This paper uses a case study of tourism in the Lake District and Exmoor to explore the relationship between "local food" and sustainable rural tourism in the UK. Drawing on qualitative interviews with tourists, food producers and cafe, pub and restaurant owners, I use an approach based upon the commodity chain to trace the shifts in the discursive and material understandings of the "local" that take place throughout the tourist food chain. These shifts are shown to occur in response to the need to negotiate the tensions between the ideals and the practicalities of food production and consumption which occur as a result of the relationships that exist throughout the food chain. Such conclusions are shown to be important for our understanding of the links between "local food" and sustainable rural tourism because they indicate that we must attend to the values, as well as the practicalities, that drive the contemporary food sector at all stages of the food chain, from production to consumption. (Contains 4 tables.)