Pubs using local suppliers and promoting food from their area are to be rewarded by Honest Food, the Countryside Alliance's campaign for independent food.
The organisation has launched its second Locals to Locals competition, which will find the best pub in Britain serving locally-produced food.
Publicans can encourage their customers to nominate them for the award, if they source their food and, in some cases, drink, locally as far as possible.
The organisation hopes that by rewarding pubs that use local suppliers, they will encourage many other pubs around the country to think about the benefits of sourcing ingredients locally.
Honest Food director Dr Helen Szamuely said: "We believe that diversity in food production and consumer choice should be promoted by the customers themselves. Local producers depend on local outlets - and what better way to sell local produce than to customers of the local pub?"
Since the BSE crisis and the foot-and-mouth epidemic, customers have been keen to know where the food they are eating has come from and pubs are discovering the benefits of sourcing local produce.
All six finalists for The Publican Catering Pub of the Year award source food locally and have found it has benefited them enormously.
Anthony Robinson, licensee of the Inn at Farnborough in Oxfordshire, this year's winning pub ,(pictured), said: "We use three local farms for meat. The farmers are keen for the support and in turn they become our customers."
Similarly finalist Colin Ombler from the Bell Inn in Warwickshire, said customers were enthusiastic about local produce. "We're very keen to keep promoting local food - for example we now sell English wine from a nearby vineyard and we do wine tastings to promote that," he said. "We want to create an awareness of local food among our customers."
The first Locals to Locals competition in 2001 was a "surprising success" according to Dr Szamuely.
In the wake of the foot-and-mouth crisis, publicans gave big support to the campaign and the competition received more than 400 entries.
This year Honest Food wants it to be bigger and better and are suggesting licensees keep a stack of entry forms on the bar, to encourage their customers to nominate them.
Nomination forms can be downloaded from the Countryside Alliance website www.countryside-alliance.org or can be ordered from 020 8740 7194.