Tool · companion to “Distance and Depth”

Where the value is kept

Two ways to bring a food product's value home, and they are axes, not rivals: shorten the distance to the customer, and deepen the value made in the valley before the product leaves. Pick a product, pull both levers, and watch how much value stays local — and note the gate: processing only keeps value home if it is owned in the valley.

SupermarketWholesaleRegionalBox/shopFarm gate
Processing is owned in the valley (the gate — turn off to see value leak out)
raw value kept (distance) value added in-valley (depth) added value leaving to the chain
£0.30
VALUE KEPT IN THE VALLEY, per kg of raw produce
1.0×
vs selling raw commodity
A
commodity
£0m
EXTRA VALUE KEPT /yr (regional)
0
RURAL JOBS IT COULD FUND
What the kept value could be reinvested in
People & labour £0m Infrastructure £0m Technology £0m New crops / planting £0m
The map
A
B · direct & raw
D · made & sold here
A · commodity
C · processed,
shipped out
distance: long → short →
depth: low → high →

Illustrative scenario arithmetic. Per-product raw price, commodity farm-share, the processing value-ladder and regional output are rough planning figures (Grade B on the supermarket-share, carbon and import-headroom context; the splits are assumptions). Lever ① redistributes a fixed raw price by shortening the chain; lever ② creates new value by processing, so the consumer pays more for a more finished product — and that added value only stays home if the processing is owned in the valley. Lamb is shown for contrast: it can really only pull lever ① (plus PGI), has little import-substitution headroom and a high footprint; vegetables and “made in the valley” products can pull both.