Pigs pub opens allotment for customers

A Norfolk pub chef is inviting customers to use the pub's garden as an allotment to grow produce for the pub's menu.

The Pigs at Edgefield has turned over half of its gar-den to allotments. Customers can have an allotment for nothing as long as when they have grown their fruit and veg the pub can have first pick for their daily specials.

The customers are "paid" in pints or other drinks or meals according to what they've donated. If a customer has provided some of the ingredients for a dish, their name is also used on the specials board as part of the menu description.

Pub manager Cloe Wasey said: "We've got a great big garden out there and we want to get some use from it.

"We've looked at other pubs and a lot of people are doing the allotment thing — only we don't have the time to look after it. We thought we would let the other people with the skills come in and use the land."

The pub also runs a bartering scheme where customers can drop in with produce they have grown and haggle with the manager over whether they were worth two or three pints.

Head chef Tim Abbott said: "The produce is the freshest it can be and it's all in season. It pushes us to come up with different specials."