Find My Local Charcoal

Why Local Charcoal ?

How is it produced ?

History & Tradition

Why use local charcoal ?

There are many reasons to choose to use Local Charcoal in preference to imported charcoal and other barbecue fuels

Support your local environment and wildlife

The production of locally produced charcoal is good for the environment and for local wildlife.

British woodlands have drastically declined in the last one hundred years, but woodcolliers use wood from local hardwoods and coppiced woodlands, significantly contributing to the sustainable management and protection of our woodland habitats for wildlife and for generations to come.

Nine out of ten bags of charcoal sold in the UK come from overseas, predominantly from endangered tropical rainforest and mangrove habitats of South America, West Africa and South East Asia. Huge environmental damage is caused by unsustainable deforestation and the resulting forest fires and floods in these regions. In the past twenty years, about half of the earth's mangrove swamps have been destroyed. To make matters worse, their loss is also linked to coral reef destruction. In addition, we add to the negative environmental impact through the consumption of fossil fuels transporting charcoal so far around the world to the UK.

Coppicing is the successional cutting of broadleaf woodland. This encourages the tree “stool” to sprout a number of new shoots which can be cut again in years to come. The cycle can then be repeated in a sustainable way. Coppicing reinvigorates woodland by removing diseased and old wood, allowing trees to direct their resources to healthy new shoots which grow vigourously. The cyclical pattern of cut and growth allows migrating areas of light and shade in our woodlands, encouraging greater biodiversity of plant, insect and animal life. Many butterflies and flowers require the sunlight that is associated with freshly cut coppice, whereas growth from the stools provides an ideal habitat for many birds and animals. Dormice are just one very rare species whose survival is heavily dependent upon coppice management in our woodlands.

Coppicing has been the mainstay of woodland management in the UK for many thousands of years. It is likely too, that evidence of coppiced material in the UK dating from 6000 years back is the earliest evidence available in the world. Trees that are continually coppiced can continue to live for many centuries (sometimes thousands of years) and perhaps one of the most astonishing facts about our countryside is that very often the oldest trees are those that have been coppiced the most.

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