And the Canned Food Capital of the UK is...

In a hugely exciting post on their website, Facebook and Twitter pages, Canned Food UK, the not-for-profit organisation that promotes the use of canned foods, have announced that Birmingham is the "Canned Food Capital" of the nation.

The revelation is based on the results of a survey they carried out themselves, which suggested that between them, the people of Brum consume 640,000 cans of food each day (or 265,000kg - the equivalent of 21 double decker buses), more than any other city in the UK. With a little over a million inhabitants, that's pretty good going. Canned Food UK are, however, based in Birmingham themselves, which does make you wonder quite how far their survey extended.

Their fancy new infographic based on the survey's findings also suggests that the national average number of tins eaten per week is four - though whether this is per person or per household, they don't specify. A quarter of Brits eat more canned foods than they did 10 years ago, and half of us have up to 10 cans in the cupboard, with baked beans, tomatoes and tuna being the most popular (though as readers of this blog will know, by no means the most interesting). The favourite childhood tinned foods are revealed to be corned beef, soup and more beans. As I say, hugely exciting stuff.

By strange coincidence, I was back in Birmingham myself only a month ago (you may recall that on a trip to the city last year, I came across a piece of tin-themed street art, a damning indictment of a certain food company's alleged human rights record). I wasn't particularly aware of the city's residents scoffing a load of tinned goods during my time there, but while walking along the main street in the suburb of Moseley, I did spot another, more amusing Pop Art-inspired work, this time on the wall of a coffee shop called Cafephilia:

Closer inspection revealed that it was not a print, like Warhol's original, but a fabric artwork - by none other than Lucy Sparrow, whose Corner Shop installation (where all the shop's products were stitched out of felt) I also visited last year. Yet another coincidence.

And all this comes only a matter of months after a news story about a family finding a dead lizard in a tin of tomatoes. Where did they live? A place called Alum Rock, in BIRMINGHAM.

Clearly, the city truly is deserving of its "Canned Food Capital" moniker.