May 2010· Vol 11 Issue 4
MEASURE FOR PLEASURE What’s flavour of the month in seasonings? CHESTER’S CHEESE SHOP
Why Carole Faulkner favours Caws Cenarth over Brie de Meaux every time
BOOKS, CDs… AND HAMPERS Online giant amazon edges quietly into deli territory
BESPOKE FOODS’ PIERS ADAMSON
“There aren’t many secrets left in Europe any more”
INSIDE: SWEET & SAVOURY BISCUITS CAFÉ MOO ITALIAN MEATS BOTTLED CIDERS POTTED SHRIMPS THE SMOKEHOUSE
Visit Harrogate’s annual speciality food show on June 20-21 at the Yorkshire Event Centre where you’ll discover the very best local, regional, national and international producers and suppliers all under one roof Discover a world of fine food in the heart of Britain ing n e p O s 0 time 2 June
ay Sund 0-16.00 11.0 June 21 ay Mond 0-16.00 09.3
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Harr he Spec ogate iality Food will h Show pro ost
gra af attra mme of antastic inspi ctions d free visi e r t idease you, pr signed toor es a a mo nd help y ent new re s ou r businuccessful un ess.
Where can I find… • truffle oils • taleggio • wensleydale • white pudding • potato vodka • parma ham • sarsaparilla • shopfittings • boquerones • burgundy wines • seaweed • sea salt • plum loaf • pâtés • sugared almonds • scottish oatcakes • jute bags • jordanian sweets • game pâté • grills • tills • clotted cream • cajun sauces • fish-cakes • flowering teas • port wines • peppermint creams
…in one visit?
The fair was a pleasure to visit again this year and it was good to see a cross-section of new independent suppliers. Jim Corfield, Buyer, Partridges of Sloane Square
Organised by
Feed the dragon Great Taste Live Teach-Ins Exclusive show discounts Product launches Free Goodie bag Win a hamper Over 130 exhibitors Visit www.finefoodworld.co.uk/harrogate to register for your FREE visitor ticket.
opinion
in this issue
You’ve probably noticed a recent bout of Election fever – the tedium lifted only by newsreels of stranded Brits describing tortuous journeys back to Broken Britain without the help of Ryanair or Easyjet. What’s really weird is how calamity focuses minds on where our food comes from. BSE in the 1990s and foot-and-mouth earlier this century spawned farmers’ markets and shiny new farm shops and gave half the population a new urge to buy local. Then, when that Icelandic volcano began belching out ash, we heard how tons of mange tout were rotting in Kenya rather than chilling out in British supermarkets because all 747s had been grounded. Far be it from me to spread doom and gloom, but volcanoes have a habit of erupting for longer than a couple of days. The one in Sicily has spewed out aero-engine-clogging dust since 1984. Even if the Icelandic cloud has drifted off the radar by the time you read this, our dependence on food flown from all corners of the globe is looking increasingly fragile. Any day now it’ll dawn on yet more supermarket trolleypushers that home-grown is a safer, more environmentally sound option than relying on stuff made by foreigners. Check out the post-election wishes of industry big-wigs that we’ve rounded up on page 5 of this issue and you’ll see several calls for a new Buy British drive. But hold on just a pea-picking minute! If several million more Brits kick Tesco and Asda into touch and rock up at their local farm shop, can British farmers handle it? I don’t think so. For starters, the average age of a British farmer is 59. Most are winding down to retirement and the chances of many school leavers, with their GCSEs in leisure & tourism or dance appreciation opting for farming apprenticeships are remote. Apprenticeships hardly exist, anyway. Even if they did, no first-time buyer could afford their own farm: lawyers and hedge fund managers have snapped them all up at eye-watering prices. All of which worries me witless because we import 40% of everything we eat and it’s getting worse. During election build-up I tackled my local MP, who assured me that on his party’s return to power he’d raise the matter at the earliest opportunity. That’s likely to be a while because his speaking record has been well below average throughout his 13 year tenancy of a seat in the heart of farming country. In desperation, I trawled the manifestos. There was plenty about increasing the minimum wage and NI, prohibiting the sale of below-cost booze and fining small shops for selling fags to teenagers. There’s even agreement on the need for a supermarket ombudsman but not a single word about British food production. That’s why we’ll need more than an ill wind from Iceland to force us into addressing our eating habits.
❝If several million more Brits rock up at their local farm shop, can British farmers handle it? I don’t think so.❞
Bob Farrand
Bob Farrand is publisher of Fine Food Digest and national director of the Guild of Fine Food
What they’re saying ❝British soldiers eating Dutch bacon sandwiches is not good for national pride. The next administration must be stronger in directing where those responsible for feeding the public workforce source their ingredients.❞ Jonathan Knight, chief executive, Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and Humber – p4
fine food news
Online giant Amazon slips speciality food onto its Kitchen & Home selection p4
interview: piers adamson
The Bespoke Foods boss tells us why he’s looking beyond Europe for new product inspiration p14
focus on: biscuits
Are savoury crackers becoming too clever by half? p29
product updates: salts, seasonings & spices p35 bottled ciders
p37
regulars:
news deli of the month deli chef cheesewire shelf talk
4 17 21 25 38
EDITORIAL Editor: Mick Whitworth News editor: Patrick McGuigan Art director: Mark Windsor Editorial production: Richard Charnley Contributors: Gail Hunt, Lynda Searby ADVERTISING Sales manager: Sally Coley Advertisement sales: Becky Stacey Circulation manager: Tortie Farrand Publisher & managing director: Bob Farrand Associate publisher & director: John Farrand THE GUILD OF FINE FOOD Membership secretary & director: Linda Farrand Administrators: Charlie Westcar, Julie Coates Accounts: Stephen Guppy, Denise Ballance
t: 01963 824464 Fax: 01963 824651 e: firstname.lastname@finefoodworld.co.uk w: www.finefoodworld.co.uk Published by: Great Taste Publications Ltd and The Guild of Fine Food Ltd. Fine Food Digest is published 10 times a year and is available on subscription for £40pa inclusive of post and packing. Printed by: Advent Colour, Hants © Great Taste Publications Ltd and The Guild of Fine Food Ltd 2010. Reproduction of whole or part of this magazine without the publisher’s prior permission is prohibited. The opinions expressed in articles and advertisements are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, recipes, photographs or illustrations. Vol.11 Issue 1 · January-February 2010
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fine food news Entry of web retailing giant into fine foods could put online delis under pressure
Amazon slips into speciality food sector through third-party sellers By PATRICK McGUIGAN
Amazon is trialling sales of speciality food and drink through its UK website, offering hampers of wellknown fine food brands such as Inverawe smoked salmon, Bay Tree chutney and Fudges biscuits. Despite an official policy of not selling groceries, Amazon UK has quietly allowed several third-party companies to sell food through its Kitchen & Home Section in the past year. Amazon seller Smart Gift Solutions, for example, sells hampers containing products such as Mull of Kintyre cheddar truckles, Inverawe smoked salmon and Fudges biscuits with prices starting at £23.49, while Thorntons chocolates and food from small producers in Orkney are available from other suppliers. The move is likely to increase pressure on delis and farm shops who sell via the internet, with the online market for hampers already crowded with large companies offering increasingly competitive prices.
“Amazon is unlikely to do food retailing itself, but third-party suppliers are an easy way for it to add incremental sales,” said retail analyst Natalie Berg at Planet Retail. “This trial will put pressure on delis and farm shops, especially if is rolled out further and prices are driven down.” Amazon has piloted a home grocery delivery service in Seattle called Amazon Fresh, which is similar to Ocado. According to Rob Ward, who runs the Food Marketing Network, the company would be unlikely to launch a similar project in the UK where the big supermarkets already have wellestablished online businesses. “But Amazon is a hugely trusted brand that works really,” he said. “If it does develop sales of speciality food, it could change the way people view these kinds of products. “Most people think of them as expensive but Amazon is known for being good value.” John Taylerson of Taylerson’s Malmesbury Syrups has sold his coffee
Food and drink can now be found in amazon.co.uk’s Kitchen & Home section
syrups through Amazon for the past year. “There is definitely potential competition with some independent retailers, but an Amazon hamper is not necessarily the same as a hamper from Harrods or an independent deli. “Amazon is a trusted brand and is very convenient, but if you’re looking for something unique you’ll go to a
company that can put together a really special selection of products.” Taylerson added: “Rather than a threat, retailers could look at this an opportunity. There’s nothing to stop them working with Amazon themselves.” Amazon’s PR was not responding to calls as FFD went to press.
A message to the next government… By the time you read this we’ll either be days away from the General Election or expecting the first policy announcements from the next administration. In the run-up to the election PATRICK McGUIGAN asking leading players in the speciality food sector to name one policy change they would like to see implemented – or dropped – by the next government, of whatever colour. “It's vital there’s confidence in the provenance of our food but why does it demand that we do more and more paperwork to back it up? Bureaucracy should take account of size and be proportionate. Why can’t we have more effective policing of our industry with larger fines for the culprits and less time spent on costly administration?” Philip Cranston, managing director, Cranstons, Cumbria “The government should think very carefully before extending VAT to all foods. Retail selling prices are already under pressure to ensure fair margins for producers and retailers in a business environment already 4
May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
burdened with higher costs from increased government compliance.” Ewan Venters, food and restaurants director, Selfridges, London “I would like to see the government take a leaf out of French food politics and stop supporting big cheap supermarkets selling cheap massproduced, fatty, artificial food and screwing their suppliers. The sad thing is this will never happen as all the government wants is cheap food to control inflation.” William Chase, founder, Chase Distillery, Herefordshire “There should be a home-grown policy to encourage us to buy, eat and celebrate foods grown and/or made by UK producers. If well-designed,
it could reduce food miles, support the farming industry, regenerate town centres and support rural communities and even healthy eating policies. There should be grants and tax incentives available to independent producers and retailers who can demonstrate that they buy home-grown wherever possible and an advertising campaign to inform people of the benefits of buying home-grown.” Gioia Minghella, managing director, Minghella’s Ice Cream, Isle of Wight “I would welcome an approach to policy-making which understands how difficult it is for small firms to employ people. This includes minimum wage legislation, employment law bureaucracy, statutory benefits such as maternity pay, sick pay and holiday entitlements, and NI payments. Steve Salamon, owner, Wally’s Delicatessen, Cardiff
inbrief shopfitting online marketing
Small firms and social networks: a marriage made in cyberspace Smaller shops and producers are better placed to take advantage of online social networking trends than big brands and multinationals. That’s the view of John Giles, chairman of the food, drink and agriculture market interest group of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, which last month held a conference on how the South West food and drink sector can boost online sales. “The days of just looking at a website are gone,”said Giles. “People and companies are now building online communities through social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. “These provide small companies with a level playing field. Anyone can open a Twitter account from a large multinational to a small food producer, but smaller companies are usually already part of a community and can respond to customers and update information more quickly.” Delegates were told of Mintel research showing that only 11% of UK adults shop online for food regularly. However, the market is forecast to grow by 57% between 2009 and 2014 and local provenance of food and drink will be a key driver of sales.
“With 48 new pieces of legislation introduced on April 5 my simple request is that for every new law from now on there are 10 laws removed and a commensurate number of civil servants made redundant.” David Lea-Wilson, director, Anglesey Sea Salt Company, Anglesey “We’ve messed around for far too long with the public procurement agenda and we still have a paucity of local, regional or at the very least, British products prominently featuring on [public sector] menus. British soldiers eating Dutch bacon sandwiches is not good for national pride, and the next administration must be much stronger in directing where those responsible for feeding the nation’s public workforce must source their ingredients.” Jonathan Knight, chief executive, Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and Humber “We need to find a control of bovine TB that is humane to badgers, cows and cow keepers by putting down sick and infectious wildlife as well as infected cows. This will stop the suffering of profoundly sick badgers, the
TOASTIEMASTER: A newly opened deli and café in Crediton, Devon, is one of a new breed of eateries that put cheese at the heart of their menus. The 28-cover Cheese Café@ Penny’s Pantry showcases some of the 128 different cheeses on sale in the shop in dishes such as cheese toasties, macaroni cheese and cauliflower cheese, as well as pasties including steak & Stilton and cheese & onion. Platters, with a choice of any three cheeses from the counter, are also available. Popular choices include twoyear-aged Gouda, Devon Blue and Devon Oak. The shop was opened Tim and Penny Pearkes last month and sources its cheese from Hawkridge, Taw Valley and the Fine Cheese Company, as well as direct from producers. It joins a growing band of cheese-focused restaurants and cafés. Earlier this year saw the opening of L’Art du Fromage restaurant in Chelsea, which expects to use 200 different unpasteurised French and Swiss cheeses in its dishes throughout the year. Options include tartiflettes, tartes flambées and fondue. The Cheese Society Café in Lincoln also serves fondue and tartiflettes as well as Gruyere soufflé and melted raclette over hot new potatoes.
Oil buyers are being offered places at ‘Olive Oil: European Quality in UK’ – an evening seminar and tasting session at the Italian Cultural Institute in London on May 24, led by producers’ consortium Uniprol and backed by the EU and Italy's agriculture ministry. Details from Wine & Food Promotions, email: rsvp@winefoodpromotions.com. ● Selfridges Food Hall in London has introduced Trealy Farm’s British charcuterie to its deli counter, including fennel salami, Monmouthshire air-dried ham and spicy chorizo salami.
Norfolk-based Walsingham Farms Shop is to open a store at Norfolk Lavender, the farm attraction in nearby Heacham. ● A poll conducted for the Association of Convenience Stores found that 76% of the public support existing laws on Sunday trading, with only 5% in favour of liberalising them to allow supermarkets to open for longer.
The Better Food Company food hall and café in Bristol was named Best Independent Retailer at the Natural and Organic Awards last month.
senseless slaughter of dairy cows and the wrenching of treasured bloodlines from farmers. It will also save glorious unpasteurised milk products from being consigned to the history books.” Mary Quicke, managing director, Quickes Traditional, Devon
with cider tax versus other alcohol categories. In the drive for a healthier diet, why does fruit juice attract VAT when cakes, sugary cereals, frozen pizzas do not?” Andrew Quinlan, managing director, The Orchard Pig, Somerset
“Elveden Estate is a major grower of vegetables, as well as acting as a food hub for many local suppliers. Our farm vehicles, delivery lorries and customers access the estate on a constant basis, so we would like to see the government’s revision of the A11 [trunk road] acknowledge Elveden’s positive impact on the local economy and ensure it continues to thrive with excellent accessibility.” Michael Douglas, estate manager, Elveden Estate Shop
“My biggest bugbear has to be the upcoming new pension scheme, which will have to be operated by all employers by 2012. All employees will be enrolled and only by a lengthy and complicated process can they opt out. It will add the burden of another 3% on payroll costs and the time to ensure you implement it all correctly. A better option would be if employers/ employees were informed about the scheme but left to decide themselves whether to opt in, without being forced to do so by government.” Maria Whitehead, co-owner, Hawkshead Relish, Cumbria
“Only products genuinely made or produced from meat from animals 100% reared in the UK should be allowed to have Union Jack labelling. All other products should not be allowed to carry this image.” Colin Dawes, owner, Foxbury Farm Shop, Oxfordshire “There should be no VAT on 100 % natural fruit juices. Dear Darling referred to anomalies
“To encourage the public to buy products made in Britain there should be a tax on food imports as well as labelling regulations to clearly state the country of origin of a product rather than where it was processed or packaged.” Hazel Hartle, managing director, Purbeck Ice Cream Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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news farm shops
Farm shop investors get a taste of The Good Life
Soil Association predicts modest growth for organics after ‘tough year’
By PATRICK McGUIGAN
A dramatic fall in sales of organic food through farm shops and independent retailers outstripped the losses seen in supermarkets last year as shoppers tightened their belts during the recession and retailers abandoned organic product lines. According to the Soil Association’s 2010 Organic Market Report, published last month, sales of organic food and drink through farm shops fell 13.8% last year compared to 2008, while independent retailers, such as delis, saw sales drop by 17.7%. Sales through multiple retailers fell by 12.2%, while total sales of organic food across the UK fell 12.9% last year to £1.84 billion. Last month FFD reported that fine food retailers were sceptical that a planned £2m advertising campaign to promote organic food would boost sales. The rise of local food, high prices and consumer cynicism about organic health claims were blamed for the fall in sales (see Letter, below). However, the Soil Association says there are signs organic food is beginning to bounce back. Based on
Break-in highlights risk for rural stores The new owners of Cholderton Farm Shop in Wiltshire estimate £3,000 worth of stock was taken in a break in last month, highlighting the vulnerability of retailers in isolated rural locations. “We were insured and we have since fitted security lights and bolstered the locks, but it’s hard to stop someone if they are determined to break in,” said James Bayfield, who took over the shop in December with his mother Barbara, owner of pudding company Truffles. Last month, Sandy Boyd, managing director of the Ludlow Food Centre reported how a gang of masked robbers tried to break into the food hall. May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
evidence from the early months of this year, the report predicted a modest market expansion of between 2% to 5% in 2010. Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director, said: “It has been a tough year for the organic market, but confidence is now returning. With the growing recognition of the need for environmentally sustainable production systems that are less reliant on fossil fuels, we are confident that the organic market, having weathered the recession, will return to growth.”
Alan Weller/Soil Association
Country Food and Dining has added a fourth site to its growing group of farm shops and launched a fresh round of fund-raising to continue its expansion. The 5,000 sq ft farm shop and garden centre near Winchester in Hampshire, called The Good Life, was acquired last month and will soon have a 50-cover café. Country Food and Dining, which launched in 2006, is financed by private individuals through the Enterprise Investment Scheme – a government scheme that offers generous tax breaks to people who invest in small businesses. So far, the venture has raised £6m, which has financed the most recent acquisition, as well as Cobbs Farm Shop in Hungerford, Woody’s near Bath and Greenfields in Telford. A new round of fundraising hopes to raise £2m to open and refurbish a fifth store this year. “Cobbs, Woody’s and The Good Life are within a 45 minute drive of each other, so we are looking at how they can work together,” said operations director Tom Newey. “We grow soft fruit and asparagus at Cobbs, which will supply the other outlets, while our commercial kitchen at Woody’s will distribute homemade foods amongst the shops.”
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organics
Peter Melchett: Confident of a return to growth
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR e editorial@finefoodworld.co.uk Cost, not price, is the issue in organics Sir, Organico is a pioneer organic company, winner of a whacking 25 Great Taste Awards in one year, and a member and supporter of the Guild of Fine Food. The vast majority of organic companies I know are like mine: small, dedicated and values-driven so I was utterly dismayed to see comments from Finn Cottle of the Soil Association in your last issue, stating that the sector was in some ways depending on supermarkets to achieve lower pices. This is both immensely naive and completely misrepresents my views and I would hazard the views of most organic companies. First, organic foods are not always more expensive than fine food brands and sometimes they can even be cheaper in genuine like-for-like comparisons. Second, and more important, price is not the issue, Ms Cottle, it is cost. Organic food costs more to make because it is a system that takes on the externalities which conventional agriculture shifts onto the public purse or onto future generations. This is something most fine food producers will understand as they take on a fair few of these externalities themselves – for example employing local people at a higher cost, using more of the better ingredients, using longer, better artisan processes and often adopting quasi-organic growing and animal rearing practices. Third, UK supermarkets and big brands are in large part to blame for how organic has stalled in the UK because most organic consumers buy into the
non-certified values of the organic sector which can be summed up in three words: authenticity, quality and provenance. These are the values that the priceand own-label obsessed supermarkets have failed to uphold. I urge every authentic fine food retailer to support authentic organic brands just as they support authentic non-organic brands. This is in fact a good time for an organic revival. On top of the organic marketing campaign, there is an endless stream of expert opinion, including the film Food Inc, which firmly and unapologetically endorses organic methods and solutions to the problem of feeding the world without destroying it. In both the EU and US, organic food is booming and in many cases now enjoys the type of government planning and support that is needed; I doubt the UK can buck this trend for long. With the supermarkets offering mostly a limited range of bland own-label organic possibilities or poorer tasting organic options and the fact that there are so few independent organic retailers out there, it is the fine food sector that is uniquely placed to represent the best of organics. I suggest hooking up with a local organic farm for meat, fruit, veg and dairy products and making a selection from the wide range of great brands out there in other categories to offer a wide enough selection to attract new and hopefully loyal custom. Charles Redfern, Organico Realfoods, w www.organico.co.uk
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THE STAR OF ITALIAN DELICATESSEN MEATS SINCE 1907
news delicatessens
Cornish store quits country for town centre location By PATRICK McGUIGAN
Farm shops may have been the retail success story of recent years, but Purely Cornish in Looe has decided to close its out-of-town store and move to larger premises on a prominent street in the pretty seaside town. The retailer, which previously ran a 300 sq ft deli in Looe and a 550 sq ft farm shop on the edge of town, has closed both sites and moved to a 650 sq ft ex-Threshers shop on Fore Street – known as the Golden Mile because of its proximity to the town’s popular harbour, where day fishing boats are moored. “It’s a hard economic world out there and the farm shop was very labour intensive with big overheads,” said Andy Parritt, who owns the business with partner Ally Martin.
“Farm shops are dominated by fresh produce, which has a short shelf life and is hard to sell. “If people are on holiday in the area they definitely come to Looe, but won’t necessarily go out of town to a farm shop. We weren’t getting much of a life spending seven days a week running between the two shops, so we decided to consolidate the business in Looe.” The shop, which opened last month, sells products from small Cornish suppliers, ranging from gift items such as clotted cream shortbread and saffron cakes, to locally sourced bacon, sausages and cheese. Cornish beer and cider are increasingly popular, said Parritt, while holiday welcome packs and hampers also play an important part in the shop’s sales. Purely Cornish: local beers and ciders are doing particularly well
If I’d known then what I know now… Fleur Belsham, Seasons Café Deli, Old Amersham, Bucks We opened two years ago and for the first year all three owners – me, Andrew Fleming and Clare Dodd – worked every single day of the week. The shop and café is open from 7am until 6pm and we run a catering business, so it meant the only days off we had were Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I didn’t mind the hard work, but I’ve learned that it actually helps the business, not to mention your personal life, if you can step back from things. If you’re in the shop every single hour, you can’t see the bigger picture. For example, we launched a picnic service last year, but didn’t do it until June. The sun came out and we suddenly thought ‘picnic hampers would be a good idea’. If I hadn’t been so caught up with running the business I could have thought of that in January and prepared properly. I now take off at least half a day a week. It might
“I used to think terms and conditions were set in stone, but if you talk to suppliers there’s usually room for manoeuvre” foodservice
Chester cheese shop gains celebrity client By MICK WHITWORTH
Chester city centre retailer The Cheese Shop has added top chef and restaurateur Michael Caines to its list of trade clients. The shop, run by cheese trade veteran Carole Faulkner, is supplying regional specialities to Michael Caines’ signature restaurant at the new 85-bedroom ABode hotel in Chester. The ABode chain is a partnership between Caines and millionaire hotelier Andrew Brownsword, who also owns big-name cheese retailer and wholesaler Paxton & Whitfield. “Paxton & Whitfield wouldn’t do a lot of local Cheshire cheeses,” Carole Faulkner told FFD, “and it’s part of Michael Caines’ ethic to buy local.” Stuart Collins, executive chef of Michael Caines Fine Dining, said ABode Chester was sourcing eight regional varieties from The Cheese Shop, including Heler’s Blue Cheshire, Ravens Oak Dairy’s Kidderton Ash, and Y Cwt Caws goats’
cheese from Nigel and Rhian Jeffries in Anglesey. Collins said: “Carol and Ann will hold the cheese in their cold room and only send it to us when it’s at its best. They have a great knowledge of all the local cheese, and will recommend different products as the seasons change.” • Interview with Carole and Ann Faulkner – p29. Michael Caines: ‘buy local’ ethic
not sound much. but it gives me time to recharge my batteries and do research, such as visiting other retailers, looking online and going to trade shows. I’ve found that trade shows really help, not just in terms of finding new products, but also getting a feel for the designs that people are using on packaging and branding. I’m always looking out for new colours, fonts and logos as inspiration for the shop. A good tip is to have your business details printed out, so that if you see a product you like you can give the company everything they need to supply you. Getting away from the shop has also helped me deal with suppliers. I went on the Guild of Fine Food’s Retail Ready course, which gave lots of good advice about building relationships with suppliers. I learned that most companies are pretty flexible when it comes to things like minimum orders and delivery charges. I used to think that terms and conditions were set in stone, but there’s usually room for manoeuvre. I also learned about rigorous delivery checking. A lot of suppliers use couriers who always seem to arrive bang in the middle of lunchtime and expect their note to be signed. It’s tempting, but I’ve been stung a few times. I recently signed for six boxes of crisps and there were only five there. That was all my profit margin gone immediately. You learn as time goes on to avoid these kinds of mistakes, but it helps to step back from the day-to-day grind and think about the business as a whole. Interview by PATRICK McGUIGAN Vol.11 Issue 1 · January-February 2010
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Letter from Ludlow
news food halls
House of Bruar goes the whole hog with new butchery section Point-of-sale data helps SANDY BOYD spot when parts of Ludlow Food Centre’s range need refreshing The head of our dairy, Dudley, Martin has developed a new range of fruit-flavoured buttermilk milk shakes. We produce a lot of buttermilk in the dairy as a byproduct of the butter-making process. We’ve always used as much as possible to lighten our scones and soda bread, but a lot of it just ended up as waste, so we’ve been looking at other ways of using it up. The milk shakes are one of those products that are extremely popular when you sample them, but they sit on the shelf when you don’t. There needs to be a whole lot of storytelling, with lots of instore tastings. But Dudley needs to be making the product and not sampling it. It’s about finding the
“We’ve taken an extra £1,000 in the past month with a new range of meats after we invested in a little Bradley smoker’’ most effective time to do the tastings, so we pick key periods at the weekends to reach as many people as possible. We also sell them in the café. New products are the life-blood of any deli. If you’re not introducing new lines there’s a danger you get a bit staid and customers end up seeing the same old products time and again. Of course, there are certain lines you just can’t touch. I’m always amazed at how our meat & potato pies sell all year round. These are absolute favourites that you are not allowed to mess with. Developing your own products allows you to offer something really special. We’ve taken an extra £1,000 in the past month with a new range of smoked meat in the butchery, after we invested in a little Bradley smoker. John Brereton, our head butcher, currently smokes chicken and duck breasts, and venison loin. We can also cure and smoke our own streaky bacon to make pancetta. With extra effort and care, you’ve got something very special, which you won’t see anywhere else and people are willing to pay that little bit more for. That’s not to say we haven’t had some disasters. It took six attempts to develop a pork casserole using off-cuts from the butchery. Early versions were nowhere near the standard we were looking for, but we learned something from them each time and with lots of sampling and testing got to a point where we were happy. It’s a lot of work, but it’s what you have to do to keep things fresh. Interview by PATRICK McGUIGAN
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March 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 2
Customers at Perthshire shopping destination The House of Bruar are left with no doubt as to where the meat comes from in its food hall’s new butchery counter, with whole pig carcases on display in the glass-fronted cold store. The butchery, which stocks 28-day-hung beef from Aberdeenshire and Speyside and lamb from Dornoch, is headed by Harry Coates, who has 30 years experience in the trade and is the national vice-chairman of the Q Guild. Food hall manager Oliver Platts said: “You can see the beasts hanging in the cold room before they are butchered and the open style of the department means we have the theatre of the carcasses being broken down and sausages being made right in front of you.” Platts said traditional butchers’ counters were making a comeback amid rising awareness of “quality, locality and provenance”. “A piece of meat, hung for the right length of time and butchered in the correct manner, is a far better product than the fast-paced machine-cut pieces in supermarkets.” Nine miles from Pitlochry, The House of Bruar is known as the ‘home of country clothing’ and also sells a wide range of homeware products. The new butchery is part of a plan to turn the food hall into a ‘one-stop shop’, said Platts.
farmers’ markets
‘Feastival’ draws 800 visitors Over 800 people attended the first Feastival Farmers’ Market at Sharpham Park Farm Shop and Kilver Court Gardens near Shepton Mallet last month. Visitors wandered among 25 stalls, manned by local food producers and home and garden suppliers, and gained half price entry to the gardens at the festival, which takes place on the second Sunday of each month. The shop and gardens were set up by Roger Saul, founder of the Sharpham Park spelt and rare breed meat company and fashion label Mulberry, in 2008 as a ‘lifestyle destination’ with a wellness centre, farm shop and café. “Our farm shop and café along with the stalls really benefited from the market,” said market manager Allison Herbert. “As a small local producer ourselves we know how hard it can be. We are lucky to have Kilver Court for the market, which promotes not only our brand but many other local producers.” Producers with stalls at the event included North Wooton Organic Dairy, Taylors Traditional Bakers and The Sausageshed.
“For many years at The House of Bruar you could pick up cheeses, smoked salmon and packs of biscuits, but could never get everything you needed for a proper meal or dinner party. We started doing vegetables outside on our market stall two years ago which has worked well for us and a butchery was the next step. Scotch beef and lamb is one of the strongest brands in the fine food world and we also have one of Scotland's busiest restaurants, which can serve up to 3,000 hot meals a day.” The new counter’s best-selling products are large rib roasts of beef and rolled sirloins, as well as a range of 12 different sausages, including pork with root ginger and the South African-style Boerewors.
Whole pig carcases are on display, adding authenticity to the butchery section
rural stores
Look to Local set to involve delis and farm shops A lottery-funded scheme to encourage village shops in England to sell more local food is set to be expanded to delis and farm shops, with retailers able to receive free expert advice and point of sale material worth up to £1000. The Look for Local scheme has so far worked with 77 commercial and community-owned village shops to boost sales of local foods and hopes to roll out the scheme to a total of 200 outlets in the next two years. While village shops will continue to be the focus for the first half of 2010, the scheme will then be opened up to delis and farm shops. Retailers that sign up can receive up to three days of one-to-one advice from an expert adviser, who will help the shop source, display and merchandise food from a 30 mile radius. The roll-out follows a pilot study with 13 village shops in four different regions of England, which saw sales increase by between 15-20%. The scheme is part of the five-year £10m Making Local Food Work initiative, managed by the Plunkett Foundation and funded by the Big Lottery Fund.
Vol.11 Issue 4 路 May 2010
11
news
How often do you freshen up your point-of-sale (PoS) displays? Good PoS material won’t just help you maximise sales opportunities, it actually makes the shopping experience more interesting. Look closely at how your local supermarket or symbol store uses PoS and merchandising. You’ll find ideas that could bring out the best in your own shop, stopping it looking staid and bringing the shopper’s eye to more of your bargains. The multiples regularly put out low-cost impulse items on clip strips. In WH Smith before Easter I saw strips of Mini Eggs placed just where the children would see them. Highly visible, clip strips are great aids to use with price promotions or just to push impulse purchases, and since they’re not permanent they can be moved around to keep your display fresh. They’re ideal if you have crisps or other bagged snacks on offer or some other colourfully branded product that could sell quickly on impulse. In an M&S Simply Food, I noticed the wine section was cleverly divided into sections by the occasional use of deeper shelving units, which jutted out slightly at points along the fixture. It’s a mechanism that make the customer’s roving eye stop at these points rather than wandering helplessly
“Highly visible, clip strips are great aids to use with price promotions or to push impulse purchases’’ over a confusing wall of wine labels. Perhaps the spots where the shelves do ‘jut out’ are good place to put higher margin items? Work out where your customers may linger in your shop – the obvious places are the tills and your deli serveover. It goes without saying that most of us will have a few impulse lines on the counter, but how about items placed lower down for kids to grab? Shelf barkers are another good call. These signs sit proud of the shelf to promote specials or new products, for instance. They, too, disrupt eye movement along shelves and effectively deliver quick messages to the customer. They are also very neat, so they won’t clog up your displays like untidy handwritten signs. Simple colours – red and white, for instance – help keep the messages easy and quick to read. Many of us don’t have the time to spend trawling the internet for snazzy PoS items, so try www. lighthousedisplay.com to get some great ideas. Finally, here’s an appeal to wholesalers and suppliers: I can tell you that retailers would value enormously as much help you can provide in this area. Price promotions and seasonal offers – for example, on barbecue or Halloween lines – can be given a real boost with clip strips and other imaginative Po S support. gordon@stcatherinesltd.co.uk
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April 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 3
farm shops
Farrington’s food centre plan kicks off with artisan bakery Paul Castle, who previously worked for Neston Park Bristol-based Farrington’s Farm Shop, said working with Farm Shop plans to become small producers was part of a centre of excellence for a plan to become a “centre local food by providing of excellence for fresh and production space to small locally produced food”. artisan producers, starting Farrington’s has also with its bakery supplier The opened a new deli section Thoughtful Bread Company. after consulting customers The company moved to a over what changes they new bakery in a refurbished would like to see via email, a barn next to the farm shop Thoughtful Bread: onsite bakery suggestion box and a monthly last month, which has a ‘listening group’. Around 250 responses were viewing window for customers to watch the bakers received, with a deli and bakery the top requests. at work. The bakery was built to The Thoughtful Comprising two serve-over counters, the deli Bread Company’s specifications by Farrington’s and stocks 50 British and continental cheeses from is then leased to the company. suppliers including Rowcliffe’s, Longman’s and The collaboration could be the first of many, Hawkridge Dairy. Continental charcuterie, ham from according to Tish Jeffery, who owns the business local butcher Jon Thorner and pies from the Topping with husband Andy. “We’re hoping this is one of Pie Company are also available, as are products several production units for small producers,” she made in Farrington’s kitchen, including Scotch eggs, said. “We have quite a lot of barns that could be roulades and apple strudel. converted. It would be great to have a cheese“Deli sales are four times what we expected with maker on-site because we used to be dairy farmers.” 15 of the top 18 best-selling products made in our Other businesses that could work well include a own kitchen,” said Castle. “The black pudding scotch confectioner, micro-brewery and cake-maker. egg and the scrumpy scotch egg are very popular.” The farm shop’s business development manager By PATRICK McGUIGAN
bakery
Bake-off specialist bolts on frozen fruit to create branded freezer package Mantinga, the supplier of par-baked speciality breads for bake-off in-store, says it views farm shops as the prime target for a new branded “freezer concept” that has seen it add frozen fruit to its range. The company is best known in the deli trade for a range of authentic-style breads, including focaccia loaves, sour doughs and flatbreads, sourced from specialist bakeries around Europe. The new range will include frozen blackberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and mixed fruits grown within 25 miles of Mantinga’s Gloucestershire base, along with cheese straws, cookie pucks, croissants and pain au chocolat produced by bakers in the region, for shoppers to bake off at home. Frozen fruit and pastries are commonplace in farm shops but Mantinga says its main points of difference include a minimum order of five cases and the size of the range available, which will include the company’s full bread, patisserie and savouries range. Point-of-sale material and freezer bags are available and Mantinga is offering a buyback option on a freezer and dividers for those
offering frozen food for the first time. Farm shops are a key target because space is less of an issue for them, but Mantinga says the range could also benefit delis that have spare freezer capacity when ice cream stocks are run down during the winter. MD Steven Mackintosh said: “Space is at a premium for many of our customers, so it’s important that we offer a small minimum order, particularly as we tend to deliver their bread on a regular basis anyway.” www.mantinga.co.uk
dreamstime
better retailing GORDON LEATHERDALE
charcuturie
guild news
Swiss promo A final reminder that over the coming days, many good delis and farm shops will receive in-store merchandising packs for the upcoming two-week Le Gruyère AOC cheese promotion. For you and one of your customers to stand a chance of winning an all-expenses-paid holiday in Switzerland, you’ll need to stock, for at least two weeks, the Classic Le Gruyère AOC at around six months’ maturation and the three times World Cheese Awards champion Le Gruyère AOC Reserve, which is typically matured for 10 months and longer. If you’ve not received your promo kit, email: dairymagic@aol.com Mainstream delis are behind Italian outlets in stocking premium lines such as Culatello de Zibello
Italian specialists trade up to high-end salumi By MICK WHITWORTH
Specialist Italian restaurants and delis are trading up to high-end salumi (charcuterie) as cash-strapped consumers opt for quality over quantity, according to Joe Zottola, UK agent for Italy’s Negroni brand. “In the Italian trade we’re seeing a shift towards the top end, like the ‘special long dried’ or ‘special matured’ hams, to give that point of difference and a bit of added value,” he told FFD. Air-dried hams that have been matured for up to two years can sell at between 15% and 25% more than a typical 13-to-15-month prosciutto. Also selling strongly are premium air-dried specialities such as Culatello di Zibello, a Protected Designation of Origin product made using the meatiest part of the legs from exceptionally large, 200kg-plus pigs. The legs are hand-tied into casings made from pigs’ bladders, then aged in a cool cellar for between 10 to 18 months. The scarce Culatello is “double the price of any Parma”, said Zottola. “People are dining out less, but when they do spend money they want a proper experience,” he told FFD. “And what they’ve seen on the menu,
they want to replicate when they get home.” Negroni has also see “a real uplift” in sales of larger 3kg and 4kg salamis in specialist Italian outlets. “The bigger the salami, the longer the cure,” said Zottola, “which means you get a milder flavour compared with, say, a 1.2kg Milano.” He said most mainstream British delis had not yet recognised the contrast between the best Italian salamis, made from large pigs reared slowly for the Parma ham industry, and price-driven products using commodity pigmeat. “People will just ask, ‘How much is your Milano?’. What they don’t realise is that there are thousands of producers, and if you are buying generic salami made from Polish or German pork, the pigs were probably slaughtered at five or six months. At that age there’s no way the fat will have penetrated the meat in the same way as with our pigs.” Under PDO rules, Parma ham pigs cannot be slaughtered at less than nine months and these animals are nearly twice the weight of most British pigs at slaughter. The average weight of Negroni’s pigs is 165kg. www.negroni.com
selling online
BuyGB gives small producers direct route to consumers A new website for food producers is due to launch this month, allowing consumers to bypass stores and buy direct from small local producers. BuyGB. co.uk enables small food and drink producers to set up a free, low-risk online store through which to sell goods and interact with customers. Online shoppers can search by postcode and buy from numerous local producers in one visit, with their purchases collated in a single shopping basket. Products are then shipped by suppliers directly to the customer, although future plans include a
national BuyGB.co.uk delivery service. The site will also offer a social networking community allowing users to communicate with other members both locally and nationally, as well as a My Local Area section listing farmers’ markets, farm shops, events and producers by postcode. Set up by digital entrepreneurs Dan Chick and Alex Froom, BuyGB will take a 10% commission from each purchase, with 25% of the company’s annual profits returned to community charities. www.buygb.co.uk
Record entries for Great Taste Awards Entries for the 2010 Great Taste Awards have now closed, and every record in the awards’ 16-year history has been broken. This year 1,259 producers have entered over 5,800 products – significantly more than in 2009, a year which also set new records. Judging starts at the Real Food Festival this month and will continue through to the end of June at various locations including three solid weeks at the Guild of Fine Food’s headquarters in Somerset. Guild director Bob Farrand said: “The Awards are clearly seen as a most effective route to benchmarking the highest standards in speciality food and drink. Winning gold gives small producers a real edge when competing with so-called premium own-label lines sold in supermarkets.” Great Taste Theatres at shows such as Spirit of Summer (see below) and BBC Masterchef Live throughout 2010 will help more consumers understand why buying foods with the familiar GTA black and gold logo makes sense. “By directly comparing award-winning foods with those sold in supermarkets, people realise how often the wool is pulled over their eyes by the multiples,” says Farrand. “Great Taste gold products give more enjoyment, taste a whole lot better and buying them helps sustain small local businesses.”
Spirit of Summer showcase Around 20 speciality food & drink producers are joining a special Guild of Fine Food section at this month’s Spirit of Summer Fair in London. The event, at Olympia from May 13-16, is expected to attract around 15,000 high-spending visitors, and the Guild was able to organise a substantial discount on stand costs for small producers exhibiting under its wing. The Guild's Bob Farrand will join BBC Radio 2 food correspondent Nigel Barden to sample and discuss Great Taste Award-winning products in a series of Great Taste Live Theatre presentations throughout the event. Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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interview Piers Adamson: ‘We always bring out a lot of new stuff – it may be one of our failings’
Continental drift Has Europe’s speciality sector finally run out of surprises? Bespoke Foods boss Piers Adamson tells MICK WHITWORTH why nowadays he’s looking further afield for product inspiration.
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
W
hen Piers Adamson was growing up in Edinburgh, he was “spoiled rotten” by his parents. “We went abroad a lot,” he says, “and we weren’t given the chicken ’n’ chips option either – I was eating escargots while my three-year-old sister was tucking into frogs’ legs.” If that’s Adamson’s idea of being spoiled, perhaps his later career direction was inevitable. As chief executive of importer and distributor Bespoke Foods, the 46-year-old nowadays handles a portfolio of around 1,500 speciality food lines, from Ugandan vanilla pods to Texan salsas. When the company was founded in 1982 by Raymond Mathias its range was built on classic European deli fare – brands that were often household names on the Continent but which seemed like sophisticated rarities here in the days before Britain turned foodie. Mathias was a former opera singer who had enjoyed Continental specialities on his travels, and his first move was to bring Destrooper butter biscuits in from Belgium. He got the range into Harrods before moving on to import Orangina, Bonne Maman and Carte Noir, buying them on the ‘grey market’ long before they had formal distribution here. These days, foie gras producer La Truffe Cendrée, fish canner Connétable and traditional lemonade bottler La Mortuacienne are among Bespoke’s key suppliers. Adamson arrived in 1997 as part of Bespoke’s acquisition of The London & Country Victualler, taking over as CEO. Since then, Bespoke’s offer has broadened to include American, Caribbean, African, Thai, Malaysian and Japanese brands. Thai food has particularly caught Adamson’s imagination. In a two-hour interview with FFD at Bespoke’s functional warehouse and HQ in south London (“overlooking the Thames”, as Bespoke’s website rather grandly has it), he talks at length about the cuisine of south-east Asia, which has fed into Bespoke’s own Thai Taste and Malay Taste brands of ingredients and easy meal kits. “Thai food is the fastest growing cuisine in the UK,” he says, “and Thai Taste is probably the biggest brand in the market – bran ds like Blue Dragon are pan-Asian, not just Thai. When we launched Thai Taste into delis the response was amazing.” Adamson first visited Thailand in 1989, a year before he set up his own Adamson Fine Foods retail and distribution business in north-west England (later taken over by the Town & Country Victualler). Thailand, he says, is “a place that really gets to you”. But Europe doesn’t seem to generate the same excitement for him now, and that’s because, in his view, it’s getting harder to sniff out anything genuinely new in France, Spain or Italy. “There are not many secrets left in Europe any more. Maybe I’ve been doing it for too long, but when I go to trade shows I find myself thinking, ‘Yeah, another French saucisson…’.” The latest additions to Bespoke’s catalogue do include several European finds, like the Tago range of biscuits from Poland. “There are some good producers working out of eastern Europe now,” says Adamson, “and they’re competitively priced.”
piers adamson But many of the more interesting lines are from further afield, like Tacama merquén, a smoked chilli spice mix from Chile where it is used every day as a coating for meat. While Bespoke doesn’t offer any product exclusively to either multiples or independents, Adamson says relatively few are likely to pop up in Tesco just as the deli puts them on shelf. Only 10% of Bespoke’s sales are with the multiples and it has around 800 independent clients. If it’s home-grown specialities you’re after, look elsewhere. Morecambe Bay Shrimps from Lancashire are just about the only British products in its catalogue, and that’s important, says Adamson, because he doesn’t want to be thought of as just another wholesale distributor. “It may sound like I’m splitting hairs, but we see ourselves very much as specialist importers, working with producers overseas to build up their brands in the UK. When I came into the business the buzzword was ‘disintermediarisation’ – people were saying, ‘Why do we need a middle man?’ But we are not just a transport company. We believe we add value to our brands.” Some of these brands are already surprisingly big in other markets. The newly-signed Pepperidge Farm range of American cookies – soft-baked, yet with an eight-month shelf life – is worth well over $1bn worldwide. And late last year Bespoke – which itself will turnover “between £11m and £12m” this year – won the exclusive UK distribution rights for French’s mustard, a US powerbrand owned by multinational Reckitt Benckiser. Bespoke already handles Frank’s RedHot sauce, another Reckitt product, and won the French’s business from another global operator, Associated British Foods – the kind of confidence booster any importer would have welcomed after the past two years. “2008 was very challenging for us, as it was for everybody,” admits Adamson, citing the slump in sterling and the inability to pass on the full cost to customers as the killer issues. “You can’t be constantly changing your prices, and you certainly can’t just pass on 15-20% increases,” he says. “But we made a profit, and when we publish our 2009 accounts shortly they’ll show that we made a bigger profit last year. We’re still not where we need to be, but we’re very pleased with where we are.” The development of the eurozone has not made life any easier for importers of Continental foods, he says. Rate fluctuations have been wilder than in the days of the Deutsche mark and French franc, when the variation between currencies helped even things out over time. “Raymond used to say importing was a three year business, but even so, with the euro you will get a four cents movement within a week. You didn’t get that when you have a basket of currencies. “This is not a massive margin business, so a 4-5% currency movement can be the difference between whether you do or don’t make money.” The cost of physical distribution is also a headache. “Transport from Europe is getting more expensive, and freight costs are going up because so many container ships have been taken out of commission. The industry has contracted to try to drive prices up. I’ve been told you can
RINGING THE CHANGES Bespoke refreshes around a quarter of its product range each year. Here’s are some of the newcomers lined up for 2010, with an idea of the likely trade prices. Adamson says Bespoke doesn’t suggest RRPs because margin expectations differ so much across its client base. NEW RANGES One Dish Asia A complete range of Japanese products designed to “take some of the mystery out of Japanese cooking” (trade prices £1.553.50). Truly Indian An authentic range of pastes, pickles, chutneys and ready-made side dishes manufactured in India (£1.18-£1.74). Bag Ladies Tea Quality English Breakfast tea, grown and packed in Sri Lanka, in a range of novelty packs bearing funny catchlines. Good for garden centres and farm shops? (from £3.10) Pepperidge Farm Soft-baked cookies from the US that also offer a good shelf life. Including double chocolate chip and white chocolate and caramel (from £1.75)
“The end consumer is looking further afield too, and if you go into a deli you want to be inspired”
Tago A range of Continental biscuits, including interesting flavours such as Zabaglione (£0.70-£1.30). Hannah’s Naturals Candy canes and lollipops without artificial colourings, plus a range of decorated ginger figures to brighten up Christmas displays (prices TBC). Wicklien Authentic German Lebkuchen in traditional packaging from a producer in Nurnberg that has been baking biscuits for over 400 years (from £1.28). Tesouka tagine paste For a flavour of Morocco (£2.18). Tacama Merquen A ‘must-have’ Chilean spice blend with smoked chilli, cumin and coriander seeds, for meats or casseroles. (£3.85)
now walk from one side of Hong Kong harbour to the other across all the container ships laid up there.” But Adamson describes himself as a “basically positive person” and Bespoke’s launch programme for 2010 certainly doesn’t show the caution over product development that has afflicted parts of the industry recently. “We always bring out a lot of new stuff,” he says. “It may be one of our failings. But if we add 400 products every year we probably drop 400 too, and we try to stick to around 1,500 SKUs [stock-keeping units].” With Bespoke looking beyond Europe for products to refresh that long list, he reckons delis too need to rethink their offer – despite the many metres of space now devoted to ethnic foods in supermarkets. “We’re definitely expanding our horizons, the end consumer is looking further afield too, and if you go into a deli, you want to be inspired.” Next up for Bespoke is the Malay Taste range, which includes ingredients for Nyonya-style dishes that blend Malay and Chinese influences. Like Thai Taste, the range is being made to authentic recipes in the country of origin, with Bespoke adding its branding and packaging expertise for the western market. It’s all a bit of a leap from Orangina and Carte Noir coffee, but as Adamson says, the world has got a lot smaller since 1982. www.bespoke-foods.co.uk Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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Olives, olive oil, antipasti, tapas and meze for your olive bar, deli counter and shelves. info @ silverandgreen.com www.silverandgreen.com Telephone O1768 483332
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
deli of the month
Interview by MICK WHITWORTH
Darren Ward: ‘We’re fortunate to have a very good catchment area’
The store’s the star While two brick kilns still form the heart of The Smokehouse, a few miles south of Manchester, coowner Darren Ward tells us why the real money’s in retailing
A
lanky bloke with a familiar baby face emerges from a huge black SUV and disappears through the shop door of The Smokehouse as I arrive to interview Darren Ward, co-owner of this Cheshire shop, café and traditional smokery. I’m not much of a celeb-spotter, but I’m pretty sure it’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the former Man Utd striker and now reserves team coach. Since we’re in Morley Green, just south of Manchester and close to those leafy, affluent spots like Wilmslow and Alderley Edge where many United and City players are mansioned up, it seems a good bet. Once Ward and I are safely ensconsed in his upstairs café, I ask casually if he gets many of the region’s footie stars through the door. “Only the Scandinavians,” he says. “We don’t see many English players – they’re all brought up on Pot Noodles.” Here at this unusual retail operation – part deli, part farm shop, part factory outlet – Cheshire’s foodies can buy freshly baked artisan bread and pastries, along with fruit & veg, fresh meat butchered on the premises and fine wines selected personally by in-house wine merchant Peter Beavan. Then there’s the meat, fish and poultry range
from the company’s own kilns, like sweet black bacon, Polish kabanos, German style kasseler and exceptional smoked salmon. There aren’t too many instant pot-snacks. If the food is too hifalutin’ for English footballers, some of their WAGs might think differently. At my B&B in Wilmslow the previous evening, my hostess told me The Smokehouse has become both a meeting place for “ladies who gossip” and a destination for local foodies – provided they’ve got plenty of cash. She’d seen a joint of beef on sale for £87, she tells me. It may not be cheap but The Smokehouse is no rip-off either. The bread prices are a good indicator: a proper loaf, baked from scratch on the premises by patissier-turned-baker Richard Hughes and his team, starts at £1.50 for a straight farmhouse and goes up to £2.80 for a slow-fermented 400g sourdough. And it sells: the bakery now shifts around 1,500 loaves a week, and they are all going through the shop tills, not to trade customers. “The profit on bread can be good, but you have to get the numbers right,” says Ward, when I ask how he has made this tricky product pay its way. “The raw material cost for a loaf might only be 1213p, but you’ve got high labour costs, and Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
deli of the month electricity is the big one.” The Ward family knew they would have a “captive audience” for bread at Morley Green, so they took a reasonably long view, bought secondhand baking kit to keep the capital outlay down and gave themselves two years to break even. “We sold a bit of par-baked bread when we started, but then we brought in a professional pastry chef who has basically taught himself to bake.” Bread production has trebled since start-up. “It’s all about getting more bread out of the same number of staff,” says Ward, adding: “We’ve resisted the temptation to wholesale because you can end up with vehicles stuck in traffic jams for hours with only half a dozen loaves in the back.” The Smokehouse has now joined the Real Bread Campaign, which means consumers searching the campaign website for their nearest artisan baker will be pointed towards Morley Green. In its tucked-away location, the business was once one of Cheshire’s kept secrets. Now, brown tourist signs flag the shop and smokery’s existence to motorists passing on the nearby A538 WilmslowAltrincham road. And its profile was raised further by a TV appearance courtesy of the Hairy Bikers’ Tour of Britain last autumn. But it didn’t achieve “destination” status overnight. The core smoking business dates back a century. Darren Ward’s great-grandfather began smoking bacon in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1907. Two generations on, the firm was supplying many of the big multiples. Then in the ’80s it was “hit by two big debts from Scottish supermarkets”, says Ward, and forced into voluntary liquidation, at which point the family decided to retreat from mainstream, price-driven, brine-injected bacon and go back to traditional premium recipes. Ward and his father John brought The Cheshire Smokehouse to the present rural site, a former abattoir, 17 years ago. The old slaughterhouse was converted into a smokery, with the addition of two traditional brick kilns or ‘smoke ovens’, while outbuildings were reconfigured to create what was, to start with, a factory shop. This has gradually expanded to include a sizeable production kitchen, handling both the shop’s needs and a growing outside catering trade, along with extra storage space, and a café in the roofspace upstairs.
THE SMOKEHOUSE’S MUST-STOCKS B urts crisps B rindisa chorizo parrilla T racklements mayonnaise T eoni’s cookies R J’s raspberry liquorice I bbotson’s of Ashford honey pickled onions J oseph Heler Blue Cheshire C artmel sticky toffee pudding R oasted tomato & red pepper soup (The Smokehouse) ●H ickory smoked almonds & cashews (The Real Smoked Nut Co/The Smokehouse) ●D og Point Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand ●S eptima Malbec, Argentina ●R oly Gassman Alsace Riesling ●C hateau Petit Bocq St-Estèphe, Bordeaux ●V allecoppa caramelised red onion confetture ●W ildly Delicious bread dippers ●D ivine Deli brie bakers ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
The retail area was almost doubled last year to around 2,700 sq ft, andwas fitted out with smart wood flooring throughout and bespoke oak shelving, making the store feel more deli than farm shop. Nearly two decades of piecemeal growth means the layout is a bit of a hotchpotch. However, Ward says the latest development – which cost in the region of £175,000 – has given more of a logical flow to the store, guiding customers first past pre-packed cheeses and meats, then non-foods like cards and cook-shop gifts, then the fresh butchery, a small florists’ section, fresh produce, bread and cakes and the wine shop, and finally back to the tills via long chillers packed mainly with The Smokehouse’s own meats, ready meals and soups. With many goods produced in-house, overall retail gross margins are around 40%, but Ward says some departments have to be viewed more as shopper attractions than cash generators. Wine, for example, takes disproportionate space and probably ties up more capital than its takings justify, but it survives on the enthusiasm and shopper interest that Peter Beavon brings to the department. “We’ve got too much wine,” says Ward. “We did a stocktake and there was about sixty grand’s worth. But you either go for it big or you don’t do it at all.” A big wine department “creates a certain image”, he says. “And it does make money.” Ambient products are spread throughout the store, with an interesting mix of mainly premium deli brands – not a massive range, but not just the usual suspects, either. “It’s all about making the most of wall space,” says Ward. “If we have too many aisle fixtures, like the greetings card carousels, people wouldn’t get round. At one point we thought about bringing in shopping trolleys but it would have been a logistical nightmare. We’d rather give people a second basket if they fill the first one and send them round the shop again!” The smokery, he says, is still the spiritual heart of the business. As well as producing for the shop and for wholesale customers, it makes gourmet snacks such as hickory smoked almonds & cashews for the Ward family’s sister brand, The Real Smoked Nut Company, sold to retailers nationwide. But retail has become the main financial driver. While trade sales of smokery products are £7,500£8,000 a week, the expanded shop now delivers £30,000-£35,000 and the café a further £5,000 or so. While it suffers a little from being tucked, windowless, under the sloping roof of the converted buildings, the café is doing 100-110 covers a day midweek and a storming 160 on Saturdays from just 44 seats.“It doesn’t make as much money as you’d think,” say Ward. “For one thing, because it’s in the roof, it has to be air-conditioned, otherwise it’s too hot in summer and too cold in winter. But we keep it full – they’re queuing up the stairs on Saturdays – and 60-70% of the people who eat upstairs will go and spend in the shop too.” He adds: “Four-fifths of our turnover now is retail, and we do everything we can to encourage that. It gives better cashflow, and it makes better margins. We’re fortunate to have a very good catchment area, which means if we put our effort into retailing we can get a much better return.” And if English footballers aren’t contributing much to the bottom line, at least the Scandinavians are doing there bit. “Yes, it was Solskjaer in the shop yesterday,” Ward confirms, in an email after my visit. “He’s a regular.”
“Four-fifths of our turnover now is retail, and we do everything we can to encourage that”
www.cheshiresmokehouse.co.uk Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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Join the Guild of Fine Food and save time and money. As an independent retailer have you ever thought how much of your day is spent doing the bits that don’t actually earn you any money? You are not alone: 1300 other like-minded businesses felt the same, so they joined the Guild of Fine Food. The Guild can help you: • drive more customers to your door • track down artisan-made food & drink specialities that won’t be found in supermarkets • train your staff in cheese & charcuterie product knowledge and improve retail management through Retail Ready • keep informed on industry news, services and new product launches through Fine Food Digest magazine • stay in the loop on food shows, political views and member activities, with an e-newsletter direct to your desktop • save money with business & vehicle insurance, card transactions, personnel issues, health & safety advice plus much more
To find out how to become a member TODAY, call 01963 824464 or email tortie.farrand@finefoodworld.co.uk
www.finefoodworld.co.uk 20
May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
Check out our consumer websites too, driving more customers to Guild members’ shops and deli-cafes
www.britainsbestdelis.co.uk
www.greattasteawards.co.uk
delichef
putting deli ingredients to work
Potted shrimps are back on the menu One of Britain’s oldest family food businesses has brought its potted brown shrimps back to the market By mick whitworth
In British Regional Food, restaurateur and chef Mark Hix devotes two pages to the humble potted shrimp, which has been produced around Morecambe Bay since the late 18th century. Hix offers his own recipe for a dish that, as he points out, was once a simply way of preserving the catch of brown shrimps “but has now become a pricey starter in many restaurants”. But fans of the sweet-flavoured crustacean Crangon crangon can now buy the potted version ready-made in various sizes, including a 57g single-portion version that will suit both deli and café, from what is the longest surviving producer in Morecambe and probably one of Britain’s oldest family food firms. James Baxter & Son, a seventhgeneration business founded in 1799, has just returned to wholesaling for the first time in 20 years after securing quality supplies of brown shrimp. In recent years it has been limited by a severe lack of raw material to selling direct to consumers by mail order and through its own shop.
The company is a Royal Warrant holder and numbers Tom Parker Bowles and Marco Pierre White among its fans. It’s Original Potted Shrimps contain just shrimps, butter, salt and spices, and Baxters says they are “most commonly served on wholemeal toast with a light salad dressing and a generous squeeze of lemon”. In fact, the recipe section on Baxters’ new website is noticeably empty. Apparently it recently asked several of its restaurant clients to provide recipe suggestions but was firmly told not to tamper with the product. www.baxterspottedshrimps.co.uk 01524 410 910
Potted shrimps have been around for 200 years or so – as has Baxters of Morecambe Bay
Delis could share ‘bespoke’ Grana Padano service with top chefs By mick whitworth
Italy’s Grana Padano consortium has unveiled a new service enabling serious chefs to buy cheese “aged to measure” to suit their culinary needs. The launch of the Bespoke Cut was due to take place at the San Pellegino-sponsored World’s 50 Best Restaurants event at London’s Guildhall as FFD went to press at the end of April. And while that event brings together some of the world’s top chefs, food critics and restaurateurs, Grana Padano’s UK press spokewoman Judith Bamford told us the consortium is also interested in extending the scheme to like-minded deli-restaurant operators. “It’s mainly for restaurants at the moment, but the consortium are very opened minded about it. If they’re approached by delicatessens or fine food retailers whose values echo those of Grana Padano then this is definitely something they would welcome,” she said, adding that the Bespoke Cut was intended to be an ongoing service Over a million wheels of Grana Padano are exported from Italy each year, making this the world’s best selling Protected Designation of Origin
(PDO) cheese. But the consortium that polices the PDO rules and promotes the Grana Padano brand worldwide wants to highlight the range of different vintages and the ways they can be used in “creative cooking”. Under the Bespoke Cut scheme, buyers can work through the consortium to select cheese “with customised ageing, from a specific area of provenance and even a specific producer”. Grana Padano is also offering to supply two wheels of Bespoke Cut cheese free of charge each year in return for its use across a number of dishes on the restaurant’s menu. “It’s very much a partnership approach,” said Bamford. At its youngest, around nine months, the cheese is mild and milky – good for use in sauces, and for pairing with young, fruity white wines. The 24month matured Riserva, by contrast, is strong and intensely tangy, complementing slightly tannic red wines with good length. With Grano Padano is still finalising its UK website, enquiries about the Bespoke Cut can be directed through the PR company. jbamford@webershandwick.com
Recognised as the cornerstone of European cuisine! Deli chef is sponsored by Le Gruyère AOC
Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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Stand and Deliver... ...outstanding sales (and we’re AdamAnt about that). You asked for it. So we made it. Here it is. The Olives Et Al free standing display thingy!
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stitching yourself to the curtains, what can we say? The Olives Et Al display thingy. It’s as simple as Tamsyn.
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
delichef
putting deli ingredients to work Café Moo manager Alison Frankland: ‘The core of our business is our relationship with suppliers’
interview By PATRICK McGUIGAN
Alison Frankland Farmer Copleys’ Café Moo, West Yorkshire
V
isitors to the food festival at Farmer Copleys in West Yorkshire last July had to keep their eyes peeled for low-flying footwear, with the welly wanging competition a fiercely contested affair. Pie-eating contests, cow masks for the kids and three-legged races were also on the menu at the day-long event, which celebrated the farm’s cows being let out of their winter sheds to roam the fields as well as the beginning of nearby Pontefract’s liquorice festival. The 2,000 or so people that attended also happily munched on free tasters from 20 of the shop’s suppliers, who set up stalls in the fields. For Alison Frankland, manager of the farm shop’s 54-cover Café Moo, the festival was one of the busiest days of the year. “It was mental the amount of people we served that day, but we’re hoping to go bigger and better this year,” she says. “We’re aiming for 5,000 people.” Set up by Robert and Heather Copley in 2002, Farmer Copleys took a major leap forward in 2008 with the opening of a £286,000 extension, part-funded by the Rural Enterprise Investment Programme. Space at the site was tripled to 3,100 sq ft, providing room for the café and an extended 10-metre butchery counter. The expansion seems to have paid off with Farmer Copleys picking up several prestigious awards recently including the 2010 Farm Retailer of the Year title at the FARMA Awards. Housed in a converted cow shed, Café Moo has been designed to retain a rustic feel, with long wooden tables and benches, Yorkshire stone and exposed timber beams. The menu reflects the décor, with nononsense dishes such as homemade steak pies with mushy peas, bacon sandwiches (the bacon is cured at the farm) and hot beef sandwiches with Tracklements onion marmalade. Other producers featured on the café menu include Mackenzies Smokehouse, whose smoked salmon is served on brown bread with cream cheese & caperberries, and
Farmer Copleys Rhubarb Munching Muffins Makes 12 Ingredients 4oz chopped fresh rhubarb 4 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice 3 medium free range eggs 142ml sour cream 3.5 fl oz sunflower oil 3oz golden caster sugar 10 oz self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder 2 oz crunchy muesli 12 tsp rhubarb & ginger preserve Topping 2 oz light muscovado sugar 2 oz crunchy muesli Method Mix the dry ingredients with the wet. Half fill the bun cases with the mixture, then add one teaspoon of preserve in the centre of each. Fill the bun cases with remaining mixture and sprinkle the light muscovado sugar over the top, followed by the muesli. Bake in a hot oven (170ºC) for 35 minutes.
Patchwork, which provides the chicken liver paté that is spread on honey and spelt toast from local baker Adams. “We can’t lose; we’ve got everything we need for the café on site,” says Frankland. “The chef makes all our own pies, such as steak pie and pork pie, as well as homemade cakes and scones. Robert’s mum Janet also gets involved making all our soups and quiches, and she does a lovely custard & lemon meringue pie. “But we also make good use of all the great suppliers to the shop, crossselling in the café all the time,” she continues. “The core of our business is our relationship with our suppliers. In the summer, for example, we serve a ploughman’s with Blacksticks Blue, Cornish Brie and our own pork pie with Adams’ bread and Birchfield Dairy butter. If customers like what they eat in the café they can pop next door and buy the products to take home for themselves.” As well as promoting retail products, Café Moo also helps mop up any potential wastage in the farm shop. Last month, a surplus of asparagus was quickly put to good use in a tasty soup in the café. Some of this was even ladled into cartons and sold back in the shop, says Frankland. The café also acts as a showcase for new and seasonal products produced up by the main production kitchen and the butchery counter. Liquorice sausages to celebrate Pontefract’s liquorice festival are a good example, while the start of the rhubarb season prompted dishes such as rhubarb fool, rhubarb muffins and rhubarb & ginger smoothies. “We’re right in the middle of the Rhubarb Triangle [the area of Yorkshire famed for its forced rhubarb] so we did tastings every day in shop and served a lot of the dishes in the café,” says Frankland. “We also did a cookery demonstration at the Rhubarb Festival in Wakefield, where we had a stall.” The café’s rhubarb fool also featured on the menu at a recent gourmet food night where 40 diners tucked into a three-course ‘spring awakenings’ menu at £35 a head. “There was Champagne when they arrived, three different glasses of wine during the meal chosen by the wine specialist who also gave a talk, and port or whisky for afters. People went away very happy!” says Frankland. www.farmercopleys.co.uk Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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Understanding Italian olive oil – tasting event Unaprol, a consortium of olive oil producers, invites Fine Food Digest readers to join them for an evening tutorial on this important delicatessen product. What will you learn? • Take part in a “Find the Fake” taste test, which will help you identify quality olive oils • Meet producers and obtain essential information on production methods to pass onto customers • Join the tutored tasting to ensure you are buying the best oil and the best range for your shop The event takes place from 19.00 on May 24th 2010 at the Italian Cultural Institute, 39 Belgrave Square, London SW1 Places are limited. To find out more and to book your place contact rsvp@ winefoodpromotions.com or 020 7193 9628
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
cheese wire SHAW THING: Kent’s Winterdale Cheesemakers has doubled production capacity as it gears up to boost sales of its cheddar-style Winterdale Shaw. Robin Betts (pictured), who launched the company in 2006, has invested in a second cheese press and plans to go from a two-day production week to four days, doubling output of the hard unpasteurised cow’s milk cheese from a current rate of 200-300 kilos a week. The investment is part of a plan to market Winterdale Shaw as an eco-friendly local cheese for London, said Betts. “We are only 20 miles away from the capital and the cheese is virtually carbon neutral – the milk is from our own farm and the cheese is produced in a converted barn onsite with a maturing cellar underneath. We even use warm morning milk so we don’t waste energy heating it up,” said Betts. Matured for 10 months in a stone cellar, Winterdale Shaw comes in 10kg cloth-bound rounds and, according to Betts, has a rich, nutty flavour with a citrus tang. The cheese won gold at last year’s World Cheese Awards and is stocked by Fortnum & Mason and wholesaler Rowcliffe’s. Betts also plans to develop a Camembert-style soft cheese later this year. “We got some great media coverage from the gold award at the WCA and feel now is the right time to start branching out into the capital. We plan to be the local cheese for London,” said Betts.
Cheese mites causing ‘serious damage’ to industry, says SCA wage bill, she added. The tiny mites initially feed on West Country cheese-maker Quickes the lard and rind of the cheese, said was forced to jettison its entire stock Quicke, but after around six months of 250 vintage cheddars earlier this start to penetrate the cheese. “So year after they were ruined by cheese it’s a particular problem with cheese mites – a pest that is putting severe aged for a long time.” pressure on cloth-bound cheese Cheese mites: getting In conjunction with the SCA, producers across the country. out of control companies have been trialling solutions “It’s getting to a point where mites such as manually vacuuming cheeses each week, are doing serious damage to industry,” said Clare brushing them with diatomaceous earth – a Cheney, secretary of the Specialist Cheesemakers’ substance that kills the mites – and even looking Association (SCA). at robots that will turn and brush the cheeses Stocks of Quickes’ vintage cheddar, which is automatically. matured for 24 months, ran out in January because So far all options have proved either too costly of damage caused by mites, with new supplies not or ineffective, with mite populations now reaching ready until July. critical levels in maturation rooms. Montgomery’s, Denhay and Westcombe have Quickes is currently experimenting with blasting also been struggling to overcome the pests, which the cheeses with compressed air and removing the live on the cloth binding and burrow their way mites through dust extractors. inside the cheese. They were previously controlled by regular spraying of methyl bromide, but the substance was High five banned by the EU in 2007 because of concerns Prince Charles has extend his patronage of over its environmental impact. Farmhouse the Specialist Cheesemakers Association for producers have since struggled to come up with an another five years. SCA chairman Randolph alternative. Hodgson of Neal’s Yard Dairy described the “We’re seeing devastating levels of waste,” said Prince of Wales as a “tremendous champion Mary Quicke. “In the past year we’ve thrown away of artisan cheesemaking”. 7.5% of production.” Manually removing damaged sections of cheese has added 10% to Quickes’ By PATRICK McGUIGAN
le grand fromage BOB FARRAND I recently dined in a restaurant in Tenerife run by a Belgian chef named Lucas Maes. When it came to dessert you’d expect a Belgian to do wondrous things with chocolate, and he did. But my sights were firmly set on his local cheeses – and he didn’t disappoint there either. Which brought to mind L'Art Du Fromage, a new eatery claiming to be the first ‘all cheese’ restaurant in London. Whoever handled the PR did a good job as most nationals featured it, although sadly none resisted the urge to pass comment on the aroma. Yes – cheese pongs! Cheese restaurants are common in Europe but rare in the UK. In northern Italy, I worked through a menu where every dish was prepared exclusively using cheese and mushrooms. The sorbet wasn’t stunning but the cheeseboard was worth the trip. L’Art du Fromage is welcome because restaurants generally fail with cheese. At La Fromagerie in London, perfect cheese is served at refectory tables but it’s primarily a cheese shop, not a restaurant. Mostly, chefs are not good with cheese. Anton Mosimann once served a Stilton that he had extruded through a meat mincer into a blue and white snake, artistically circling a freshly sliced pear. What’s the point? British restaurants are obliged to serve cheese straight from the fridge – for our own safety – and
“Mosimann once served a Stilton extruded through a meat mincer into a blue and white snake, artistically circling a freshly sliced pear. What’s the point?” chefs struggle for glory serving a dish they clearly played no part in creating. A cheese selection stored at room temperature causes horrendous wastage so mostly they avoid serving it altogether. If you don’t have a sweet tooth, your meal’s finished after the main course. A wedge of cheese and an additional glass of wine rounds off my meal perfectly and increases the restaurateur’s margin. Delis and farm shops should offer cheese to local restaurants and hotels. For the chef it means regular deliveries, small quantities and no wastage, and quality will be cracking because everyone knows delis sell great cheese. Which takes me back to Tenerife. Of seven dinners eaten that week, only Lucas offered a cheeseboard featuring top notch Canary Island varieties – including the 2008 World Champion, Arico Pimenton. The head waiter described each one in delicious detail. Looking around, diners were opting for it, so at every service a new bunch of tourists discover the joys of Canary Island cheeses. What better way to prove yours rate among the best in the world? Shame it takes a Belgian chef to teach the locals how to do it. • FFD publisher Bob Farrand is chairman of the UK Cheese Guild Vol.7 Issue 1 · January 2006
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AOC, the sign of special products... A traditional cheese
The cheese of western Switzerland, with a delicate, distinguished flavour. Made since at least 1115 AD in and around the small town of Gruyères, today it is still produced by village cheese dairies in western Switzerland according to the traditional recipe. Le Gruyère AOC owes its characteristic delicacy and flavour to the top quality raw milk produced by cows fed on grass in the summer and hay in winter, coupled with the skill of the mastercheesemakers. No less than 400 litres of fresh milk are needed to produce a single wheel weighing around 35kg. During the slow maturation process, which takes several months in special cheese cellars, the wheels are turned regularly and rubbed down with saltywater. The maturing process lasts between five and 18 months.
Each cheese is systematically identified by the number of the mould and code of the cheese dairy. The day and month of production are also noted on the wheel. These black markings are made with casein, the cheese protein. No artificial additives are involved here either.
Le Gruyère AOC takes pride of place on any cheese platter. It makes for a delicious desert and can be used in tasty warm dishes. What’s more, no real fondue would be complete without genuine Gruyère AOC.
From this time on, the name ‘Gruyère AOC’ and the code of the production facility appears on the heel of each wheel of Gruyère AOC as an effective way of preventing fakes and guaranteeing authenticity. This technique employs branding irons, which give an indentation in the wheel. It is this marking that makes it possible to identify and trace each individual cheese.
The humidity and rind washing process develops the characteristic appearance of the cheese and assists in bringing the cheese into full maturity. This is what gives Le Gruyère AOC its famous, distinct flavour. It’s no great surprise that this authentic gift of nature is appreciated by cheeselovers throughout the world.
www.gruyere.com ruyere.com Cheeses from Switzerland. Switzerland. Naturally.
www.switzerland-cheese.com
cheesewire
Cheshire? Boring? Do we look bored? There’s nothing dull about real Cheshire, say the mother and daughter behind the county’s favourite cheese shop
By MICK WHITWORTH
It’s widely reported that the recession has driven trade out of restaurants and into specialist shops as consumers opt for cheaper ‘fine dining’ at home. But according to Carole Faulkner, who has been running The Cheese Shop in the historic centre of Chester for 26 years, that trend began a decade ago. “It started with the Millennium,” she says. “So many restaurants put their prices up horrifically that a lot of people decided to cook at home instead, and it really started this trend where friends would each bring one course of the meal.” For Faulkner and her daughter Ann, who also works full-time in the business, this has meant many more requests for full cheeseboards – usually a choice of blue, soft, hard and goat’s cheeses, says Carole, plus “something a bit different”. “And then, of course, we always make them have a Cheshire. It’s a nice clean, fresh cheese that’s ideal to cleanse the palate.” The Faulkners lists two farmhouse Cheshires – the pasteurised Bourne’s Organic and the raw milk Mrs Appleby’s – and never miss a chance to challenge the clichéd customer response that “Cheshire’s boring”. Ann Faulkner says: “When I run cheese and wine tastings I always take along some Bourne’s Cheshire, and people will say, ‘But that’s not what a Cheshire tastes like.’ It’s not the generic, tasteless lump they’re used to from supermarkets.” The fame of Cheshire cheese brings a steady stream of tourists to the city centre shop and also led to a TV appearance on the Hairy Bikers’ Tour of Britain last year – the same episode that featured this month’s Deli of the Month, The Cheshire Smokehouse. “The Hairy Bikers thing has been good for us – and for Chester,” says Carole. “I don’t think a day goes by without someone mentioning it.” One of Rick Stein’s original Food Heroes, The Cheese Shop specialises in artisan varieties, helped
by sister business Faulkner’s, a cheese transport operation run by Carole’s husband. It collects cheeses from farmhouse producers, brings them to the shop for finishing, and delivers to trade customers, including small shops and restaurants that cannot buy in the volumes required by bigger wholesalers. Collection points range from Ravens Oak in Cheshire, to Kirkhams in Lancashire and Charles Martell in Gloucestershire. Faulkners also links up in London with a West Country cheese distributor, adding breadth to The Cheese Shop’s own offer. This includes as many as 200 varieties, with the emphasis firmly on the British Isles. “If I could,” Carole says, “I wouldn’t have any foreign cheese at all. We might get away with that in London but there are one or two people round here who would object!” That's despite her best efforts to “brainwash” her customers, she laughs. Her most popular brie type, for example, is not Brie de Meaux but Cenarth Brie, produced by Caws Cenarth in Carmarthenshire. This pasteurised variety is also a safer option for use in celebration cheese cakes, she believes. “It’s creamy and buttery, but not as pungent as Brie de Meaux, which I think is really important at weddings.” Carole Faulkner was one of the first UK buyers to bring in Irish farmhouse cheeses and regularly stocks half a dozen, including Ardrahan, Cooleeney and
Carole and Ann Faulkner: no gimmickry, just old-fashioned quality and service
Gubbeen. Volumes have dropped since Ireland’s economic slump, but she has begun buying mixed pallets from her old friend Breda Maher at Cooleeny in Co. Tipperary, who acts a consolidator for other small producers. “It means I don’t have to spend two days on the phone ordering from all those different farms,” says Carole. The Cheese Shop, located just a stone’s throw from Chester cathedral, is a proper old-fashioned store – a narrow shop front under a striped awning, worn wooden flooring and timber shelves in the tiny shop, and a maturing cellar beneath. It was listed in The Independent’s Top 50 Food Shops last year. Although Carole Faulkner could reasonably be called a cheese industry veteran, she rolls her eyes in mock horror at the idea she might one day consider retiring. And while daughter Ann says it’s tough to get new ideas past someone who can always say “it has worked this way for 26 years”, she also acknowledges her mother’s central role in a business that relies on knowledge and personal service. “Mum’s created that herself,” she says. “Everyone around here knows that Carole Faulkner knows what she’s talking about.” www.chestercheeseshop.co.uk
Beating M&S hands down Several of the better-known specialities listed by The Cheese Shop are now also on sale in Marks & Spencer stores. However, Ann Faulkner says she was taken aback to find that the likes of Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire and Appleby’s Cheshire were dearer to buy in M&S vac-packs than loose from her family shop’s cheese counter. “It’s important to know that,” she says. “Even though I work in the industry, I had just assumed that we would be more expensive on products like that.” And her mother says price is not the only difference. “One of our customers came running one day with an M&S vac-pack, absolutely incensed that one of our ‘specialist’ cheeses was on sale there. But we opened the pack and tasted it together, and you wouldn’t have known it was the same cheese.” Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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SET YOUR SIGHTS ON SUMMER SALES
You may have to flick through twenty pages of our price list but you will find a veritable treasure trove of summer comestibles to tempt the discerning customer. A fantastic range of anchovies can bring a Mediterranean look to your counter. Fresh anchovies with garlic, a provencale sauce or even an oriental blend can make a superb tapas as do the banderilles and sardines in basil. It’s the time of year for a mixed seafood salad, spicy mussels or even squid in a spicy sauce. From cooler climes but equally popular for summer al fresco eating, we have the famous and well respected herring and salmon products from Orkney. The classic dill flavoured herring is one of the most popular with the luxury mix close on its heels. The salmon rolls are simply delightful in a choice of raspberry and champagne or a juniper marinade. The crayfish tails in a sweet chilli dressing make a simple but tasty starter. So, go past the cheeses, the pates and the salamis and find out what you have been missing !
01892 838999 www.rowcliffe.co.uk
d Revise dates
available in 2kg wheels or 200g minis
Carron Lodge Ltd. Park Head Farm, Inglewhite, Preston, PR3 2LN Tel: 01995 640352 Fax: 01995 641040 Email: carronlodge@talk21.com
The Charcuterie Guild & UK Cheese Guild
Charcuterie dates for 2010 Date Tues June 29 Tues July 6
Venue Stockport, Manchester York
Cheese dates for 2010 Date Weds June 23 Weds June 30 Weds July 7
Venue Wincanton, Somerset Stockport, Manchester York
Course costs Members of The Guild of Fine Food just £60, plus VAT (£70.50). Non-members £85, plus VAT (£99.88). For more information: E-mail: linda.farrand@finefoodworld.co.uk www.finefoodworld.co.uk/charcuterie | www.finefoodworld.co.uk/cheese
Avilton foods
28
Dambuster
May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
For a real Farmhouse cheese made in the New Forest, Hampshire. Makers of Lyburn Gold, Stoney Cross and Old Winchester.
focuson
biscuits
Breaking out of the barrel Savoury biscuit producers seem to have been out-baking their sweet counterparts on the innovation front, but could they be overdoing it? LYNDA SEARBY finds out.
T
he savoury biscuit selection available when I first opened four years ago was much more limited than today,” recalls Fiona Kay, owner of specialist cheese retailer Cheese Please in Sussex, highlighting the number of new herb or cheese flavoured crackers now available to fine food stores. And at Wykham Park Farm Shop in Banbury, owner Julia Colegrave has also noticed more innovation in savoury than in sweet options. “I think sweet ones have always been overdone,” she says. “There are an awful lot to choose from.” Steve Fudge of Dorset bakery Fudges agrees with her reasoning, saying: “There are limitations with sweet biscuits, particularly with variations in the base recipe. Over the years inclusions have been pretty well exhausted too. Savoury biscuits are far less developed and leave a lot more scope for innovation.” If there’s one brand that demonstrates how savoury biscuits have gone from conservative to cutting-edge in the space of a few years, it’s the Fine Cheese Co in Bath, whose flavoured crackers make traditional oatcakes, water biscuits and Bath Olivers look positively prehistoric. “We sell a lot of Fine Cheese Co crackers,” says Kay. “They have a recommended biscuit to go with each cheese – celery to go with blue cheese, olive oil to go with parmesan and pecorino.” But is there a danger some products could become too quirky or sophisticated for their own good? Wykham Park’s Colegrave thinks products such as The Fine Cheese Co’s cheese sablés – a savoury twist on the crumbly French shortbreadstyle cookies – are “too clever by half”. “If they were just called savoury biscuits they’d sell because they’re delicious, but the packaging and the message are so subtle that people don’t know what they are.” And at The Udder Farm Shop in Dorset, general manager Maurice McNulty is taking a ‘back to basics’ approach to sweet biscuits by baking his
Julia Colgrave, Wykham Park Farm Shop: more innovation in savoury biscuits than sweet
How about Malmo’s thin crispbreads (right) for pairing with cheeses like Strathdon Blue... ... or another crispbread, this time from Peter’s Yard (left), for a creamy Lancashire?
The best biscuits with... Espresso coffee “I’d recommend pairing with stem ginger biscuits coated in dark chocolate. The rich smoothness of a classic shot of espresso contrasts wonderfully with the crunch of the biscuit. The sweet spiciness of the ginger creates an extra dimension, fusing with the complex aromas from the coffee.” Damian Blackburn, Grumpy Mule Hard farmhouse cheeses “The classic oatcake, but made a little thinner than the more worthy kind. My choice at present is [London chef and baker] Sally Clarke’s, because there’s good butter added to the mixture, giving a lovely toasty nuttiness to the taste which is ideal for a shard of crumbly cheddar to sit on top.” Patricia Michelson, La Fromagerie
Lancashire cheese “Try organic creamy Lancashire with handmade Swedish crispbreads from Peter’s Yard. The full, creamy flavour of the Lancashire blends perfectly with the dry crispbread. The crispbread has enough flavour to be interesting but no added flavours such as salt, pepper and chilli to detract from the cheese.” John Axon, The Cheese Hamlet
Washed rind cheeses “You would think a strong tasting biscuit would be the match, but washed rinds have a mellow richness as well as a pungency, and spelt or rye wafers by Millers Damsel give a hint of sweetness to the overall flavours. Very moreish and complementing.” Patricia Michelson, La Fromagerie
Goat’s cheese “The acidity of goat’s cheese requires a biscuit that’s crisp yet light in order to enjoy the flavours of the milk. We are really loving Peter’s Yard Crispbread round biscuits at the moment, made to a traditional Swedish recipe using rye and wheat flour, and a perfect thin and crunchy texture.” Patricia Michelson, La Fromagerie
Blue cheeses “These can require a sweet style biscuit like the Duchy biscuits, although I find these far too thick and too much biscuit for my cheese! I prefer Malmo Nordic Swedish Crisp Breads – a really classy sugar- and fat-free thin flat crispbread with rye, linseeds and sunflower to give texture and crunch.” Patricia Michelson, La Fromagerie Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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focuson Steve Fudge: ‘Savoury biscuits have been less developed than sweet and leave more room for innovation’
own – a move born out of his frustration at overcomplicated branded offerings. “I’m inundated with suppliers, and I think they’ve almost gone too far – overly branded and trying too hard to be different. I’m just looking for something relatively straightforward, which is why I’ve started making my own sweet biscuits. They’re as basic as you can get. They aren’t over-packaged, they aren’t over-complicated, and that’s where I’m getting the growth from.” For retailers who prefer to leave the baking to their suppliers, making sure they don’t alienate shoppers is likely to mean a balanced range of traditional and trendy options. At Cheese Please, the Fine Cheese Co’s flavoured crackers sit on shelf alongside Miller’s Damsels charcoal biscuits and oatcakes from McKenzie’s and Stoats. “The oatcakes are staples but they’re ones you can’t get in supermarkets,” say Kay. “I don’t stock Nairn’s or other mainstream makes – I just go for ones made by small Scottish producers.” And traditional doesn’t have to equal dull. Colegrave names Your Piece Baking Company as one of her “greatest finds” in the last 18 months. Although it makes traditional biscuits like oatcakes and shortbreads, Colegrave says its approach is fresh. “We sell other oatcakes but these way outsell the rest. Although Your Piece hasn’t been going long, they’ve got the right idea. Their oatcakes are hand-made, free of additives and made from butter rather than hydrogenated fats, and they taste so good you can just munch them on their own with nothing on them.” She says another example of traditional done well is the Elegant & English range from Artisan Biscuits. “They are a classic teatime biscuit with good ingredients and leave a satisfying taste in the mouth. You could imagine them on an elegant tea plate at The Ritz.” There’s no question that sophisticated packaging, new flavours and herb inclusions have brought much needed innovation to savoury biscuits. But the importance of traditional stables shouldn’t be underestimated. As Steve Fudge puts it: “Innovative products bring excitement to the category but their lifespan is often short. There are trusted mainstays that have a ‘reserved’ notice in household cupboards. Examples are digestives and dipped stem ginger biscuits. These are traditional products that have repeat purchase and longevity.” Udder Farm Shop general manager Maurice McNulty: ‘I’m looking for something relatively straightforward, which is why I’ve started making my own sweet biscuits. They’re as basic as you can get.’
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
biscuits Developing an own brand biscuit Ever thought you’d like to sell your own brand of biscuits? Paxton & Whitfield has done just that with its own ranges of crackers and ‘oaties’. At the end of last year, the cheesemonger and wholesaler expanded its range with Cheese Bites – bite-sized biscuits made with cheese and fresh herbs. Buyer Sara Hall (pictured) told FFD about the eight-month project. How did you find the right producer? We spent a long time talking to different bakeries and eventually found Shropshire Fine Herbs, run by Annie and Hugh Laughton. They’ve got access to a walled herb garden, and we wanted to do cheese and herb combinations. It was also important that their packaging system fitted with what we wanted. They use a flow-wrapper for all their products. If we’d insisted on another type of packaging they would have to recalibrate their existing machines, which would mean more cost for us. How did you develop the products? We looked at the market, decided where we wanted to be and what price point we were aiming for, which gave us a theoretical cost for both product and packaging. We gave Hugh and Annie a brief outlining what we were looking for,
including what flavour profile and texture we wanted, what style of biscuit we wanted, the volumes we were looking at, and so on. What challenges did you encounter? Balancing the flavour and texture was the biggest one. We wanted a strong cheese flavour to come through, but adding a lot of cheese resulted in a soft textured biscuit, so we ended up going back and forth until we reached a flavour-texture balance that worked. Pairing the right herbs with the right cheeses was also difficult – some combinations that we thought would be great, such as Wensleydale & lavender and Gouda & cumin, turned out to be dreadful. We started off with about 12 flavours. This was whittled down to three. Are your own-label products more profitable than bought-in brands? We didn’t make the decision because it was more cost-effective – in fact I’m not sure there are massive savings. We did it because it fitted in with our ethos of offering products that are bespoke to us.
product update: biscuits
• Scottish sweet biscuit, oatcake and cracker brand Cairnsmhor is sporting a new look and an extended range. It has added all butter shortbread to its sweet biscuits line, and on the savoury side has launched a traditional oatcake and four crackers: wholegrain mustard, crushed black pepper, sea salt and oat & wheat. www.cairnsmhor.co.uk • Scottish shortbreads will face fresh competition later this year when Seymours of Cork enters the UK market. The Irish company already supplies food stores in Ireland with handmade biscuits, including its flagship original shortbread. www.seymours.ie • Ancient grains are enjoying a comeback, and Gilchesters Organics is capitalising on their popularity with a new range of spelt-based savoury biscuits. The spelt is grown and milled on Gilchesters’ farm in Northumberland and
made into three biscuit varieties: thyme, which is said to complement soft cheeses, honey & mustard seed, which is recommended with hard cheeses, and sea salt seasoned original. www.gilchesters.com • Spanish importer Delicioso is making three new biscuits available to UK retailers: polvorones and two variants of tortas de Aceite. Polvorones are soft Spanish biscuits made from ground almonds. Delicioso is stocking assorted polvorones from the house of Dona Jimena, including biscuits flavoured with chocolate, cinnamon and wine. Tortas de Aceite are olive oil biscuits from Seville. They have a caramelised sugar topping and are flavoured with aniseeds and sesame seeds. Delicioso says their recent popularity has prompted it to introduce two new lines from the same family-run company. Tortas saladas are flavoured with sesame seeds and salt, and can accompany cheese, while tortas almendras is a sweeter biscuit made with chopped almonds and sugar and can be served with coffee. www.delicioso.co.uk
www.deans.co.uk
No need to look any further for some honest to goodness traditional home baking. Dean’s offer a delicious light and crumbly ‘melt in the mouth’ range of traditional Scottish Shortbread and Biscuits. Made from the finest ingredients, and using Helen Dean’s original family recipe, there’s something for everyone with a real taste of home. Give your taste buds a treat! Dean’s, Huntly, Aberdeenshire, AB54 8JX T: 01466 792086.
Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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By Appointment to
Good local food. www.southoverfoods.com
01273 596830
A.W.Smith & Sons (Sundries) Ltd Online orders taken 24hrs a day 7 days a week Call for your free 2010 catalogue.
New from the Highlands...big on taste! A traditional family recipe from the heart of Speyside, the home of shortbread. Now available in our “grab and go” bags.
www.walkersshortbread.com 32
May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
Tel: 0121 486 4500 Sundries, Equipment, Machinery and More. www.awsmith.co.uk
product focuson focus
biscuits
product update: biscuits • Paxton & Whitfield has launched a savoury biscuit collection tin to match its ceramic Stilton pot. The tin contains cheddar cheese straws, original crackers, malted crackers and charcoal crackers. www.paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk • Fudges has introduced four ‘dipped’ sweet biscuits. The butter biscuit is half dipped in Belgian dark chocolate, while the oat & sultana biscuits and hazelnut biscuits are both dipped in Belgian milk chocolate and lemon zest is dipped in white chocolate. www.fudges.co.uk
• New from the Handmade Oatcake Company is a cheese oatcake. This is recommended to be served with cream cheese and sweet chilli sauce, or with a spoon of plum jam. www.thehandmadeoatcakecompany.co.uk
• Cornwall-based St. Kew Products has launched several new biscuit offerings, including oatie flips with dark chocolate chips, mature cheddar cheese oatcakes and a Christmas market tin for forward-thinking retailers. www. stkewproducts. co.uk
• Providing a variation on the traditional florentine are Florentine Bites from Mrs Huddleston’s Luxury Provisions. They are described as a ‘softer and more luscious bite-sized version’ of the florentine and are made using honey from the company’s own bees. www.mrshuddleston.com
• Rustique Biscuit Company, based at the Artisan Food Centre in Dorset, is unveiling its ‘just seriously scrumptious’ range at the Christchurch Food Festival this month. The range includes: mixed biscotti, crusade, garibaldi bites, praline, peanut butter bites and gingerbread bites. www.artisan-centre.com • Shoppers can now bake off their own cookies in 12 minutes from frozen thanks to Vanilla Patisserie’s ‘ready to bake’ cookie doughs (right). www.vanillapatisserie.co.uk
• Several new biscuits containing Italian Seggiano olive oil are now available from Peregrine Trading. Poor Man’s Ricciarelli – wheatfree Italian country biscuits made with ground hazelnuts – are the latest addition to its traditional Tuscan biscuit range, while raspberry biscuits, apple & pine nut treats and wheat-free coffee biscuits made with rice flour from Gli Aironi have a more contemporary feel. On the savoury side, Seggiano Mother-in-Law Tongues’ from Piemonte come in classic, chilli and parmesan flavours. www.seggiano.co.uk • Southover Food Company has moved into the biscuit market with a range of handproduced cookies and shortbread. Cookie variants include chunky almond, oat & raisin, ginger & choc chip, chocolate and macaroon. www.southoverfoods.com • German biscuit brand Lambertz is now available to retailers via Gourmet World. Products include ‘12 Delicacies’ – a selection of petit four-type biscuits which offer an alternative to florentines. www.gourmet-world.co.uk
• Cottage Delight’s selection of sweet biscuits has been treated to a packaging overhaul. The company has also added oat, fig & honey biscuits to its range. www. cottagedelight. co.uk Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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product update
seasonings & spices
Sprinkle, sprinkle little stars Want to pep up your ingredients fixture? Try a sprinkle of truffle salt or ras el hanout. • With the barbecue season approaching, the Sussex-based Good Salt Company, which specialises in mineral-rich and unrefined Himalayan crystal salt, is preparing to launch two new ‘special seasoning’ salts: extra hot and oak-smoked. Co-owner Sigune Brinch told FFD: “The first, while hot, is well balanced and intensely aromatic, whereas the second is really smoky. They’re both great on steaks, barbecues, fresh tomato salad or to give body to a stew.” The new flavours will be available later in the year in glass shakers with flip tops, to tie in with the rest of Good Salt range. www.goodsaltcompany.com • Several months of rebranding and product development activity have seen Steenbergs introduce a new-look premium range of nine spice and herb blends – including the popular za’atar and ras al hanout – in metal cannisters, as well as new Fairtrade organic curry powder, garam masala and cardamom pods in its classic glass jars. It follows what co-owner Sophie Steenberg says was a “massive increase” to the company’s bakery range last autumn. This saw the rebranding of seven organic and Fairtrade flavoured sugars – cinnamon, lemon, lavender, vanilla, mulling wine, chai and rose – along with organic Fairtrade mixed spice, gluten free baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. These joined a range of extracts and floral waters in the revamped bakery collection. www.steenbergs.co.uk
STAR TURN: Cumbrian-based spice blend specialist Starly’s Spice Co has won a listing with Harvey Nichols for six of its 12 mixes: Bombay Potatoes, Onion Bhajias, Rogan Josh, Chilli Masala, Jalfrezi and Madras. The range – shown on sale in Cranstons food hall in Penrith – was created by Steven Higginson and Carly Jones. Each is packaged with a simple recipe and a shopping list of ingredients, so Indian food lovers can make their favourite meal at home. The 12 products are stocked in over 500 farm shops, delis and premium retailers across northern England, Wales and Scotland. Five of them – including the ultra-hot Satan’s Ashes – are also in Booth’s supermarkets. www.starlys.co.uk
• A new range of 'dual mill' salt, pepper and spice combinations has been launched into farm shops, delis and butchers nationwide by Verstegen Spices & Sauces. Jon Childs, UK sales manager for the Dutch-owned business, says the range is being promoted with special offer packs, exclusive to independent stores, that include a free retail display rack with 60 of the new grinders, plus 49 of Vertegen’s Micro Sauces. Selling the grinders at £2.99 and the sauces at 99p will deliver a gross margin of 59% on the offer package. www.verstegen.co.uk • Fortnum & Mason, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges have all listed a luxury black truffle salt from chef Tetsuya Wakuda, whose restaurant in Sydney, Australia, crops up regularly in lists of the world’s top eateries. Laura Sykes of The Food Emporium, the line’s exclusive UK importer, says the product combines Italian black truffle with soft sea salt from Sicily and can be used to add an exotic touch to any savoury dish. Trade price is £11.10 per unit, with an RRP £19.95 www.thefoodemporium.co.uk
• Hanbury, the premium salt and rub brand from Bart Spices, was relaunched last month in what the company describes as a “new, exciting and more convenient” packaging format. The flavoured herb sea salts have been renamed from ‘Good With’ to ‘Great With’ and the logo has been revamped to press home the premium feel of the brand, which is marketed to delis and farm shops. The sea salts retail for around £2.99 for a 250g plastic tub or £4.99 for 170g in a kilner jar, while the rubs sell at www.bartsspices.com £3.49 for a 45g stainless tin.
• Soil Association-certified Hambleden Herbs is swopping its long-established carton format for a more conventional resealable jar. It carried out research with consumer focus groups and loyal shoppers before jettisoning its original packaging format, which has been around since 1982. Hambleden describes the move as a massive leap of faith. “It has taken us a bit of time – 28 years actually,” says sales and marketing manager Hugh Eakins, adding that consumer feedback received via a new “all singing, all dancing” website launched last year had supported the move. www.hambledenherbs.com • “Over the next two or three years, Middle Eastern food is going to have its time,” says James Walters, director and executive chef of London’s Arabica Food & Spice Co. Arabica was founded by Walters and business partner Jad al Younis to exploit their shared interest in flavours from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. Starting with a falafel stall on Borough Market, where it continues to operate on Friday and Saturdays, Arabica Food & Spice has developed a range of flavourings, pastes, preserves and pulses, as well a number of spice blends and rubs. www. arabicafoodandspice. com Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
product update
bottled cider
Cider’s back on duty
Spared a much-publicised 13% duty hike by shortage of Parliamentary time ahead of the General Election, premium bottled cider is firmly back on the drinks menu. MICK WHITWORTH gathers the latest news from the orchard. • Herefordshire’s Tom Oliver has launched Classic Perry, a 50cl medium sweet sparkling 6.4% perry, described as “refreshing, with a touch of rhubarb on the nose and a full pear fruit taste”. Trade price is £1.50, RRP £2.35. Also new from the multi-award-winning producer is Making Hay, a “thirst quenching, bittersharp” 6% cider. Trade price is £1.35 each, RRP £2.11. www.theolivers.org.uk • Orchard Pig, based at West Bradley Orchards near Glastonbury, will invest around £100,000 this year in a marketing campaign designed to make it a national brand by appealing to “more discerning, adventurous palates”. Its cloudy, premium drinks – a medium sparkling table cider, dry cider and mulled cider – are made on the farm from a blend of English cider apples. www.orchardpig.co.uk • Lyme Bay Winery, whose Jack Ratt Scrumpy Cider was judged Best Speciality from the South West at the 2009 Great Taste Awards, is launching a mulled version for Christmas 2010. Sales manager Lucy Bennett says the blend of scrumpy cider, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, lemon and orange zest will make
Artisan ciders… from Asturias? Most Brits associate cider with the west of England, but importer Delicioso has discovered a more unusual source: the Asturias region of northern Spain. According to director Kate Shirley-Quirk, the topography of this coastal belt, backed by the Picos mountains, provides a lot of rain and just enough summer sun to nicely ripen the apple crop. Delicioso imports from two producers in Asturias, where sidra is the favourite tipple. The pair represent the two main styles from the region: Champañada – a sparkling cider with a Champagne-type cork – and ‘natural’ or still cider. The natural style – Delicioso’s is made by Trebanco – is cloudy, with a dry, tart flavour, a bit like our own scrumpy and typical of the drinks served in the region’s many sidrerías. Shirley-Quirk explains: “The custom in these rustic bars is to pour a small amount of cider from a great height into a flat glass to introduce air and open up the flavour. Our Trebanco cider comes with a plastic spout to help the customer do this without pouring from a height – which makes quite a mess unless you are expert at it!” The second Asturian style, Champañada, this “a great hassle-free festive tipple”. RRP will be around £2.95. It joins a seasonal range from the Devon company that includes mulled wine and Christmas Mead. www.lymebaywinery.co.uk The Crown at Whitebrook, a Michelinstarred restaurant-with-rooms in Monmouthshire, has become the latest
Targeting fine food stores Somerset cider-maker Perry’s aims to raise its profile in the fine food sector this year with new branding. Created by Bristol agency Pigrem Design, it’s a radical change from Perry’s previous, traditional look. George Perry, the latest family member to join the 87-year-old firm, says the aim is to add shelf appeal and create “more of a lifestyle brand that people will want to buy into, and which better reflects the styles of ciders we are now producing”. These include lightly sparkling single-variety ciders using Dabinett, Morgan Sweet and Somerset Redstreak
apples. Perry says: “We wanted something that would look a little different against other ciders out there and wouldn’t be out of place in independents that want a point of difference from the multiples.” The first re-branded bottles were sold into trade customers late last year while two new 750ml table ciders were unveiled at April’s Taste of the West show. They are Vintage Reserve, which spends at least 12 months in wood before bottling, and Single Orchard, a still blend of Somerset Dabinett and Redstreak apples grown at Perry’s Knowle St Giles base. RRPs for both are £3-£3.20. www.perryscider.co.uk
is clear and dry and has a softer flavour. “Champañada is mostly drunk in the rest of Spain rather than in Asturias itself, where they prefer the natural cider,” says Shirley-Quirk. “Ours is called El Gaitero, which means The Bagpiper – they have a Gallic tradition of playing the bagpipes in the same way as in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and Scotland. “In Asturias they were amazed to hear we had cider in our country, and over here most British people are surprised they have cider in Spain!” www.delicioso.co.uk
upmarket client for Ty Gwyn Cider, based nearby in the Monnow valley. It comes shortly after Ty Gwyn was taken on by the area’s bestknown Michelin-starred eatery, The Walnut Tree near Abergavenny. Ty Gwyn was set up by long-established apple grower James McConnel in 2006, after Bulmers was unable to buy the whole of that year’s crop. Its main products are a medium dry made with Vilberie and Brown Snout apples and a medium made with Browns cider apples. www.tygwyncider.co.uk • Wales the True Taste award-winner Gwynt y Ddraig has launched Autumn Magic, a bottled cider said to offer a “fruity fusion of blackberry and apple reminiscent of autumn”. RRP is £2.50 a bottle, and the trade price is £17.74 for a case of 12. Gwynt y Ddraig was launched in 2001 on Llest Farm in South Wales. The apples, which come entirely from Welsh orchards, are milled and pressed on the farm and the juice is matured in oak casks. 01443 209852 Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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shelftalk
products, packaging & promotions
Chosen carefully, non-foods can brighten your store and offer good margins too
Double your money on giftware – and have fun buying it too
Creative Tops produces a range of ceramics with the Victoria & Albert museum Jersey Pottery’s Tea Party range was launched at this year’s Spring Fair By MICK WHITWORTH
with something a bit more ‘classic’, tableware specialist gifts. Fairmont normally has a £450 minimum, carriage Bolting tableware and non-food gifts onto your food Creative Tops was showing some of the latest additions paid, but Harrison told FFD: “We often do small and drink offer can be an attractive prospect. The to its Victoria & Albert Museum licensed ranges. They introductory orders, and many customers are happy to margins can far exceed most foods, shelflife isn’t an include William Morris fine bone china mugs (RRP pay the £10 carriage charge for say a £250 order. We issue (provided you don’t overbuy on really faddy £12.50) and a new Chinoiserie collection (RRP £9.99), like small, independent customers and our ranges sell products), you’re upping your chances to cross-sell, both supplied in matching V&A-stamped presentation very well in country-type outlets.” and adding visual appeal to the store. boxes. Other products that have caught our eyes at trade The downside, of course, is that if your taste in Creative Tops has designs for every demographic shows this year include the new Allotments series from ceramics, oven-gloves or birthday cards is not as well – it’s Born to Shop tea gift sets went into Tesco for Quail Ceramics – mugs featuring an assortment of tuned as your tastebuds you could tie up a lot of cash Mother’s Day – but marketing manager Clare Farthing vegetable designs, which would be naturals for shops in stock that soon gathers dust. reckons the V&A range is more up the fine food with a strong fresh produce offer – and a range of Darren Ward has recently added both trendy sector’s street. kitchen linen designed by Jackie Llewelyn-Bowen for cookware and greetings cards to the range at The For those seeking something a bit more ‘retro’, Charles Gallen Irish Linen. Smokehouse in Cheshire (see Deli of the Month, Fairmont & Main, another tableware specialist, was Look out too for the Snapdragon range of machinep17). He says greetings cards allow you to “more about to add a traditional Brown Betty teapot to its embroidered tea cosies, egg cosies, bottle openers and than double up” on the trade price, and that decent range – a brown-glazed design that dates back 200 lapel badges – many with foodie designs and ideal for suppliers will often take stock back if you have years and is loaded with nostalgia. And managing till-side impulse buys. www.charles-gallen.ie inadvertently over-ordered on seasonal items like director Philip Harrison told www.creative-tops.com Father’s Day cards. The moral there is to buy from us Fairmont’s various ‘spot’ ranges – decorated with www.fairmont.co.uk reputable, established suppliers and be careful of fly-bycoloured spots – are among its established best sellers, www.hiltonoflondon.co.uk nights selling from the back of a van. with its ‘hens and ducks’ and ‘down on the farm’ www.jerseypottery.com But buying giftware can also be a lot of fun, giving ranges also selling well in farm shops. www.quailceramics.co.uk you a chance to explore a new set of catalogues and Minimum orders can be an issue for food stores, www.snapdragongarden.co.uk trade shows and to indulge yourself like a regular especially when it comes to slower-moving non-food shopper. At this year’s Spring Fair, the annual giftware shindig at the NEC, the FFD team were particularly taken with Jersey Pottery’s new Tea Party range, which we reckoned was among the best of the new tableware and foodie gift items on show Decorated with colourful cakes and pastries and designed, as it sounds, for use at the afternoon tea table, the Tea Party range runs from coasters (RRP £2.96) and tea plates (£9.99) up to a sugar pot (£19.98) The Smokehouse’s and tea pot (£39.95). There’s also a ceramic Darren Ward finds cake slice, priced to sell at a gift-friendly suppliers are helpful in £9.99. exchanging unsold stock For delis with looking to dress the shelves of seasonal greeting cards Betty & Alice salt and pepper from Fairmont & Main: ‘spots’ are said to be good sellers 38
May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
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• Bart Spices has launched a Bart Home Baking range, including sugar balls and sugar strands, to add fun to cakes and biscuits. Intended to tap into the growing home baking market, the range has bright, funky labels designed to sit alongside other Bart products which were revamped last year. This new range comes in cases of four and can be bought online. 0117 977 3474 www.bartspices.com
• Gilchesters Organics’ new range of savoury biscuits is made from its own milled spelt flour. This ancient grain was used in Roman times and is celebrating a revival thanks to its flavour and digestive benefits, especially for people with wheat sensitivities. Original, thyme and honey & mustard seed varieties are available in cases of 12 for £23.40. The RRP is £2.95 for a 150g carton. 01661 886119 www.gilchesters.com
• Chunks of wholemeal biscuit mixed with chewy marshmallows and topped with a drizzle of chocolate flavoured coating make up the new Rocky Road traybakes from Border Homebake. They are produced by Justine Carruthers and a team of bakers who say they aim to keep traditional farmhouse skills alive. The range also includes various flavours of flapjack, shortcakes, tiffin honeycomb crunch, caramel crispie and brownies. 01434 321684 www.traybakes.com
• A “lively new range of fruity little numbers” is how Rose Farm describes its Jamnastics range of eight jams and two marmalades, which are handmade in open pans from natural ingredients and packaged in 240g sizes. A different hand-drawn label illustration and a unique serving suggestion are contained on each of the jars, which cost £1.49 and retail between £1.98 and £2.50. 01934 712347 sales@jamnastics.co.uk
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S U P LI E P
• Curry Cuisine has rebranded and repackaged its pickles and chutneys range under the Chutnee’s banner, as well as launching a luxury mango chutney infused with freshly roasted spices and saffron. Handmade from locally sourced produce, the Chutnee’s range also includes a spiced strawberry chutney and a rhubarb & mango version. Seasonal variants will be introduced every four months, starting with a hot rhubarb chilli jam and a limited edition hot gooseberry pickle. 07952 112810 www.currycuisine.co.uk
• Biscottificio Belli is Gourmet World’s fastselling line of cantuccini. The dense almond cantuccini and the chocolate variety are available in both gifting and everyday packaging to maximise selling opportunities. The new range offers a choice of Italian biscuits in six flavours: strawberry & white chocolate, fig & almond, chocolate & raisin, almond & orange, chocolate coconut and Zuccherini. 01993 774741 info@gourmet-world.co.uk
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• Secret Chef has added a range of 3-in-1 Indian curry meal kits to its selection of herbs, spices and salts blended in Cornwall. Available in five varieties, each contains three spice sachets to create a curry, pilau rice and side dish as well as a shopping list and cooking instructions. Each variety is packed in shelfready boxes of six. RRP is £2.45, and the company says small minimum orders and other introductory deals are available. 01637 879409 www.secretchef.info • Launched to sell all things cherryrelated, Supercherry is now sourcing English cherry products to add to its initial range of Italian-made drinks and chocolates. Its new handmade cherry fudge is a traditional fudge made with sour cherries and it will be launched at the Real Food Festival at Earls Court, London, this month (Stand PO88). Each 250g cellophane bag of fudge has a hand-tied burgundy bow and will retail at £5.50-£6. Trade price is £3.20 per unit. 07841 699240 www.super-cherry.co.uk
• Anastasia’s Eros olive oil is made to a recipe that combines a mixture of herbs with a special infusion of dittany of Crete and savory – two herbs known for their aphrodisiac values. The extra virgin Cretan olive oil comes in a 200ml heart-shaped bottle and retails at £12. The wholesale price is £4.95 plus delivery. 07736 688717 info@troots.co.uk • Even if Alistair Darling had gone ahead with his planned tax hike on cider, West Lake Orchards reckons it wouldn’t have held back sales of the Devon producer’s 6.5% abv organic premium cider. George Travis has spent five years achieving the right balance of bittersweet cider apples from local organic orchards to produce a cider with a full, fruity taste. Travis uses traditional methods to convert the sharp young cider into a rounder, softer tasting drink with a light sparkle. 01409 221991 www.west-lake.co.uk • Awleston Jam & Chutney Empire might not have the global ambitions that it’s name suggests – it’s just preserves maker Susan Young and her maslin pan in her home kitchen in a Dorset village. “But my empire is expanding,” says Young, whose growing range of jams, marmalades and chutneys includes a “very lemony” lemon curd made by hand with Dorset Denhay butter, Dorset eggs from Foots Farm, British sugar and the zest and juice of fresh unwaxed lemons. A 340g jar costs £2.30 to the trade, and the curd is also available in catering size. 01963 23654 www.alwestonjamandchutney.co.uk • Apologies to FiberGourmet – in last month’s Shelf Talk we added £1 to the recommended retail price of its Light Pasta, which in fact has an RRP of just £2.49 per box. FiberGourmet pasta has 40% fewer calories than standard varieties and more than three times the fibre per serving of whole wheat pasta. At 18g of fibre per serving, that’s 72% of the RDA. A case of 12 boxes costs £21. 07793 050005 www.fibergourmet.co.uk Vol.11 Issue 4 ·May 2010
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Bracken Hill Fine Foods Ltd Yorkshire Preserves
☛ The Lashford family established and have run the butchers over 120 years
☛ Winners of over 120 awards for our sausages ☛ Pork Mustard and Honey Sausage winner at the Heart of England Fine Foods Competition
☛ Winner of the Black Country and Birmingham Speciality Award.
☛ Traditionally made Pork Pies ☛ Faggots made to a popular Lashford receipe handed down through the generations.
☛ Trade enquires welcome.
Unit 15, Allcroft Road, Hall Green, Birmingham B11 3EE t: 0121 7777010 w: www.lashford.co.uk
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
Award winning preserves and farm pressed apple juice from the Vale of York Bracken Hill use only the finest ingredients, some from their own orchard to produce a wide range of preserves, pickles, chutneys and fruit curds.All of their products are made on the farm using their own recipes developed over many years.Wholesale enquiries welcome. For further information see our web site www.brackenhillfinefoods.co.uk or telephone 01904 608811
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Paul Tidmarsh’s quest to make the world’s best biscuit has resulted in a range of six varieties in two packaging formats S U P LI E P – individually wrapped or a newly launched punnet of eight. Described as completely natural and just like homemade, the biscuits are uneven, buttery and melt in the mouth, with chunks of chocolate (not chips), real fruit and whole nuts. Varieties are: super creamy white chocolate & whole macadamia nut; oat, chewy pieces of apple chunks & a pinch of cinnamon; smooth peanut butter with chocolate chunks; milk chocolate chunks in a buttery crumbly oat biscuit; muesli – toasted seeds with soft chewy apricot & pear in an oat biscuit; and milk chocolate & chewy jumbo 08456 121201 raisins. All six are available exclusively through Cotswold Fayre. EDITE CR
01364 654749
New cooking sauces include sweet and spicy options An eastern Mediterranean-style cooking with apricots & wild honey, ideal for lamb or chicken tagine, is among three new S U P LI E P ambient cooking sauces from Pollen True Taste. The others are smoked paprika, olive & sweet pepper and hot chilli & ginger. Pollen has also tweaked the recipes of its three chilled pestos – fresh basil & almond, fresh English watercress & lemon, and sundried tomato – which are sold in 175g glass jars. EDITE CR
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South Devon-based Ashridge Cider, best known for its award-winning sparkling Champagne-method ciders, has brought out a new lightly carbonated variety in a 500ml crown cap bottle. Blended from up to 20 varieties of traditional West Country cider apples, the newcomer is described as “medium dry with a great depth of flavour”. According to Ashridge owner Jason Mitchell, cider made from the 2009 harvest will also be fully organic. “Our new cider will appeal to a wide audience,” he said, “and is proving very popular already.” Wholesale price is £13.50 ex. VAT for a case of 12. Ashridge – which collected three Great Taste Awards in a row for its Champagne-method cider – has also just launched the first two varieties in a range of organic sparkling soft drinks: sparkling apple juice and sparkling elderflower pressé.
01428 608870 www. pollenorganics. com
www.ashridgecider.co.uk
Flax flakes with a Canadian twang
Dinky bags of shortbread for eating on the move
0800 072 3658
www.naturespath.co.uk
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Snack-size 125g packs of shortbread have been launched by Walkers to meet the needs S U P LI E P of on-the-go consumers. These dinky tartan bags contain 33 bite-size biscuits and are designed to prompt an impulse buy. Available in two varieties – Walkers’ original recipe mini shortbread rounds and mini choc chip shortbread rounds – the packs are presented in shelf-ready display trays to make them convenient to stock and easy to sell. EDITE CR
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Best known for its free-from cereals, Nature’s Path is raising its presence in the UK from this April by EDITE unveiling a five-strong organic range of bold flavoured, flax flake-based products that have been put CR together with UK taste preferences in mind. The range comprises: Maple Syrup & Hazelnut Harmony, S U P LI E P Pumpkin & Raisin Huddle, Apple & Cinnamon Orchard, Cherry & Coconut Harvest and Ginger & Cashew Commotion. It says the UK range has been designed to bring some small company pizzazz to a “traditionally sombre” mainstream cereal flakes fixture dominated by major brands. The Canadian producer is reinforcing its down-to-earth credentials in Britain this year by sponsoring the 31st World Worm Charming Championships at Willaston in Cheshire in June. It says the fun event fits with its commitment to long-term sustainable farming. AC
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01947 602823 www.botham.co.uk
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VICTORIAN RECIPE: Family-run craft bakery Elizabeth Botham & Sons has launched “a slice of nostalgia” in the shape of a new ginger parkin. Botham’s of Whitby has been in operating in the historic North Yorkshire port since 1965, and continues to use many of Elizabeth Botham’s original recipes. Its ginger parkin combines organic wholemeal flour, oatmeal, treacle and spicy ginger.
products, packaging & promotions
01340 871555
www.walkersshortbread.com
Spicy sauce adds flavour to Harrogate show Visitors to Stand 22 at the Speciality Food Show in Harrogate next month can sample Ria’s Sambal, a chilli-based sauce that can be used as a condiment or as an ingredient to add spice to Asian dishes. Sambal is Javanese for sauce and is very popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Suriname and – through Indonesian influences – in the Netherlands. Ria’s Sambal is made to Ria Bromley’s own special recipe combining a blend of chillies, onions, oriental spices and flavouring. Although sometimes described as a chilli sauce, the sambal is more than a simple condiment as it can add flavour and spice to many different dishes. It is available in 300g jars. 07879 743375
www.riassambal.co.uk Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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classified
BAKING EQUIPMENT BOILERS BOTTLES & JARS BUSINESSES FOR SALE CL EXHIBITION EQUIPMENT FOOD PROCESSING EQUIPMENT HYGIENE PRO PACKAGING PHOTOGRAPHY RECRUITMENT REFRIGERATION SECURITY SH WANTED WEB DESIGN BAKING EQUIPMENT BOILERS BOTTLES & JARS BUS EPOS TECHNOLOGY EXHIBITION EQUIPMENT FOOD PROCESSING EQUIP • baking equipment
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See our extensive range of bakery and food processing equipment at www.bakeryequipment.co.uk Contact us at: 0116 254 or email
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HS HS French Flint Ltd FF Speciality Glassware Suppliers for the moreof equipment for artisan producersproducer. of fruit juices, wines, ciders discerning and oils. Our wide range extends from extraction processes to filtration, bottling, sealing and labelling.
Tel: 01404 892100 Fax: 01404 890263 Email: info@vigoltd.com Tel: 020 7407 3200 Fax: 020 7407 5877 www.vigoltd.com
Unit 4G, The Leathermarket, Weston Street, London SE1 3ER
103 London Road, Leicester LE2 0PF • baking equipment
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JOHN HUNT (Bolton) Ltd Rasbottom St, Bolton, England BL3 5BZ
Then look no further! We supply our glass jars in both box and pallet quantities
• Authorised distributors for Ardagh glass, Allied Glass and Beatson Clark • Working with the British Glass Industry • Nationwide delivery service available • Free samples available • Glass jars, Beer bottles, Food grade pails, Plastic bottles Think SPINKS COMPAK for high quality glass and plastic containers.
Contact us for further information or visit our showroom: Spinks Compak, 9 Shannon Street, Leeds LS9 8SS. t: 0113 2350662 · e: emma.speight@spinks.co.uk www.spinkscompak.com
• food processing machinery
Suppliers of equipment for artisan producers of fruit juices, wines, ciders and oils. Our wide range extends from extraction processes to filtration, bottling and sealing.
Freshness & Flavour sealed in ice
Pure, Chilled or Frozen Lemon, Lime & Orange Zest & Juices
can be supplied as non-organic, organic or wax-free
Produced to order by FA Young Farm Produce Ltd., Timsbury, Bath, Somerset BA2 0FQ
digest
01761 470523 F: 01761 471018 E: info@zumozest.com w: www.zumozest.com
T:
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Suppliers of: � Confectionery and Gift Packaging � Chocolate � Ingredients
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�
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Griottines and Framboisines Machinery and Display Units
Tel no: 01404 892100 Fax no: 01404 890263 Email: info@vigoltd.com
www.vigoltd.com • food photography
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www.keylink.org Tel: 0114 245 5400
• ingredients
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Crestchem
Need a new van? Find it in
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Ring us on Freephone 0800 096 2720
Food Division - suppliers of
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May 2010 · Vol.11 Issue 4
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LOTHING COLD TRANSPORT DESIGN CONSULTANTS EPOS TECHNOLOGY ODUCTS INGREDIENTS INSURANCE LABEL SUPPLIERS LEGAL SERVICES HOPFITTING TICKETING TRAINING LEASING Call & ourDESIGN sales teamSUNDRIES on 01963 824464 today to discuss the rightVEHICLE classified heading SINESSES FOR SALE CLOTHING COLD TRANSPORT DESIGN CONSULTANTS , ingredients or services for your equipment PMENT HYGIENE PRODUCTS INGREDIENTS INSURANCE LABEL SUPPLIERS • labelling
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Print Your Own Food Labels
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Accredited Suppliers in this issue
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Ring us on: 01628 668836 or visit us at: QuickLabel.co.uk
• ingredients Fine Food Digest Ad revB.indd 1
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seal machines for pots, bottles, trays and ALL types of packaging Low cost hand operated, semi automatic and fully automated systems Specialist suppliers to small & medium sized food companies
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To download demo’s go to www.foodhygienecd.net Or call: 01507 477589 By J. O. Training
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A W Smith & Sons p32 Alweston Jam & Chutney p39 Anthony Rowcliffe & Son Ltd p28 Bart Spices p39 Bespoke Foods Ltd p22 Border Homebake p39 Carron Lodge Cheese Ltd p28 Cotswold Fayre p31/41 Country Puddings Ltd p40 Curry Cuisine Ltd p39 Dean’s of Huntly Ltd p31 Deli Continental Ltd p8 Eazycuizine Fine Foods Ltd p40 FiberGourmet UK p39 Fosters Traditional Foods Ltd p7 Gilchesters Organics p39 Gourmet World p39 H B Ingredients Limited p46 Infinity Foods Ltd p34 Innavisions Limited p47 Interprofession du Gruyére p26 Jardine Lloyd Thompson p46 Keylink Ltd p46 Kitchen Guru p36 Lyburn Farmhouse Cheesemakers p28 Mantinga UK Ltd p22 Medallion Chilled Foods p44 Moor Organics p18 Olives Direct Ltd p24 Olives Et Al Limited p22 Parkers Packaging p47 Perry’s Cider p36 Pollen True Taste Ltd p41 Quicklabel Systems p47 Rose Farm p39 Silver and Green of Lakeland Ltd p16 Southover Food Company Ltd p32 Spinks Compak Limited p46 Supercherry Ltd p39 TCD Foods Limited p22 The Anglesey Sea Salt Company p36 The Dorset Smokery & Charcuterie p16 The Hawkshead Relish Company Ltd p24 The Inkreadible Label Company p46 Troots Ltd p39 Uncle Roy’s Comestible Concoctions p36 Verner Wheelock Associates Ltd p47 Verstegen Spices & Sauces (UK) Limited Insert Walkers Shortbread Ltd p32/41 West Lake Orchards p39 Zumo Zest p46
Vol.11 Issue 4 · May 2010
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• Delicatessen wholesaler dedicated to the independent trade since 1977. • BRC accreditation at the highest level. Camford Way Sundon Park Luton Bedfordshire LU3 3AN 153
• Free delivery to any business in England & Wales (Terms and conditions apply).
www.westphalia.co.uk MEDALLION CHILLED FOODS Tel: 01582 590 999