CUT&DRIED
making more of British & Continental charcuterie
Chilli specialist Michael Price only started making charcuterie as a ‘lockdown project’ but having won a Great Taste Golden Fork for his Chipotle Coppa last year, he is now launching a fully-fledged charcuterie brand By Michael Lane
Price is getting it right OVER THE COURSE of his career, Michael Price has driven 7.5-tonne trucks, worked at an airport, written computer programmes for major retailers, developed manufacturing systems at Aston Martin and grown chillies commercially. So, it’s not wholly surprising that the latest entry on the Warwickshire-based producer’s CV is “award-winning charcutier”. “Apart from being an astronaut or doing brain surgery, I’ve tried a hell of a lot of things,” says Price, who started making charcuterie in 2020 as “a bit of a lockdown project” to boost sales at his existing chilli products company Prices Spices. Now the charcuterie is very much a business in its own right, and Price will be relaunching it and adding new lines under a separate brand, called Cureights. In little over a year, he developed a number of whole-muscle products, including a chipotle coppa that won a 3-star in Great Taste 2021 and also took the Golden Fork for Best Charcuterie Product. All of a sudden, this self-billed “jack of all trades” finds himself in esteemed company, with Capreolus, Trealy Farm and Great Glen among the handful of British charcuterie stalwarts that have won Golden Forks in the last decade. But Price is about as far away from resting on a laurel as you could get. Less than a month after picking up his Golden Fork in mid-October, he was in Italy on an intensive charcuterie course, touring various producers and picking up as many techniques as his hosts would reveal. When FFD catches up with him in early February, he has just been on a visit to a local
farmer to look at some British Lop piglets that will soon grow into his raw ingredients. And this month will see him launch Cureights [see box], which will cover his current line-up of salumi as well as a new range of products including salamis and pancetta. If you had to find a common thread running through all of Price’s various jobs over the years, it would be scientific curiosity. His enthusiasm for finding out how things work has seen him learn computer programming languages and refine automotive manufacturing processes, but it was his hobby of growing chillies that led him into food. After expanding his home greenhouse operation several times, he had such a glut of produce that he started making chilli jams and sauces as Prices Spices in 2013. He quit the day job at Aston Martin in 2015 (“It was well paid but it didn’t interest me”) as he started to build up a following for his creations, like Haitian Sensation sauce and Reclus Red Chilli Jam, at consumer food events. By 2017, he had a production unit and was growing chillies on land at nearby retailer The Farm Stratford and then during the pandemic relocated to a 90sq m production kitchen just outside Warwick. Having the extra space allowed Price to diversify during lockdowns. He has put his chilli expertise to good use by offering heat-and-eat takeaway curries at weekends and then decided to add yet another new skill. It all started with a bacon-making kit he CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
INTRODUCING… … CUREIGHTS Michael Price will now be selling all of his charcuterie under a new brand called Cureights. Not only will the line-up include his Fennel Coppa and the Golden Forkwinning Chipotle Coppa but there will also be a new Gin Coppa, made with by-product from Shakespeare Distillery. Price has developed a saucisson sec, which he says he has already trialled with French friends to great acclaim, and he has also produced his take on a Tuscan salami, which is lighter on the mace and nutmeg. Completing the range is a pancetta and guanciale, the latter of which may be low on supply for the launch after a local Italian restaurant placed a big order for their Valentine’s Day carbonara. The compound name of the brand is inspired by other British charcutiers, who reference their own processes and ingredients. The “cure” element speaks for itself but the “eights” is a nod to the seven prime cuts of pork used in charcuterie, with the eighth being the meat used in salamis. Vol.23 Issue 2 | March 2022
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