Manor Lords: How to get food

Wondering how to get food in Manor Lords? Starvation is no laughing matter in Manor Lords, and it’s vital to have a steady supply of food to fill the bellies of your hardworking peasants. There are several different food sources in the game, ranging from Berries to Vegetables, and each requires a unique gathering strategy.

In this guide on how to get food in Manor Lords, we’ve broken down how to acquire each of these food items and outlined which are easier to obtain and which require more effort.

How to get food in Manor Lords

There are a seven food sources in Manor Lords – Apples, Berries, Bread, Eggs, Honey, Meat, and Vegetables. Depending on which food you’re trying to acquire, you’ll either forage in nearby woods, hunt animals for their meat, or harvest plantable crops.

If you have enough Regional Wealth at your disposal, you can also acquire food by engaging in trade and importing it into your town. See our guide to trade rules and trade routes for more information.

For specific advice on each of Manor Lords’ seven food sources, we’ve listed them in alphabetical order below.

Apples

Apples take a long time to harvest. You’ll need the Orchardry Developmental Point upgrade, and the fastest way to obtain this is to build 5 Burgage Plots and reach the Small Village Settlement Level. Then, purchase an Apple Orchard Extension in one of your Burgage Plots.

Planting Apple Orchards is a large expense that costs 50 Regional Wealth, and it’ll take a whopping three years for each orchard to bear up to 2 Apples every September. After the fourth year, your orchards will finally bear up to 6 Apples. In other words, you’re playing the long game with Apples – they’re not recommended at the start of a Manor Lords campaign, but they’re a reliable food source years into your rule.

Berries

Berries are a default food at the start of a Manor Lords run and very easy to acquire. All you need to do is build a Forager Hut near a Berry Deposit, which look like little bowls of grapes on the map.

Taking the Forest Management Developmental Point upgrade is recommended, as it doubles the capacity of all Berry Deposits.

Bread

Bread is a fantastic food source that feeds huge numbers of your populace, but it’s complicated to produce and requires you to get used to farming. You’ll first need to build a Field and Farmhouse on land that has a high Emmer or Rye fertility. You’ll be able to see a heatmap showing off Emmer and Rye levels when you lay down your Field, and you want to keep an eye out for green areas.

Once your Field is built, click it and choose Wheat as the crop you want to plant. You can choose the more resistant Rye if you have the Rye Cultivation Developmental Point upgrade, but Wheat is the logical choice at the start of the game. For the best and fastest results, click on the Farmhouse, select the Threshing Priority to High, and assign as many families as you can to both your Field and Farmhouse. They’ll harvest the crop and turn it into Grain.

Now construct a Windmill to convert that Grain into Flour. The last step in this long process is to bake the Flour into Bread, which you can do with either a Communal Oven or an upgraded Burgage Plot that has a Bakery extension, acquired via the Bakeries Developmental Point upgrade.

Eggs

Eggs are a consistent food source, especially if you can’t afford more complicated sustenance like Bread. You’ll need at least one Burgage Plot, which you should then upgrade with the Chicken Coop Backyard Extension, which costs 25 Regional Wealth. This lets you put chickens in your backyard who yield one Egg every month.

You can generate a decent supply of Eggs by making sure that as many Burgage Plots as possible have the aforementioned Chicken Coop. Eggs can be exported for 2 Regional Wealth each, so there’s a nice bit of recoup on your investment when it comes to this particular foodstuff.

Honey

Honey’s a simple enough food source to acquire, since all you need is the Beekeeping Developmental Point upgrade. This will give you the Apiary, which produces one Honey per month. Apiaries also make Wax, which has limited uses in Early Access at the moment.

You can only have two Apiaries in your settlement at one time (maybe there just aren’t enough bees to go around in these tough medieval times), so you shouldn’t rely on Honey-making as the main means of food production in your town. Use it to supplement a more reliable food like Berries or Eggs as you work your way towards something like Bread.

Meat

Meat is another default food source at the beginning of Manor Lords, alongside Berries. To acquire Meat, build a Hunting Camp near a forest with high numbers of Wild Animals, which are marked with a paw icon on the map.

If you’re looking to acquire more Meat without actually assigning families to the Hunting Camp, try taking the Trapping Developmental Point upgrade. This lets your hunters lay down traps in the woods, generating amounts of passive Meat over time.

Vegetables

Vegetables in Manor Lords are just as good for your villagers as they are for everyone in real life. They’re easy to grow, as well. All you need is a Burgage Plot with the Vegetable Garden Backyard Extension, which costs 15 Regional Wealth.

Growing Vegetables will never let you down, and even though you’ll need to wait six months for your veggie harvest to be ready, a good plot can yield 10 or more Vegetables monthly. Vegetables can also be exported for 2 Regional Wealth each, making them a solid way of generating income alongside Eggs.

That’s a wrap on getting food in Manor Lords. For additional advice, head over to our beginner’s guide, which contains everything you need to know to survive your first year in this epic city-builder. If you’re interested in selling all of this food that you’ve grown, check out our guide on how to make market stalls in Manor Lords.