another part of the range is Organic Stoneground Wholemeal Flour, Organic Stoneground Breadmaker Blend Flour and Organic Stoneground Spelt Flour, milled at Mount Pleasant Windmill at Kirton in Lindsey.
Marie-Christine Austin from the mill said she was 'proud' to be involved in the scheme.

"I shop in my local Lincolnshire Co-op and I know that there is more and more local produce and Fairtrade. The Co-op are doing what everyone else is just talking about and I'm really proud to be involved in this," she said.