How to Get Food

Food is a key resource vital to surviving throughout the year in Manor Lords. See a list of Food, including the best food sources and how to get them, as well as how to increase food production and supply food!

List of Food

All Food Sources

Meat	Vegetables	Berries
Bread	Eggs	Apples
Honey

Food keeps your settlement alive and happy. If you don't have enough food, your villagers starve, your approval goes down, and you face either a revolt or mass death.

How to Get Food

How to Get Food
Hunt Animals Forage Berries Bake Bread Build Backyard Extensions Construct Apiaries Import Food

Hunt Animals

One of the two most basic ways of securing food is building Hunting Camps and assigning people to hunt down wild animals for meat. This is highly recommended if your region has a rich deposit for wild animals.

Forage Berries

The other basic way to secure food is to forage berries by building Forager Huts and assigning people to scout for berries, especially if your region has a rich deposit for berries.

As a note, berries are only in season from spring to fall, so make sure you harvest enough of them before winter comes.

Bake Bread

Steps to Make Bread
Wheat / Rye → Grain → Flour → Bread

Bread is a good food source in the winter when no berries or vegetables can be produced. Start by planting Wheat or Rye at a field, then once it's harvested to the Farmhouse and turned into Grain, have it milled into Flour using a Windmill.

From there, you'll be ready to bake Bread either at a Communal Oven or at a Bakery Extension.

Build More Communal Ovens or Bakeries

You may encounter situations where you're producing a lot of Wheat or Rye, but you're barely making any Bread. This can happen when you have too much Flour and not enough workers or buildings to bake bread.

Check your Granary to see how much Flour you have stored, and if you have a lot stored up, build one or two more Communal Ovens or Bakeries so that you can convert it into bread.

Build Backyard Extensions

If you have enough Regional Wealth and Construction Resources, upgrade your Burgage Plots to have a Chicken Coop or Vegetable Garden as their backyard extension. This can help produce even more food as you will passively gain food without having to assign workers to a building.

Later on, when you get more development points, you can also unlock Orchardry for Apple production. This will unlock the Apple Orchard, which is another backyard extension that you can build.

List of Backyard Extensions

Construct Apiaries

Besides Apples, Honey is the only other food source that's locked behind a Development. This food source can only be obtained through an Apiary, which can only be built once Beekeeping is unlocked.

Once it's unlocked, you're free to build Apiaries to farm Honey for your townsfolk. However, you can only construct 2 Apiaries per region before Honey production is maxed out. Keep this in mind before you start building more Apiaries.

Import Food

If you need more sources of food, or your region is struggling to produce food, you can import some either through a Trading Post or a Food Cart, once you've unlocked the Foreign Suppliers Development. Make sure you have enough Regional Wealth to support this, otherwise you won't be able to purchase food and your citizens will go hungry.

Reload Save if Food Cart's Bugged

There's currently a bug where the food cart caps out at 5 Bread and it will stop generating food. If this happens, demolish the cart first before you make and reload a save. When you rebuild the cart, it should now be working properly again.

If you know of a better fix for this bug, let us know in the comments below!

Best Ways to Get Food

Early-Game: Gathering and Hunting

When you start a new game, you'll want to set up a Hunting Camp and Forager Hut as your main sources of food. Prioritize working on whichever has a Rich Deposit first before you build the other one.

These methods are great for the early to mid-game, but it might not be enough to sustain your town in the late game. Use these methods to jump-start your village and find more efficient ways to mass-produce food later on.

Only Farm Crops if the Region Has Good Fertility

While you can also farm Wheat to make Bread in the early game, you should only do so if your region has good Emmer Fertility.

Working a Farmhouse and Wheat Field uses up a lot of time and manpower, and you should only invest in it if you can get around 50-60% Emmer Fertility.

Mid-Game: Backyard Extensions

As you build more Burgage Plots during the mid-game, you'll want to build food-producing backward extensions, like Chicken Coops and Vegetable Gardens, to feed your village. This way you can passively produce food, with the only cost being some Regional Wealth when you build it.

If you have an extra development point to spare, consider unlocking Orchardry since Apples can become a great source of food. Once you've built multiple orchards and they're fully grown, Apples can easily sustain your entire town during Winter.

Late-Game: Trading and Food Carts

Once you hit late-game, and your Living Space count starts to reach triple digits, you'll want to start importing food to feed your citizens. Purchase food through a Trading Post or build a Food Cart so that you're passively gaining Bread.

Remember to generate a lot of Regional Wealth, otherwise, your food supply will get cut off and your villagers will go hungry. Also, you'll need to unlock the Foreign Suppliers Development before you can build a Food Cart.

Best Food Sources

Always Good Options

Generally Great Food Sources
Eggs	Bread	Apples

These food sources are great regardless of what kind of region you start in.

Eggs can easily be obtained all year round as long as you've built a Chicken Coop. Build these in as many Burgage Plots as you can so that you have a massive amount of eggs to satiate your townspeople's hunger.

Bread is also a great food source that you can get even if you don't have a region that can support Wheat or Rye farming. All you have to do is import Wheat, Rye, or Flour so that you can bake it yourself. You can also build a Food Cart to passively gain Bread, but you'll need to unlock the Foreign Suppliers Development first.

Apples are an amazing source of food once 3 years have passed and the orchard's fully grown. However, you'll still need to invest in the Orchardry Development, so you should only consider building Apple Orchards if you have a development point to spare and you're not doing a Trade-heavy build.

Dependent on Region

Region Dependent Food Sources
Meat	Berries	Wheat / Rye

These food sources are generally dependent if the region you're in has a Rich Deposit for it, or if the land's Emmer or Rye Fertility is green. If the region only has regular Berry and Wild Animal deposits, or it cannot grow tons of Wheat or Rye, then it would be better to look for major food sources elsewhere.

If you're starting the game, it's still recommended to build a Hunting Camp and Forager Hut since they will help you survive the early-game. However, you'll need to start looking for other food sources that can feed more and more people as your town grows.

Only if You Need Varied Food Sources

Varied Food Sources
Vegetables	Honey

These food sources are okay but are generally only used if you need varied food sources to fulfill a Burgage Plot's requirements.

Vegetables can be a great source of food if you have large backyard extensions to support it. However, they won't grow during Winter, and you'll need other food sources to support your village when the season comes around.

Honey can be a good way to get food, but you'll need to unlock the Beekeeping Development first, and production caps out at 2 Apiaries. This is great for the early game, but it won't be able to produce food to feed the entire villager the later the game goes.

How to Increase Food Production

Reassign Non-Essential Workers

If you don't have enough food and your citizens are starting to grow hungry, you should reassign any non-essential workers, like those working at a Clay Furnace or Dye Workshop, so that you can move them to work at food generating buildings instead.

Hold Tab to Check Building and Worker Overview

If you're having difficulty checking which buildings have workers assigned to them, you can hold Tab on your keyboard to see an overview of your buildings and workers. This lets you easily assess which and how many workers need to be reassigned.

Unlock Developments

List of Developments
Farming	・Orchardry ・Rye Cultivation ・Bakeries
Gathering	・Trapping ・Advanced Skinning ・Forest Management ・Beekeeping
Trade	・Foreign Suppliers ・Better Deals

These Developments will help increase the amount of food you gain, making them worthwhile investments if you need more food.

Farming Developments

Orchardry lets you build a backyard extension that produces Apples. However, these can only be harvested during September and you'll need to wait 3 years before an Apple Orchard reaches its full potential.

Rye Cultivation is great if your region has bad Emmer/Wheat Fertility. This lets you grow a wheat substitute in mediocre fertility conditions that normally won't allow you to produce enough flour to bake a lot of bread.

Bakeries lets you convert a Level 2 Burgage Plot into a more efficient version of a Communal Oven. This way, you can produce more Bread with fewer workers when compared to a Communal Oven.

Gathering Developments

Trapping lets your Hunting Camp passively generate Meat. Combine this with Advanced Skinning, and you can generate a lot of Meat from a single Hunting Camp, especially if it's a rich deposit.

Forest Management is great if you have a Rich Berry Deposit. This will double the berries from 128 to 256 if it's a rich deposit. However, if it's a regular deposit, it will only go from 64 to 128, which is the same as a rich deposit without the development unlocked.

Beekeeping allows you to build Apiaries that generates Honey. However, you can only build 2 Apiaries per region since any more than that won't change how much Honey you'll get.

Trade Developments

Foreign Suppliers unlock the option to build a Food Cart, which will always generate some Bread as long as you have the Regional Wealth to support it.

Better Deals lowers the importing price of goods, making it cheaper to purchase food at a Trading Post. Combine this with Trade Logistics, and you can make dedicated food trading routes for only 25 Regional Wealth.

How to Supply Food

Set Up a Marketplace for Food Stalls

Set up a Marketplace in your settlement and your villagers will automatically set up a Food Stall to supply food to the village. Having a larger settlement will require more food sources to feed villagers and raise their approval rating.

Build Extra Granaries

If your food stall supply is low and your villagers aren't being fed, it could be from a lack of people transporting food. This is especially noticeable if you're heavily relying on importing a lot of food through a Trading Post.

Consider building extra Granaries so that you can assign more workers to transport food out of a building's pantry storage and into a food stall.

Manor Lords Related Guides

List of All Resources

Types of Resources

List of Resources
Currency	Food	Construction
Crops	Fuel	Crafting
Raw Resource	Commodity	Military
Livestock