FFD October-November 2022

The spice is right

Meet the Great Taste Supreme Champion who introduced Kampot pepper to the UK

By Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox, deputy editor

In life and in business, sometimes you have to make decisions on the spot. It is an uncomfortable fact of life.

The other day, on my way to a family breakfast, I travelled some distance to a bakery with a good reputation for making pastries. I had announced that I would be bringing enough croissants and pain au chocolats for everyone to enjoy, explaining at length why the detour was worthwhile: the quality of the ingredients, the expertise this bakery has built its success on.

But to my horror, when I arrived, there was not a pastry in sight, spare a single savoury Danish I could scarcely present to my relatives. What to do? I had talked up these pastries endlessly. I’d gotten people’s hopes up. There were children expecting them. Nobody wants to make kids sad rst thing in the morning.

I assessed my options. I could

buy some bread instead of pastries. I could opt for pastries from elsewhere. Or, I could travel some distance again to nd pastries of the calibre I had make such a big song and dance about.

We all have to make choices in life, some much tougher than breakfast. The answers aren’t always obvious, and sometimes it can feel like a lose-lose situation.

Take our new regent King Charles III. He has a lot of decisions to make which could be very in uential, and will likely determine the place the monarchy holds in the British psyche (p.5). But he has to do so in the wake of his mother’s death.

Closer to home, Roland Barthélémy (an uno cial king of cheese in France) will miss the World Cheese Awards for the rst time in three decades this year, as he has made a commitment to be in Japan (p.31).

Just like Barthélémy, whose

EDITOR’S CHOICE

might have left it there. But the

work will help foster and promote the work of cheesemakers in the far East, we have to make compromises. And ultimately, the decisions we make can lead to better things.

A fork in the road can be an opportunity to take a chance and try something di erent.

British consumers have some tough choices to make in the coming months too. Retailers and the supply chain have to help them navigate that mine eld, all while resolving their own set of conundrums.

In the end, the bread my pastryless baker carefully helped me pick to fashion into toasties turned out to be the best solution to my problem. They went down a treat (as did the corner shop sweets I surreptitiously handed out to the kids).

Sometimes, having to think on your feet gives you a sense of spontaneity you wouldn’t have allowed yourself – and the outcome is all the better for it.

Let’s face it, your fridges are probably full of attractive products already. You don’t need Russell & Atwell’s range of chilled

ingredients really do make a difference, and these manage to be delicious without being cloyingly sweet. You might need to use some Tetris stacking techniques to fit everything else in. Read more on p.50

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news from the

We all have to make choices in life, some much tougher than breakfast. The answers aren’t always obvious.

Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox, deputy editor

Cover image by Sam Pelly

Food brands face ‘intense competition’ in bid for new Royal Warrants

By Greg Pitcher

Suppliers of ne food to Queen Elizabeth II face an o cial review to see if they can retain their Royal Warrants a er her death last month.

The coveted status is awarded to companies supplying key royal households with goods over a period of at least ve years. But following the passing of the Queen, only King Charles III is currently eligible to hand out the warrants. A full review has been announced to decide what will happen to the many attributed to his late mother.

Dr Amna Khan, senior lecturer in consumer behaviour and retailing at Manchester Metropolitan University, described the coat of arms – which companies can continue to use for two years a er a grantor’s death – as “the endorsement of endorsements”.

“It is a seal of approval,” she said. “Psychologically for a consumer the validation process has been done.”

Khan predicted intense competition for the new monarch’s favour.

“All brands want to be associated with the Royal Warrant and many will certainly try to get on the list,” she said. “Brands that are sustainable and ethical will fare better as this is important to the new King, and his taste is likely to be di erent to the late

Queen’s. There is certainly an opportunity.”

However, consumer behaviour expert Philip Graves warned there was “no guarantee” a coat of arms would even be noticed by shoppers. He added: “If a brand places more focus on the Royal Warrant, they will be reducing the focus on something else that they believe is important.”

Wilkin & Sons, producer of Tiptree preserves, has supplied royalty for more than a century.

Director Scott

Goodfellow described the “privilege” of providing jam for Buckingham Palace parties and “emergency” orders of marmalade for Balmoral Castle.

“We have very fond memories of Her Majesty the Queen’s visit to the Tiptree Jam factory for our 125-year anniversary in 2010,” he added. “She took the time to chat with many members of sta , bringing a rare warmth to us all.”

James Rutter, managing director of Paxton & Whit eld, said the cheesemonger was “proud” of its royal associations.

“Paxton & Whit eld has held the Royal Warrant to every reigning monarch since Queen Victoria,” he said. “Each Royal Warrant is recognition of our excellence in service, expertise, quality and heritage; each of which we believe is extremely important to our customers.”

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT... THE TRANSITION TO A NEW MONARCH

RUPERT EVANS,  FARM RETAIL ASSOCIATION

“King Charles III is a very forwardthinking monarch, very supportive on food production and I think he really understands our industry. I believe he will be a strong and passionate leader on food and farming.”

JEN GRIMSTONEJONES, CHEESE ETC, PANGBOURNE

ONS stats show food sales fall

The owner of a major East Midlands farm shop has spoken of her fear and distress after watching fire ravage the building.

Georgie Mason, who lives next door to the award-winning Gonalston Farm Shop in Nottinghamshire, was awoken by its alarm shortly after 1am on 12th September.

Eight fire engines and two support vehicles attended the blaze, which took several hours to put out.

“It was scary,” Mason told FFD. “Flames were shooting 3ft in the air from a hole in the roof.

“The fire gutted the first floor and took out a third of the ground floor. The amount of water the

firefighters had to put through has also caused a lot of damage. It is catastrophic.”

The building has been sealed off to allow experts to identify potential causes and assess the extent of the damage.

“It has all been very slow because the Queen’s funeral was in the middle of it all,” said Mason.

The business, which works in partnership with symbol group Budgens,

remained closed at the start of October, and there is currently no firm timeline on when the operation will be up and running again.

“It is like losing three groups of people,” said Mason. “Your suppliers, your team and your customers.

“But thankfully no-one was in the building, noone was hurt and it didn’t spread to the house.

“We have no idea what happened. I was up at 12.20am and went back to sleep, the alarm woke me up at 1.08am.”

The proximity of her house to the business has added to the trauma for Mason.

“It is like living next to a coffin,” she said.

Specialist food sales dropped in August, official figures have revealed.

Office for National Statistics data showed that the volume of trade done by shops, such as butchers and bakers, was 1.9% lower in August than July. This was a greater fall than the 0.9% drop experienced by supermarkets.

Rising prices and economic uncertainty are thought to be major factors in declining food sales.

Overall food store sales volumes were 1.4 per cent lower in August 2022 than February 2020, showing they remain below pre-Covid levels.

“I am a supporter of our monarchy and felt a real sadness when the Queen passed away. I think she encapsulated everything that is fantastic about the UK. I’m sure King Charles III will carry on his mother’s legacy to the best of his abilities.”

ANDY SWINSCOE, THE COURTYARD DAIRY

“King Charles III has been a great advocate of crafts and traditional cheese for many a decade. Hopefully it can only bring strength and shine a light on an industry that we have to remember most of the general public are not that aware of. His interests and focus on native breeds and sustainable farming techniques are things that, personally, I am for.”

“Catastropic” re destroys Gonalston Farm Shop in Nottinghamshire

Her Majesty The Queen visiting the Tiptree factory in 2010

Indies welcome Energy Bill Relief Scheme but fear e ects of depreciation

By Greg Pitcher

Independent retailers fear soaring interest rates a er Government energy and tax giveaways sparked a major economic wobble.

The sector is braced for fresh pressure on alreadyconstrained consumer spending if mortgage costs rise, as expected in the wake of the announcements.

In September, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng set out details of support for businesses with energy bills alongside cuts to employment levies and the removal of a planned hike in corporation tax.

But his mini-budget was largely blamed for a fall in the value of the pound and a rise in the cost of Government borrowing. The International Monetary Fund urged a rethink, and the Bank of England is widely expected to increase interest rates to control in ation.

Sangita Tryner, owner

of Delilah Fine Foods in Nottingham, described the announcements as a “disaster”.

“Energy support had to happen but the Government has given with one hand and taken back with two,” she said. “Regardless of its intentions, the scare means none of my customers know where they will be in three months’ time. They are scared of their mortgages changing, scared of their shopping bills; scared to spend any money.”

Andrew Goodacre, chief

executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, welcomed the energy support package and the moves to reduce future tax bills for employers.

But he added: “There are now other factors in play with higher import prices, due to the declining value of the pound, and the spectre of much higher interest rates dampening consumer expenditure.

“A mini-budget designed to initiate growth and restore consumer and business con dence seems

Retailers welcome Labour proposal to scrap business rates for “fairer” system

Retail chiefs have welcomed a promise by the Labour Party to reconsider one of their major overheads.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves declared in a speech at the opposition party’s conference in Liverpool in September that she would “abolish” business rates and create a “fairer system”.

Independent shops have long urged a rethink over the levy, which is charged on use of commercial property.

Labour called for small business rates relief to be extended to those whose premises have rateable values up to £25,000 – up from £15,000 at present –insisting this could be paid for by increasing the rate

of digital services tax.

Reeves also suggested she would end the system of transitional relief, which staggers any drop in bills, and ensures annual reevaluation of premises.

The Retail Jobs Alliance – which includes the British Independent Retailers Association and the Association of Convenience Stores – said it was “delighted” by the

announcement.

“The existing business rates system inhibits investment in new shops and makes it harder to keep existing shops open,” said alliance director Nick Faith.

“Business rates are a signi cant part of retailers’ overheads. The time is now for action on rates.”

Federation of Small Businesses national chair Martin McTague added: “Small rms were looking for a strong statement from Labour on business rates – and they got one.

“We estimate that increasing the relief threshold will li 200,000 small businesses out of paying rates altogether, the bulk of them in levellingup target areas.”

to have had the opposite e ect.”

The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will subsidise the price businesses pay for wholesale gas and electricity for six months from 1st October 2022. A Supported Wholesale Price is expected to be set at about £211/ MWh for electricity and £75/MWh for gas.

Meanwhile the Chancellor has cancelled a forthcoming increase in corporation tax, meaning it will remain at 19%, while the recent 1.25 percentage point rise in National Insurance will be reversed. Planned hikes in duty charged on beer, wine and cider have been scrapped.

James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, said the energy scheme was a “lifeline” for local shops.

He added: “We welcome that the Government’s plan aims to stimulate growth and incentivise investment by businesses.”

IN BRIEF

Doves Farm Foods has acquired the Wessex Mill flour brand from Clarks (Wantage). The deal will secure continuation of production.

Cranswick chairman Tim Smith has been appointed as the industry chair of the Food & Drink Sector Council. He will work alongside Government chair and food minister Ranil Jayawardena.

Laura’s Larder has been named small independent retailer of the year at the Speciality and Fine Food Fair Awards. The business, based in Petts Wood in south London, established itself during the pandemic, having opened weeks before the first lockdown.

Tree of Life saved by Hunt’s

Hunt’s Food Group has bought the brand and assets of distributor The Health Store from administrators.

Sister companies Health Stores (Wholesale) and Tree of Life UK went into administration on 22nd August this year, with fellow group brand Health Made Easy joining them a few days later.

The deal will see 17 employees from the acquired company’s Nottingham base transfer to the Dorsetheadquartered supplier.

Chris Pole, managing director at administrators Interpath Advisory, said: “We’re pleased to have concluded the sale, ensuring The Health Store will continue to trade and providing certainty for those employees who will transfer to the new owners.”

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng offered energy bill support in September

Rachel Reeves MP speaking at the Labour conference

S P O T T H E D I F F E R E N C E ?

These hand-made panettoni are unmatched but… on the top is Loison from the Veneto region in Northern Italy: superb traditional panettone; and underneath is Fiasconaro from Sicily: light, moist and bursting with local ingredients.

Of course, we carry both.

First in ne for 30 years: ne cheese, ne charcuterie, ne crackers, ne condiments, ne chocolates...

NEW PRODUCT RANGE!

Fears over Christmas sales as Britons predicted to cut spending

By Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox

Four in 10 Britons are likely to spend less on food this year than last Christmas, and ve in 10 are planning on spending less on alcohol, research conducted by consumer insight organisation QuMind has found.

According to a survey of 1,000 people across the UK, 80% of people are concerned about their spending this Christmas, and 60% said they would be spending less this year than last Christmas. 11% said they would reduce their spending by more than 50%.

Supermarkets are likely to bene t from the trend, as a third of respondents said they would buy own brand items over branded goods, and a quarter said they would shop in supermarkets over smaller local stores.

Driven by in ation

and rising energy prices, the cost-of-living crisis has been a concern for independent retailers for some time, explained chief executive of the British Independent Retailers’ Association (BIRA), Andrew Goodacre. This has become worse in light of recent decisions made by the

British Government –namely with the devaluation of the pound.

“We had already been seeing a reduction on overall expenditure since April. Now, the reduction in sales seems to be across the board,” he said.

As consumers and businesses’ con dence and

£110m of rural business grants up for grabs DOWN ON THE FARM

Businesses have until 30th November to apply for a grant under the £110m Rural England Prosperity Fund introduced by Defra last month.

The rural top-up for the £2.6bn UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which will be available from April 2023, will be invested in projects likely to boost productivity and create rural job opportunities.

Examples include farms looking to diversify by opening a shop or tourism facilities; and non-farm businesses wishing to buy food processing equipment or install electric vehicle charging points.

Businesses seeking funding should contact their local authority to apply.

IN BRIEF

Stoughton Grange Farm Shop, Leicestershire

A new farm shop has been welcomed by the locals of Leicester.

Stoughton Grange Farm Shop opened its doors at the end of July, within it a butchery featuring livestock selected by the team from local farms and prepared on site.

The fresh vegetables are either grown on the farm or come from Leicestershire and Rutland farms.

The shop also has well-stocked cheese cabinets, a deli and a milk vending machine filled daily from a dairy farm only 4 miles away. It is open seven days a week. stoughtongrangefarm. co.uk

Ruxstons Farm Shop, Somerset Ruxstons Farm Shop opened in the summer heatwave, in perfect time to showcase its 75 flavours of Granny Gothard’s ice cream.

Ruxstons also offers local meat, grains and flours, jams, honeys and chutneys with an emphasis on local producers and keeping food miles to a minimum.

The two owners, brothers Gabriel and Fraser Purdey, pride themselves on selling meat from carbon-negative farms. ruxstons.co.uk

certainty are at an all-time low, he added, “they become more cautious with regards to their spending.”

“The mini budget was designed to initiate growth and improve consumer con dence – it seems to have achieved the opposite, raising fears among all retailers that spending will continue to be reduced and ultimately more selective.”

Advising that independent food retailers keep their prices stable, he said they should instead strive to maintain high service levels, engage their customers and create value propositions.

At the same time, he added, “we need government to provide the necessary reassurances to consumers so that they can shop with more con dence”, before it is too late to have an impact on Christmas shopping.

Ranil Jayawardena MP was named Secretary of State for Defra last month when PM Liz Truss appointed a new cabinet. Jayawardena previously served as Minister for International Trade.

A Russian ransomware attack on Daylesford Organic saw personal details of prominent clients published online after owners Lord and Lady Bamford refused to give in to hackers’ demands. Sir David Attenborough and Jeremy Clarkson were among those affected.

Online grocer Ocado is expecting a decline in annual sales for the first time since it was founded, due to customers trading down and cutting back.

The latest from farm shops across the country

Ribblesdale Farm Shop, Yorkshire

Ribblesdale Farm Shop was recently launched in the Watershed Mill in Settle, North Yorkshire to support and promote the local farms, craft makers, jam suppliers and artists. The little shop serves the local community 7 days a week with rare breed highland beef, free-range Blue Pig sausage, fresh

bread, and Yorkshire’s best lemon curd, honey, artisan beers, ales, gin and wine.

Halberton Court Farm Shop, Devon

A popular farm shop near Tiverton in Devon has applied for permission to expand. Established in 2001, Halberton Court Farm Shop has a pickyour-own farm and a café. The proposed extension would add a tea shop and restaurant, which the owners hope will allow them to diversify.

halbertoncourt farmshop.co.uk

In association with Fabulous Farm Shops fabulousfarmshops.co.uk

Many in the UK are said to be planning to spend less on Christmas

IF I’D KNOWN THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW...

ROLLO MILLERSHIP, owner, Nourished Communities, London

I was 14 when I first worked at a farmers’ market. and later went on to start two of them – Hoxton and London Fields - before moving into digital marketing.

When Covid-19 struck, Perry Court Farm in Kent got in touch. As all the markets had shut down they needed help selling their produce. Overnight, I set up a website and was soon spending a day a week delivering 150 veg boxes.

Fortuitously, I met Mary Wiggin, who runs a company called Coexistence. She has a showroom on Upper Street, Islington, and invited me to trade in it. I gave her food in return. Getting onto the high street is so expensive, there is no way I would have been able to otherwise.

We’re now halfway through our third year and have grown exponentially. Our box scheme has gone from offering 5-10 products in the beginning to 900 today. We recently opened a second store on Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, where we have beehives in the garden and grow mushrooms in the basement using coffee grounds from local cafés. Then, last month, we opened a store in Kings Cross. And we are soon opening another store in Walthamstow.

We have always wanted to support local and independent producers and add transparency into the supply chain. We try not to use wholesalers as that takes margin away from producers. And next month we are starting an incubator – taking on five start-up brands to help them with their marketing and distribution.

One of the biggest challenges in the early days was being a sole founder, doing everything myself. Now we employ eight staff, the challenge is communication and making sure everyone is enthusiastic about their work. We are implementing a structure that will give employees a share in the business and we make sure staff get to taste all the products.

Another major challenge is stock and inventory across the stores. Fresh products are what attract people to our stores for but that comes with wastage. The key is communicating - making sure we are tracking wastage and that this intel is used to inform procurement. We have a basic but effective tech stack we use for this.

What I do well is to prioritise activities that are important for generating revenue rather than getting sidetracked with ‘fluffier’ things. For example, I think it is more important to focus on reducing our fees for card transactions and on winning back customers who have dropped off than trying to get new customers.

Interview Lynda Searby

Photography Isabelle Plasschaert

CONFESSIONS OF A DELI OWNER

ANONYMOUS TALES FROM BEHIND THE COUNTER

INFLATION IS HITTING everything. Cheese, which I would call the heart of my shop, is no exception.

I guess everyone reading this knows that cheese is already expensive in lots of people’s minds. Or rather I should say good cheese is expensive. I know because I keep an eye on it. There’s quite a lot of in ation on supermarket shelves. You’re not seeing £4/kg deals on cheddar at the moment. £10/kg seems to be about standard.

A small number of my cheeses I can get direct but most come from wholesalers, so I’m not even buying it wholesale at that price. I used to have a oor for my pricing of £18/ kg, and would get extra margin from cheaper cheeses. That’s not possible now. Everything has to be sold at over £20/kg to get my standard margin.

At the top end I used to tap out at around £30, with exceptions for sheep or goat cheeses and good Parmesan. More than that would put o customers, I felt it gave me a bad name. That is now £40. When I go abroad – Europe and especially the US – prices are higher. There is a di erent baseline. Cheese is legitimately a bit more. It’s like we are anchored by the

WHAT’S TRENDING

supermarket de nition of a what is a “fair price” for cheese. But that’s only achievable at huge scales of production, not small batch artisan fayre.

But what gets me, and this is my rant, is the way customers see value when compared to other things – even in my own shop. Now I’ve got a greetings card rack. It makes me good money. It takes up very little space. It’s a proper “spontaneous purchase” moment for my

1 90s cocktail revival According to one of America’s most notable drinks magazines, Punch, we can expect to see a wave of ‘90s nostalgia in some of the world’s most notable cocktail bars. Prepare to see Cosmopolitans making a comeback, likely made from a slew of artisan ingredients, alongside Long Island Ice Teas and the now infamous White Russian. The latter allows drinks managers to experiment with all those alternative milks we never had in the ’90s. “We’re in the post-ironic era,” Brooklyn bartender Jack Schramm told Punch as he explained how serious bars will be utilising ingredients previously thought of as too lowbrow – like Malibu or Midori – to create balanced cocktails. Could the air of snobbery finally drift out the window of the high-end cocktail bar? Time will inevitably tell.

2 Restaurant culture – a setting for drama Chef culture is ever-more revered and is currently the thread holding many big budget films and binge-worthy series together. Late last year Netflix released Boiling Point, starring Stephen Graham, which centred around the high stakes and pressures of running a professional kitchen. In October, hit US show The Bear will be released in the UK on Disney+, a series

customers. We are not a card shop, they rarely come in explicitly for that. But as a basket ller, cards nail it.

The bit I don’t get is that customers are happy to spend £2.99/£3.99 on a card, but baulk at paying similar amounts for cheese. Cards are colourful manifestations of one person thinking about another, but fundamentally they are disposed of pretty quickly. They are a ash in the pan. But cheese, cheese is a way of life. Cheese is aspirational, cheese is food, cheese is for sharing.

Maybe it’s because cards are 100% gi , and that justi es the expense in the customer’s mind. It’s not for them, it’s for someone else. Cheese for the most part is a treat. Perhaps that makes it self-indulgent, a guilty purchase. Some customers complain that their families hoover up the cheese, not paying enough attention. They maybe aren’t prepared to pay that bit more for something that’s not going to be respected.

But I whinge too much. We do well, and the customers come and buy cheese in good numbers. It’s only a few who claim that I’m somehow exploiting them with my prices.

that’s garnered a cult-like following for it’s on-point depiction of the unseen underbelly of restaurant culture. In November, The Menu will be released. It’s a feature film, starring Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Hoult that puts a dark twist on the setting of a high-end restaurant and experiential dining. As the zeitgeist continues to glorify chefs and chef culture, it’s no wonder that the big screen is taking note.

3 Birria We called the Mexican taco trend in this column a long way out – when some of London’s best-loved taco joints were in their infancy. As the appreciation for good cornflour tortillas and fillings like al pastor have solidified, a new wave of Mexican adoration is falling on the city, this time it’s Birria. Birria has undergone something of a renaissance in Los Angeles, with this iconic staple of Central Mexico being the order of choice for the city’s hungry hipsters. The birria is a stew made from goat or beef and either comes with a stack of corn flour tortillas, or is pre stuffed into them. The folded tacos are then ceremoniously dunked into the stew. London’s highly regarded taqueria Sonora opened Mexa in September, serving up birria in all its saturated glory.

What gets me, and this is my rant, is the way customers see value when compared to other things – even in my own shop

NICK BAINES KEEPS YOU UP TO DATE WITH THE NEWEST DISHES, FLAVOURS AND INNOVATIONS IN FOOD & DRINK

Playwright and husband of Marilyn Munroe who said “We should have a child. Imagine a baby with your brains and my looks”; and he retorted “But what if it got your brains and my looks?”. Our attractive Miller’s is anyone’s wise choice.

GUIDE TO THE BEST OF MILLER ’ S

Famous for his ‘60s hit England Swings Like A Pendulum Do (bobbies on bicycles two by two). Well, they cost more than a bob or two but you can set your watch by our Miller’s.

Australia’s greatest all-rounder and known as Nugget because he had the golden touch for hitting sixes into the stands. We treat our packs of Miller’s like gold as we gently place six into each case.

The American novelist of the ‘20s whose books were banned on account of sexual content and explicit language. There is no sexual content inside our box, but the label is explicit; and so, Americans now devour our Miller’s obscenely.

Her appearance in the film Layer Cake led the New York Times to describe her as “a gift to be unwrapped very quickly”. Just like our Miller’s.

Jazz bandleader and trombonist, he was the bestselling recording artist during WW2. A top track was In The Mood. Whatever mood you are in, our Miller’s will strike the right note.

The greatest stand-up of his generation, known for his catchphrase “They don’t make ‘em anymore, duck”! But they do. Our Miller’s are baked by hand in Derbyshire where people still affectionately call each other Ducks.

Pepper is the new Gold (again)

When Michael Winters rst tasted Kampot pepper in Cambodia, he knew that he had stumbled across something special. This discovery led to him becoming the rst distributor of Kadode Kampot Peppercorns in the UK. This year, Kadode’s Fermented Fresh Green Kampot Peppercorns topped a list of 14,205 products entered into Great Taste 2022 to claim the title of Supreme Champion at the awards’ annual Golden Forks ceremony – held at Southwark Cathedral on 5th September. Read the full story about Winter’s 15-year journey to the ultimate accolade and discover the other big winners from the night in this round-up.

Interview by Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox main photo by Richard Faulks, ceremony photography by Sam Pelly

THOUGH IT WAS once worth its weight in precious metal, and was central to European con icts dating back to the 17th century, many now take pepper – black, dried, oxidised and delivering nothing but heat – for granted. Even among experts like Christine McFadden, the particular peppercorns grown in Kampot were, until recently, unknown, lost in the years of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Marketing and sales executive Michael Winters was travelling across South East Asia in 2008 when he tasted the peppercorns. Struck by their singular avour, he visited the same restaurant over and over again, once trying the black peppercorns, then the red, then the green, then the white, only to discover that they came from the same vine.

“That started my love a air with them,” he says.

On another trip in 2011, he visited a peppercorn farm.He saw the care with which they were grown, picked, sorted (with tweezers) and packed.

“They test whether they’re squidgy, because if you put a squidgy one into a vacuum pack, with the bacteria, as soon as they’re oxidised it will ruin them.”

“Then they do the natural washing, then the natural drying.”

On a tour of the vines, watching the meticulous care put into every step of production, he says, “I thought to myself, ‘this is going way above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen.’”

It was here that Winters met brothers Sebastian and Christophe Lesieur, who oversee the FarmLink network. The Lesieurs grow the peppercorns, as well as palm sugar and eur de sel, helping local farmers improve their own crops and bring the produce of Kampot to market. Thanks to their work, Kampot Pepper achieved protected status in 2010.

Though they already had partners elsewhere in Europe, they had been looking to nd a partner in the UK, so Winters put himself forward.

“That merely started my journey: I didn’t know who they were, they didn’t know whether I was genuine, so I had to start doing shedloads of due diligence,” he says. “The more I talked to them, the more it assuaged any fears, but it was still a bit of a leap of faith.”

Thankfully, the gamble paid o : within a year of entering the UK market, the Kadode Whole Red Kampot Peppercorns had won a 3-star award in Great Taste 2015, a rare feat for producers who o en spend years perfecting a product before claiming the coveted accolade.

The 3-star Great Taste winning Fermented Fresh Green Kampot Peppercorn, claimed this year’s Golden Fork for Best International Food before being named Supreme Champion. Unsurprisingly so, as it is such a singular product. The peppercorns, because they are preserved fresh in eur de sel, are so and can be eaten as is (Winters calls them “snackable”). Their avour is

worlds away from mass-produced pepper.

They mark a turning point from previous Great Taste winners – kippers, pork shoulder, ice cream, beef dripping – perhaps a sign that plant-based, fermented foods are more than a trend on paper, as they struck a chord with our judges’ tastebuds.

In any case, the peppercorns are a nite resource, so retailers wanting to stock them will need to act decisively, or wait until the next crop: the peppercorns only grow every three to ve years and harvesting them is an intensive process.

“The headache that I had when I got home a er the Golden Forks,” Winters says. “Let’s face it, you’re not going to do 1,000 kilos of fermented pepper unless you can move it, because you can’t a ord to.”

“But the leverage we’ll get, hopefully, from this award, will enable us to say: ‘Look, if we can’t supply you over this next harvest,

let’s work over the next few months, we can ensure certain volumes for the UK market’.”

As well as rebranding and sourcing 100% recyclable materials for the peppercorns (re llable metal boxes and biodegradable vaccum packs are on the cards), Winters is looking for di erent ways of using pepper –namely as an ingredient in other products. One example is teaming up with Fresh Flour Company to make sourdough crackers, to get more people to taste them.

“It’s pretty hard to say to people, ‘would you like to try a red peppercorn?’, so it helps translate the avour,” he says.

Winters isn’t planning on stopping at peppercorns. The FarmLink network exists by virtue of growing di erent crops, as it makes it possible to work with farmers year-round; highlighting their work and the great produce of Kampot is as important as delivering a great end product. “This wouldn’t work for us if it wasn’t an equitable relationship and the ethos wasn’t there, and that’s why there’s a premium on it, because we pay a fair price for it,” Winters says.

“Business is all about reciprocity. In everything that I’ll be doing, I always refer to the farmers.”

Meanwhile, Sebastian Lesieur has spent the past ve years working on perfecting another ingredient to bring to market: vanilla.

Watch this space. kadodepepper.co.uk

Kadode Kampot Pepper UK

Fermented Fresh Green Kampot Peppercorns

I thought to myself: ‘This is going way above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen’.

Fresh Flour Company founder Andrew Gilhespy, Michael Winters and host Nigel Barden

SUPREME CHAMPION

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Big winners celebrate at Golden Forks ceremony

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The World Cheese Market takes place on 2 November, alongside the world’s most important cheese awards, at the International Conference Centre Wales.

Welsh Food

Drink

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Singletons collapse deemed ‘a real loss to British cheese’

By Patrick McGuigan

The fallout from Singletons & Co’s collapse into administration continued last month as Butlers acquired the company’s sheep’s cheese brand Parlick, while artisan cheesemakers lost an important export partner.

Based in Longridge, Lancashire, Singletons & Co was founded in 1934 and was known for brands including Grandma Singletons, Beacon Fell Traditional Lancashire PDO and Forest of Bowland Cheddar. The company also exported cheese to more than 30 countries.

It went into administration on 23rd August due to the “e ects of Covid-19, the rising costs of milk and other additional overheads”,

according to administrator Kroll.

Almost 70 sta were made redundant, with 12 kept on to wind down the business, but the collapse has also had repercussions for the wider industry. Singletons was the country’s largest producer of sheep’s cheese, buying milk from farm group Sheep Milk UK to make Parlick, stocked in Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Booths. Its demise could have been a hammer blow for farmers, but the brand was acquired by Lancashire-based Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses last month.

“As a company we are focused on improving the diversity of British cheese and ensuring the renaissance of British cheese continues,” said Butlers director Matthew Hall.

“Bringing Parlick to Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses puts sheep’s milk cheese back into our range and supports a key part of the local supply chain.” He added that the company would be looking to develop new so and blue sheep’s milk cheeses in the future.

Singletons was also a major exporter to the US, India and Europe, distributing its own products and cheeses from artisan producers including Quicke’s, Charles Martell, White Lake, Shepherd’s Purse and Barber’s. The company had also recently signed a deal with the Cahill family of Ireland to manufacture avoured cheeses under the Cahill’s brand.

“What’s happened to Singletons is incredibly sad and it’s a real loss to British cheese as a whole,” said Mary Quicke, owner of Quicke’s, whose cheddar was exported to Norway, Belgium and Germany by Singletons. “It was such a well-established company, doing good things for British cheese in terms of exports and supporting local dairy farms.”

Singletons made losses of £573,000 in 2020-21 and £1.18m in 2019-20, according to its most recent annual report.

NEWS IN BRIEF

The Cheese Bar is launching a crowdfunding campaign to assist it in opening two more cheese conveyor belt restaurants in London. The first Pick & Cheese restaurant opened in Covent Garden’s Seven Dials development in 2019.

Tottenham-based Wildes Cheese closed down last month after filing for Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation. The company was set up by Philip Wilton and Keith Sides in 2011 and made cheeses including Londonshire and St Bruce.

Long Clawson has joined the handful of British cheesemakers making Stilton.

Named after the brand’s founding year, 1912 uses full fat milk from Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, as per the terms of Stilton’s PDO.

It’s long been a stalwart of London’s famous market, but the Borough Cheese Company has ventured westwards with a new bricksand-mortar shop in Bristol. North Street Cheese Company, set up by Borough Cheese’s Dominic Coyte, is located in the Bedminster area of the city, which is already home to several indie shops. The shop is managed by Kim Trethowan (R) with help from her niece Tilly (L), who are part of the Trethowan family, famous for making Pitchfork cheddar and Gorwydd Caerphilly.

THREE WAYS WITH...

Abondance

This PDO-protected cheese from the Haute-Savoie is made with raw milk from Abondance cows, as well as Tarentaise and Montbéliarde breeds. The 6-12kg wheels have concave sides and are aged for at least 100 days. Beneath the washed rind, the pliable paste has a complex flavour, taking in sweet, savoury, floral and roasted notes.

Berthoud

Move over fondue. The traditional way to eat Abondance is in a melted cheese dish called Berthoud. Slices of garlic are added to the the bottom of ramekins called ‘coupelles’, which are filled with thin slices of Abondance (it’s never grated) and topped with dry white wine and Madeira. The dish is then baked until molten hot and bubbling, and served with potatoes, bread and charcuterie for dunking.

White wine

White wines, which cut through the rich funk of the cheese, are the traditional choice. Chasselas is particularly popular in the Savoie. Widely grown in Switzerland, but also in France, the grape is used to make wines that are lightbodied and easy-drinking with buttery and mineral notes. The oxidative wines of the Jura, such as Arbois made with Savagnin, are also a good bet.

Carrot & Coriander Relish

There are fruity flavours to Abondance, which range from pineapple to apricot, but also a subtle floral fragrance as well. The flavours are echoed nicely by the sweet and spicy notes of Carrot & Coriander Relish from Shropshire-based What a Pickle! There’s an earthy note to the condiment that also picks up on the savoury notes of the cheese. The contrast between the orange relish and the ivory cheese looks pretty, too.

Singletons produced a variety of its own brands and exported many others

Fromagerie Joseph Paccard

news and views from the cheese counter

Small producers struggling to meet growing demand for Spanish cheese

By Patrick McGuigan

Imports of Spanish cheese to the UK rose signi cantly last year, but smaller cheesemakers are being deterred due to extra paperwork following Brexit.

According to Spanish export organisation Foods and Wines From Spain, cheese imports to the UK increased by £387k in 2021, up 57% on the year before - the biggest increase for Spanish cheese exports anywhere in the world.

Justin Slawson, director at Spanish food importer Mevalco, said the rise was partly due to better quality and range. “Spanish cheese has undergone a revolution in the last few years,” he said. “There’s a strong desire to be adventurous in what they wish to produce and to break the traditional mould of Manchego and Cabrales.”

He said post-Brexit paperwork had added around £120 to every order coming from Spain, regardless of size, which disadvantaged smaller producers, while logistics

CHEESE IN PROFILE with

companies were charging more for delivering to the UK from Europe because of border delays and a fall in overall exports. Lead times for orders have also increased from 10 to 15-21 days due to the new requirements.

At Spanish food importer Brindisa, MD Heath Blackford said growing interest in ewe’s milk cheeses in the UK had helped sales, but that increased paperwork was a challenge.

“Brindisa chooses to work with artisan producers and this

increased red tape increases the size of minimum order quantities and associated custom costs, which makes exporting less viable for some of our smaller suppliers.”

The company has absorbed some of these costs, while its Spanish subsidiary Brindisa International now acts as an exporter on behalf of small cheesemakers. Investment in temperature- and humiditycontrolled rooms has also helped Brindisa manage stock quality and ows better.

BEHIND THE COUNTER TIPS OF THE TRADE

Zoe Ferreira, The Henley Larder, Henley-onThames

The petite proportions of the Henley Larder are proof that size isn’t everything. “We had grand plans of cutting cheese for customers, but there just wasn’t the room,” says owner Zoe Ferreira, who opened the shop in 2020. “What we’ve found, though, is that individually packaged cheeses actually work much better.”

The shop stocks a dozen pre-packed cheeses in a grab-and-go display fridge, from local producers including Nettlebed, Village Maid and Norton & Yarrow. It’s a tiny number by most standards, but doesn’t stop cheese from being a focal point thanks to judicious sourcing, good merchandising and smart customer service.

“We cover a wide range of flavours and textures,” she says. “Customers also don’t find it as daunting as walking up to a counter. They can see what the cheeses cost and there’s less pressure.”

The cheeses work well in gift boxes and in the shop’s new monthly subscription box. They also make ordering easier and wastage less likely.

thehenleylarder.co.uk

Brefu Bach

What’s the story?

Based near Bethesda in the foothills of Snowdonia is Ffarm Moelyci, where Carrie Rimes’ dairy, Cosyn Cymru (Welsh Truckle), is located. After a career in grassland science,

Rimes decided to turn her lifelong interest in cheesemaking into a job. She went to France to train for three years at a dairy in Auvergne before returning to the UK to create a range of raw ewe’s milk cheese.

Brefu Bach, which means “little bleat” in Welsh, is a soft, lactic cheese, made by hand using traditional breeds’ milk.

It is adapted according to seasonal nuances. In the summer months, it is made with the milk from Friesland-Lleyn sheep. The dairy

switches to milk from Lacaune breed in the autumn.

Milk:  Ewes, unpasteurised.

How is it made?

The curds are allowed to develop very gradually with a tiny amount of vegetarian rennet derived from a thistle extract. The curd is

gently ladled into moulds, and gradually drained and turned over 48 hours, before the cheeses are surface-salted and matured for between three and seven weeks.

Appearance & texture:  Geotrichum mould gives the rind a wrinkled appearance, leading to a silky breakdown under the rind. Inside, the texture is soft, almost mousse-like, with the delicate flavours of lemon and fresh cream.

Variations:  Brefu Blue.

Cheesemonger tip:  Reassure your customers that any spots of blue, green or grey moulds are perfectly safe to eat.

Chef’s recommendation:  Pair it with Welsh mountain mead, dry white wines or IPAs.

There are a number of ways you can study Level 1 & 2 Academy of Cheese courses: online as self-study eLearning, interactive virtual classes or traditional classes at a venue. Visit academyofcheese.org for more information.

Smaller producers in Spain are being hampered by post-Brexit paperwork

JOY ON A PLATE

CHEESEWIRE

news and views from the cheese counter

Cheesemakers without borders

The revered Roland Barthélemy has made it his mission to spread the word on cheese globally.

Interview by PATRICK MCGUIGAN Translated by Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox

ROLAND BARTHÉLEMY LOOKS slightly forlorn when we discuss this year’s World Cheese Awards. The normally ebullient French cheese maestro has judged at the contest every year since it began in 1988 and is famous for his sabre-rattling speeches. But his presence will be missed this November in Wales. “It’s very di cult for me not to be there,” he says. “But I have made a committent to be in Japan.”

While hundreds of judges congregate in Newport, Barthélemy will instead be in the Far East, clad in brown robes as he inducts new members into the Guilde Internationale des Fromagers.

First set up in 1969 but with roots back to the 1870s, the Guilde is similar to the food and drink brotherhoods (‘confréries’) that sprung up in the Middle Ages in France. Now a global networking group for cheese industry professionals, with Barthélemy as president, the group has 9,000 members and 12 formalised ‘clubs’ in countries including Germany, Italy and the US. To become part of this exclusive set, inductees must be proposed by two existing members and attend a ceremony to be presented with a medal, certi cate and lapel badge. Think of it as a kind of hall of fame for the cheese world.

The organisation is particularly keen to bring up-and-coming cheese nations into the fold, hence the visit to Japan, but Barthélemy has also donned his robes in China, Brazil and Israel. “The Guilde is here to promote and highlight countries not normally associated with cheesemaking,” he says. “There’s a parallel

and complementary nature with the World Cheese Awards in promoting talent and skill.”

Barthélemy started his career at the age of nine, helping his father select cheeses at Les Halles market. He went on to open his own highly regarded fromagerie in Paris, pen numerous cheese books and was recognised with the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur –France’s highest honour. He also helped secure ‘Meilleur Ouvrier de France’ (Best Cra smen of France) status for cheesemongers in 2000, which facilitated the creation of governmentrecognised cheese quali cations.

That’s not to say that everything is rosy in the spiritual home of cheese. France has seen dairy farms decline by 11% in the past two years, according to Barthélemy, with numbers predicted to fall 25% by 2025.

“Environmental aspects are a concern and people don’t want the lifestyle that comes with farming,” he says. “They don’t want to milk cows twice a day.” On the plus side, there is growing interest in organic, natural and local food, which is helping ‘fermier’ producers.

The UK does not have its own national group in the Guilde, although dozens of Brits have been inducted over the years. Barthélemy is hopeful that a formal UK club will be set up in due course with organisations such as the Academy of Cheese now putting British cheese on the map.

“British cheese has been very good for hundreds of years, but what’s been missing is that connection with the rest of the world, he says. “Britain has not exported cheese in the same way as Switzerland or Italy. But the world is changing and there is demand for eclecticism and diversity unlike at any time before.”

It sounds like Barthélemy (and his robes) will be back in the UK soon. guildedesfromagers.fr

CROSS

1Choosing a favourite cheese is an impossible task, says Barthélemy, but he confesses to a particular attachment to Salers from the Cantal region of Auvergne. As a young man, he worked at farms and dairies in the region, and still appreciates its sense of terroir.

Made with raw milk from Salers cows (other breeds are also permitted), the hard cheese can only be produced on farms between 15th April and 15th November, under the terms of its PDO.

The cows graze the rich pasture that grows from the volcanic soil and a minimum of 75% of their diet must come from within the region.

Milk is curdled in wooden buckets, which naturally inoculate it with bacteria. Production methods are similar to those of cheddar. The 30-50kg cheeses are aged for 3-12 months. They have a compact texture and complex flavours, ranging from butter and fermented cream to hay, citrus and walnuts.

The Guilde is here to highlight countries not normally associated with cheesemaking Salers

family owned dairy farm co-operative members are located across North-West

Supplying us with

quality

that

from

on the

Introducing the World Cheese Market

The rst edition of the Guild of Fine Food’s World Cheese Market is taking place this November as part of the World Cheese Awards, which, in their 34th year, have received a record number of entries from cheesemakers around the world.

VISITORS TO THIS YEAR’S World Cheese Awards won’t just be able to watch the judging unfold, they can get in on the tasting too.

That’s because the 34th instalment of the awards, held on Wednesday 2nd November at the International Convention Centre in Wales, will be hosting the inaugural World Cheese Market.

Ticketholders will get to witness the biggest ‘cheese only’ event in the world, including a seat for the climax of the awards and the live announcement of the World Champion Cheese 2022 – the result of more than 4,000 entries sent in from over 40 countries.

Independent retailers, distributors, and a neurs can meet their fellow professionals at the Welsh Food & Drink Showcase, and have the opportunity to visit a host of trade stands, with some 30 di erent exhibitors showcasing cheese, accompaniments and accessories.

For those more interested in the tricks of the trade, the Market will also host the Young Cheesemonger of the Year competition, organised by the Academy of Cheese.

PREVIEW

gruyere.com

Isigny Sainte-Mère WCM 21 isigny-ste-mere.com Kalt Maschinenebau WCM 18 kalt-ag.ch

Lavialattea SRL WCM 8 caseificiolavialattea.it

Parmigiano- Reggiano WCM 17 parmigianoreggiano.com

Queso Rey Silo WCM 24 reysilo.es

Quickes Traditional WCM 23 quickes.co.uk

Savencia Fromage & Dairy UK WCM 14 savencia-fromagedairy.com

Shepherds Purse Cheeses WCM28 shepherdspurse.co.uk

Snowdonia Cheese Co WCM 31 snowdoniacheese.co.uk

Sodiaal UK WCM29 sodiaal.co.uk

South Caernarfon Creameries WCM 3 sccwales.co.uk

The Book and Bucket Cheese Company WCM 6 thebookandbucketcheesecompany.co.uk

The Cornish Cheese Co. WCM 32 cornishcheese.co.uk

The Fine Cheese Co. WCM 15 finecheese.co.uk

The Torpenhow Cheese Company WCM12 torpenhoworganic.co.uk

Treur Kaas WCM 22 treurkaas.com

Food and Drink Wales WCM1 businesswales.gov.wales/foodanddrink

Food and Drink Wales WCM2 businesswales.gov.wales/foodanddrink

White Lake Cheese WCM30 whitelake.co.uk Yorkshire Dama Cheese WCM 11 yorkshiredamacheese.co.uk

DISCOVER THE CHEESES OF UKRAINE

As part of its ongoing commitment to support for Ukraine, the Guild of Fine Food has removed the entry fee for over 40 cheesemakers in this year’s edition of the World Cheese Awards.

The event was due to be held in Kyiv, as the dairy and cheese industry wished to highlight the emerging makers from this part of Europe.

You can meet the team at ProCheese and Ardis Group, our partners in Ukraine, at the World Cheese Market at stand number 16 (WCM16).

Come and see the next generation of retailers

Run by the Academy of Cheese and hosted by cheese expert Justin Tunstall, the Young Cheesemonger of the Year competition will be judged in four rounds:

• In round one, entrants will be asked discuss their cheeseboard selection

• Round two will see them demonstrate their ‘cut and wrap’ skills

• In round three, they will be tasked with identifying different cheeses using the Structured Approach to Tasting Cheese (SATC) model

• In the fourth and final round, competitors will take part in MasterRind, a quiz about cheese from around the world

The winner will be announced at the end of the day, receiving the coveted title of Young Cheesemonger 2022, a trophy, a feature in Fine Food Digest, an Academy of Cheese Level Two certification course, and an invitation to judge at the World Cheese Awards 2023.

academyofcheese.org

The pillars of our sustainable development

for

for our planet

Good for our animals

Inspired by a classic virgin cocktail called a ‘Shirley Temple’ popular in Asia

Inspired by a Mango Daiquiri cocktail we discovered in St Lucia

Inspired by a traditional fresh lemonade recipe served in Moscow

LEMONADE Leaves you with a better taste

BETTER

Our take on the famous lemon, lime and soda, widely drunk across Australia

Inspired by a traditional drink called ‘Gunner’ originally created by the British Navy

Stock up for winter

There’s no doubt about it: winter is coming. As a retailer, this is your opportunity to equip your customers with the storecupboard ingredients they need to see them through the damp days and dark nights ahead. And if you still need to stock up on a few Christmas items, we’ve got you covered, too.

Compiled by Lynda Searby

storecupboard

There’s nothing ordinary about Cornwall Pasta Co.’s new Organic Cornish Pasta range, which launched at September’s Speciality & Fine Food Fair, and features West Country and foraged ingredients such as beetroot, squid ink and Cornish saffron. The range takes in eight short-dried pastas, including Organic Cornish Saffron Malfadine, Red Wine Radiatori and Organic Campanelle. RRPs £8-9 for 300g. cornwallpasta.com

The Smokey Carter says its new Madras-inspired Chennai Masala BBQ Rub compliments its other Indian style seasonings, Tandoori Masala and Spiced Mango & Lime BBQ Rubs. This latest addition to the producer’s expansive wardrobe of world BBQ rubs and seasonings comes in a new 90g shaker. RRP £3.95; trade price £2.50. thesmokeycarter.com

No soy sauce

Lakes producer

Following the success of its Fairtrade and Organic Coconut Milk from Sri Lanka, Scottish fairtrade importer JTS has added Reduced Fat Coconut Milk (trade price £2.20 per unit) and two curry pastes (trade price £3.79 per jar) to its range. All three products are organic, and the coconut milk is also Fairtrade. jts.co.uk

As well as marketing its own olive oil from Tunisia, Zeet is sourcing oils from throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond. This year the company introduced two new organic olive oils: an intense Tonda Iblea from Sicily (RRP £16.95 for 500ml; trade price £10) and a medium Picual from Andalusia (RRP £15.95 for 500ml; trade price £9.50). evoozeet.com

Hawkshead Relish has tapped into the growing free-from opportunity with its latest NPD. No Soy is an allergen-free sauce that is said to closely mimic the distinctive umami-packed flavour of soy sauce. No Fish is intended as a vegan alternative to fish sauce, and promises to add a layer of umami to Asian dishes that would otherwise be “lost without it”. Both have an RRP of £2.05 for 150ml; wholesale price £17 per case of 12.

Ausha’s Black Fermented Peppercorns have just been awarded a Great Taste 3-star thanks to their sweet, salty umami flavour. The organically grown Indian peppercorns from Wayanad in Kerala are fermented with sea salt for three months. RRP £14.95 for 200g; trade price £9.95. ausha.co.uk

New from Italian importer Coppola Foods is a limited edition tomato passata made with San Marzano tomatoes. Oro Campano is available in 1.5l and 750ml bottles. The Italian food label has also launched a trio of mono cultivar oils. coppolafoods.com

The latest product to launch under Taste of Sicily’s Diforti label is Organic Egg Tagliatelle. Made in the Marche region of Italy with organic Italian wheat flour and Italian organic fresh eggs, the pasta has a coarse surface that holds sauces. RRP £3.85 for 250g. tasteofsicily.co.uk

hawksheadrelish

BoTree’s Black Kampot Pepper has been honoured with three stars in the Great Taste Awards 2022. Produced on BoTree’s family farm in Kampot, Cambodia, the PGI pepper combines a citrusy aroma with an intense heat that is said to enhance the flavours of any dish, whether ribeye steak, a bowl of cacio e pepe or eggs on toast. RRP £9.95 for 90g; trade price £6.97. botreefarm.co.uk

Responding to increasing demand for gluten-free products, Just So Italian is now carrying two glutenfree dried pasta lines from Umbria. Unlike other such products on the market, both Corn & Chick Pea Casarecce and Corn & Red Lentil Casarecce are said to hold together well when cooked. RRP £7.60 for a 500g bag; trade price £4.85. justsoitalian.co.uk

last-minute christmas ideas

Delicioso is carrying Truffle Filled Chocolate Fig Bombons – a festive Spanish delicacy. Whole dried Calabacita figs, prized for their thick skins, honey colour and natural sweetness, are filled with dark chocolate truffle then dipped in milk chocolate. They come in triangular boxes containing three, six or 100, with respective trade prices of £2.25, £3.75 and £47.50. delicioso.co.uk

Innis & Gunn is offering three of its batch beers in individual gift boxes with RRPs of £5-7. Islay Whisky Cask is a 7.4% Scottish red ale, matured in Laphroaig single malt whisky quarter casks; Cherry Kriek is a light-bodied 5.1% beer accented with cherries, hints of oak and a refreshing tart finish; The Original PX is a 7.4% Scottish golden beer, matured in sherry casks. innisandgunn.com

Ramen restaurant Tonkotsu has translated the Japanese chilli oils and ketchup it serves in its restaurants into retail format. As well as being ideal accompaniments for ramen and gyoza, Eat The Bits condiments can be eaten with everyday dishes such as scrambled eggs, bacon sandwiches, grilled meats and fish. RRP £5.95-6.25. tonkotsu.co.uk

Olives+ is now importing Cretan EVOO direct from the source. As well as producing a plain olive oil, Biolea stone mills olives together with organic lemons and oranges to produce two flavoured oils. RRP £7 for 250ml for the flavoured oils; trade price £4.50; and £12 for 500ml of plain olive oil; trade price £7.25. olivesplus.co.uk

With chestnut offerings historically limited to cheaper, lower quality products, Porter Foods is hoping to fill the void with a new range of European chestnuts that have been cooked, peeled and prepared. There are two variants: Whole Italian Chestnuts (RRP £2.55 for 150g) for snacking and baking and Chestnut Puree (RRP £1.70 for 200g) for thickening and sweetening soups, sauces and desserts. porterfoods.co.uk

With an RRP of £5, Forest Feast’s gift tubes are the perfect price point for a stocking filler, teacher present or small gift. There are three varieties, each containing 140g of Belgian chocolate coated roasted nuts handcrafted in Co Armagh: Salted Dark Chocolate Almonds, Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate Almonds; and Valencia Orange Dark Chocolate Hazelnuts. forestfeast.com

Fight food waste by drinking wine

A start-up “born in the bins of Aberdeen” is turning surplus fruit that would otherwise go to waste into wine. All of its wines are limited edition and for Christmas, Elliott Martens and Lasse Melgaard (aka the Two Raccoons) have bottled a fruity mulled wine from blackcurrants, blackberries and spices, with a Nordic twist of gløgg spices and Danish hygge. RRP is £11-12 per bottle; trade price £7.50. tworaccoons.co.uk

In the West of Ireland, Dingle Sea Salt is harvesting salt from the Atlantic Ocean surrounding the Dingle Peninsula and bottling it in 100g ceramic jars. The producer uses solar evaporation, powered by the elements, to create a natural and mineral-rich sea salt. RRP €9.50; trade price €7. dingleseasalt.ie

The Garlic Farm’s portfolio now includes oils, dressings and fruit vinegars from its newly acquired sister company Wild Island. Spiced Fig Balsamic dressing & dip and Raspberry Vinegar are among the new additions. Both have an RRP of £9.40 for 250ml and a trade price of £6.02. thegarlicfarm.co.uk

Chesham tea company Two Spoons has launched a decorative tea caddy containing its Bucks Blend, which brings together hand plucked tea from Kenya, Assam and Darjeeling. The caddy contains 15 plasticfree pillows and has an RRP of £7.99 (trade price £5.50). twospoons.co.uk

Tis the season to be merry with Beeble’s Hot Toddy’ gift box (RRP £25; trade price £14). This limited edition gift set from the Cotswolds bee business contains a branded cocktail glass and a 20cl bottle of Honey Whisky - all the ingredients for a full hot toddy experience. beeble.buzz

Dorset Sea Salt Company’s new Salt Tasting Kit gives consumers the chance to try a selection of its specialist salts, including Smoked, Beetroot, Lemon & Thyme, Chilli and Garlic Salt. The kit contains six tasting tins and pairing suggestions and has an RRP of £14.99; trade price £10.50. dorsetseasalt.co.uk

last-minute christmas ideas

Newcomer Danelaw

Coffee is releasing a limited edition Christmas blend, Santa Lucia, named after the Scandinavian festival of light. This medium-roast blend of coffees from Rwanda, Colombia and Mexico promises flavours of dried fruit, clementine and orange peel, with a boozy, sherry-trifle-like finish. RRP £9.95 for a 200g box; trade price £6.10. danelaw.coffee

The Wild Garlic and Peppercorn Mill is a new gift idea from Burren Balsamics. Cornish sea salt, wild garlic leaves and a variety of peppercorns are combined in an easyto-use blend that can add seasoning to any dish. The peppermill comes in a recyclable cardboard box and has an RRP of £18; case price £69. burrenbalsamics.com

Roly’s Fudge has added Christmas Pudding Fudge to its 200g box range for the festive season. This special edition flavour is handmade using all the ingredients that go into a Christmas pudding, from brandy to currants, apples and carrot. The range also includes eight year-round favourites such as Vanilla Clotted Cream and Rum ‘n’ Raisin. RRP £5-5.50; trade price £3.75. rolysfudge.co.uk

Chococo has included a number of products made from oat milk chocolate in its 2022 Christmas collection to cater to the growing vegan market.

The plant-based 43% oat m!lk chocolate is made by Luker Chocolate in Colombia with fino de aroma cocoa beans and gluten-free oat powder for a rich creamy chocolate taste without the dairy.

Chococo is offering Santas (RRP £7), Snowmen (RRP £8) and Penguins (RRP £10.50) in the new vegan chocolate. These figures are also available in 45% Venezuela origin milk chocolate, 72% Ecuador origin dark chocolate and gold caramelised white chocolate.

The Dorset chocolatier has also added a Vegan Festive Collection Box to its curated selection range, alongside its original Festive Collection Box. RRP £25 for 25 chocolates or £18.50 for 16. chococo.co.uk

Harris & James has enlarged its all-butter shortbread gift pack range for Christmas 2022 to include four varieties: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Chocolate Orange and Salted Caramel. Each box contains ten individually wrapped chocolate shortbread biscuits handmade in Beccles. RRP £9.95; trade price £5. They are also available in packs of four (RRP £3.95; trade price £2.20). harrisandjames.com

Tregothnan’s ‘tea’ decorations, which contain three black tea pyramids (RRP £5.50; trade price £3.85) make a refreshing change to foil wrapped chocolates for hanging from the tree. The Cornish tea producer has also released a Christmas Spiced Tea tin (RRP £14.50; trade price £10.15), and a stocking filler box containing eight of its black, green, and herbal tea blends (RRP £5; trade price £3.50). tregothnan.co.uk

Sky Wave Distillery says its new five-bottle gift pack provides gin connoisseurs with a comprehensive selection of award-winning gins at an attractive price point for gifting. With an RRP of £28 (trade price £19.10), the pack curates five gins that have been handcrafted to the London Dry standard at the Oxfordshire distillery and have amassed 21 awards between them.   skywavegin.com

One blue to consider this Christmas is Grand Noir, produced by Kaserei Champignon in the rolling grasslands of the Bavarian Alps.

This blue cheese was launched as an alternative to Stilton and will appeal to those who are looking for a cheeseboard ‘talking point’, due to its distinctive black wax mantle, which enables the cheese to develop a silky and creamy texture with a delicately spicy character.

Grand Noir has been included in Rowcliffe’s Christmas List 2022 as a ‘must have’. It is available from Elite Imports and has an RRP of £2.40 per 100g. elite-imports-limited.co.uk

Bottlegreen’s Winter Spiced Berry is the producer’s take on a classic mulled wine recipe. Back for a limited time only over this upcoming festive period, the cordial is best served hot, delivering a “warming blend of blackcurrants and aronia berries carefully blended with aromatic spices”. RRP £3.75 for 750ml. bottlegreendrinks.com

Liverpool bean to bar chocolate maker Table has launched a new gift wallet. Measuring 16x9x5cm when closed, the cardboard wallet unfolds to reveal four handmade bars: Tanzania Dark 72%, Nicaragua White 43%, Haiti Milk 61% and Madagascar Dark 84%. RRP is £27.  tablechocolate.com

Crosta & Mollica is bringing Classic Panettone, Chocolate Panettone and Pandoro made by Italian artisan bakers to UK retail shelves this Christmas. Presented in boxes featuring the brand’s trademark striped design, the cakes have RRPs from £9. They are listed with Ocado. crostamollica.com

Moore House Cocktail Company has curated three gift packs. The Signature Collection features its best-sellers: the Negroni, Espresso Martini and Margarita. The Espresso Martini Collection features a classic Espresso Martini alongside Irish and Cacao variations, and the Negroni Collection showcases three takes on the Italian aperitivo. Trade price £18.91; RRP £29.95. moorehousecocktails. co.uk

Leeds brewery Northern Monk has joined forces with local bakery Get Baked to launch a collaborative gift box for the “sweettoothed craft beer lover”. With an RRP of £20, the box contains four exclusive cake-themed craft beers: Donut-Sprinkles Milkshake IPA, Cinnamon Cookie Porter, Lemon Meringue Pie IPA and Bourbon BarrelAged Triple Chocolate Cake Imperial Stout. All four beers are 330ml. northernmonk.com

Seggiano has created vegan and gluten-free gift sets for Christmas 2022. In the vegan hamper (RRP £35), the brand’s new panettone is flanked by a selection of plant-based items, including Genovese basil pesto and Taralli biscuits. The gluten-free hamper (RRP £70) is packed with delights such as Puttanesca, Kale and Fennel Pesto sauces, pastas, vinegars and Brutti Ma Buoni hazelnut biscuits. seggiano.com

Essex producer Thursday Cottage recommends dolloping its White Chocolate Spread on hot waffles, baked apples or dark chocolate ice cream. New for 2022, the spread is made in small batches from Belgian White Chocolate. The mixture is constantly stirred during production to make sure that the end product is “as silky smooth as it can be”. RRP £3.25. thursday-cottage.com

Cocktails that aren’t full of sugar

Cocktail brand Mindful Mixology has unveiled its Christmas releases: Candied Orange Negroni, Winter Berry & Quince Bramble and Christmas Spiced Rum Old Fashioned.

The Magamila Trio offers a taster of three different organic olive oils, from the same Sicilian estate but from different olive groves. They have three distinct tastes: fruity with notes of pepper corn, mild and bitter. RRP £75 (3 x 500ml bottles); trade price £45, including carriage from Sicily to the UK. magamila.com

Christmas 2022 sees the return of Panettone Pastry Stout from Jiddler’s Tipple A collaboration with By The Horns, this 7% ABV festive stout has been brewed with real vanilla, raisins, orange and brandy to exude the flavours and aromas of traditional Italian Christmas cake. RRP £4.99 for 440ml; trade price £2.75. jiddlerstipple.com

Sweet Carolina has given brownies and biscuits the festive treatment. The London bakery is offering Christmas brownies in seasonal flavours such as Baileys, Mince Pie and White Chocolate & Cranberry in boxes of six or 12 (RRPs are £15/£28 and trade prices are £9/18), an iced biscuits advent calendar (RRP £55; trade price £38) and 12 Days of Christmas Brownie Bites (RRP £18; trade price £10). sweetcarolina.co.uk

Coffee connoisseurs will appreciate Dark Woods’ new Reserve collection of seasonal, limited edition single origin coffees from its direct producer partners. These include micro-lot coffees prepared by Café de Panama, which selects heirloom arabica cherries and undertakes a range of signature fermentation and drying styles to deliver sweet, complex and exotic flavours. RRP £12.95 for a 150g tin; trade price from £8.42. darkwoodscoffee.co.uk

Mindful Mixology says its point of difference is making cocktails with significantly less sugar, using premium ingredients and working with small brands. RRP £34.99; trade prices £17.99-£20.99. The company has also created an advent gift box containing 12 individual cocktail serves. RRP £70; trade price £40 plus delivery. mindfulmixology. co.uk

Geared towards cocktail lovers, White Heron Drinks’ twin bottle gift pack juxtaposes its British Cassis and British Framboise. Containing two 500ml bottles and a recipe leaflet, it is available from Craft Drinks and Cotswold Fayre with an RRP of £25. whiteherondrinks.co.uk

Rowcliffe’s Clemency Hall Christmas trio pack brings together three 150g truckles: Victorious Vintage - a vintage cheddar matured for 18 months, Truly Truffle - a mature cheddar with flecks of black truffle, and its new Christmas Pudding cheese. RRP £14.99; trade price £9.50 rowcliffe.co.uk

Organic and dairy-free chocolate producer Booja-Booja has launched two new gift boxes showcasing two of its most popular chocolate truffle flavours; Fine de Champagne and Chocolate Salted Caramel. Each box contains 16 truffles. RRP £11.99. boojabooja.com

Christmas 2022 sees the return of Freda’s limited edition Winter Fruit & Spice Peanut Butter for the festival season. Described as “Christmas in a jar”, this spiced peanut butter can be slathered on toasted fruit loaf or cinnamon bagels. fredas.co.uk

RoniB’s kitchen sauces gift pack champions Philippine flavours with three sauces - Ihaw Ihaw BBQ Sauce, Banana Ketchup and Labuyo Hot Chilli - that can be used as condiments or to inject flavour into cooking. RRP £15; trade price £9. ronibkitchen.co.uk

last-minute christmas ideas

With notes of cinnamon and orange, Old Mother Hunt’s Winter Spiced Rum is said to be the perfect pairing for ginger beer or cola or for spicing up a hot chocolate. Distilled from scratch just outside Glasgow by a “jobless airline pilot and harassed mum”, this pure single rum contains no added sugar, chemicals or colourings. RRP £30.95 for a 50cl bottle; trade price £19.87. oldmotherhunt.co.uk

A fun, festive addition to Bun-dles’ handmade bao and dumpling range, Christmas Pudding Bao Buns are filled with cinnamon, spices and dried fruit, and Gold Star Mince Buns are filled with a delicate gingerbread mousse punctuated with ginger pieces.The buns are sold in packs with an RRP of £12 and a trade price of £6.99-7.99. bun-dles.com

Baboo’s Brandy Gelato makes a change to brandy cream as a Christmas pudding or mince pie accompaniment. Made with Somerset cider brandy, this soft cream coloured gelato melds milky and boozy notes together, and is both warming and cold at the same time. It comes in 500ml tubs that are sold in cases of 6 for £22.80.   baboogelato.com

Karst (180g) and Ash log (500g), from St. Tola, make elegant additions to a cheeseboard. They are ash coated Irish goat milk cheeses made with raw milk from Siobhán Ní Gháirbhith’s herd of dairy goats on the Atlantic coast of Ireland.

Their silvery grey rinds reflect the limestone landscape of The Burren in Co Clare. The Ash log is aged for four weeks, yielding a smooth and velvety texture with fresh flavours of sweet lemon and yoghurt. Karst is fresher than its larger sister, and has a fluffy creamy texture and bright flavours with sweet cocoa notes. Wholesale price £25/kg. st-tola.ie

Tenuta Marmorelle says it has been combing Italy for the best Italian Christmas fine food from new and existing suppliers. One of its favourite finds was small producer of handmade Giandioutti in Turin. The Italian importer is offering these traditional hazelnut chocolates in a variety of presentation formats including pyramids, bags and boxes.  tenutamarmorelle.com

Hampshire based T&M Artisan Chocolates is offering bonbons artfully decorated with Christmas themed transfers alongside its signature hand-crafted chocolates this Christmas. Trade price for a box of six starts at £4.40 and RRPs are between £7.99 and £11.99. Chocolate flavours include Raspberry Pate de fruit, Salted Caramel, Marc de Champagne Ganache and Peppermint Fondant. tmchocolates.co.uk

For 2022, The Seaweed Food Co has changed its gift packaging to Kraft tubes to reduce plastic use. The company handpicks seaweeds from the beaches of Guernsey and adds sea salt, herbs and chillies to make a variety of seasonings that pack an umami punch. RRPs are £15 for a 3-tin gift pack (trade price £11) and £25 for a 5-tin gift pack (trade price £18.25). seaweedfoodcompany. com

Flower & White’s Christmas range features new creations such as Mallowettes (hand decorated chocolate enrobed mallows), Double Dipped Pretzels in two flavours - White Chocolate & Raspberry and Milk Chocolate Salted Caramel - Salted Caramel Chocolate Popcorn, as well as a spin on its classic meringue range: Meringue Baci and flavoured Baby Chocolate Meringue Kisses.

All of these sweet treats are hand-crafted in Shropshire using natural ingredients and are suitable for vegetarians. They come in 100g bags (RRP £4.49). flowerandwhite.co.uk

GingerBeard’s Preserves‘ 2022 edition Fig & Sour Cherry

Christmas Chutney is made with an oak-aged barley wine from Dawkins Ales. This boozy chutney is all more indulgent for the inclusion of whole sour cherries that have been soaked in the barley wine. RRP £4.75 for 200g; trade price £3. gingerbeardspreserves.co.uk

Love Cocoa by James Cadbury has released two 150g truffle tubes (RRP £13.50) for the festive season. Milk Champagne Snowball Truffles encase Marc de Champagne in a milk chocolate shell, while Gingerbread Truffles combine a dark chocolate outer with a spiced gingerbread centre. lovecocoa.com

This handmade wooden gift box from .pepper…field houses four 50g servings of Kampot pepper. As well as the producer’s Golden Fork winning green freeze-dried Kampot pepper, this includes white, black and red pepper. RRP £59.99.

kampot.co.uk

FOCUS ON foodservice

FROM THE DELI KITCHEN SIMPLE RECIPES TO BOOST YOUR MARGINS

BEETROOT, APPLE & FIG CHUTNEY WITH FENNEL

The earthy flavours of beetroot lend themselves perfectly as a basis for a chutney. Slather this into a Ploughman’s, dollop it onto a cheeseboard or serve it with a quiche.

Cook: 1hr 30 minutes

Prep: 30 minutes

Makes: 4 jars

Ingredients:

3 onions, peeled and chopped

2tbsp olive oil

1tbsp yellow mustard seeds

2tbsp fennel seeds

400ml white wine vinegar

400g demerara sugar

4 bay leaves

100g figs, chopped

2 apples, cored and sliced

3 cloves garlic, crushed 1kg beetroot

Method:

• Cook the beetroot in a large pot of boiling water until just tender, drain and allow to cool. Remove the tops and roughly chop up the rounds into 3cm chunks.

• In a large saucepan, fry the onions in the oil for 5 minutes until softened. Add the mustard and fennel seeds and cook for a

minute until fragrant.

• Add the vinegar, demerara sugar, bay leaves, chopped figs, apples, garlic and beetroot to the pot. Bring to a simmer and cook for 30-35 minutes with the lid off, until the vinegar has cooked off and the mixture has slightly thickened.

• Spoon into sterilized jars and seal. Place a bay leaf on top for decoration.

• Seal while the chutney is still hot but allow to cool before serving.

INGREDIENTS & PACKAGING

Belgian superfood company

Authentic Fruits has entered the UK market, where it is seeking distributors for its ambient range of organic exotic fruit bowls. The ready-to-eat packaging makes them ideal for both shop shelves and foodservice outlets, where they can be served as advised (chilled). The Açai Bowl has banana and passionfruit in it, while the Immunity Bowl mixes mango, pineapple, pink guava and acerola. RRP £3.99 per 190g pouch. authenticfruits.com

outlets, where

Koehler Paper has developed new flexible packaging paper called NexPure Wrap for burgers, sandwich and wraps. Developed to provide a barrier to odors, grease, mineral oils, and gases, it is made out of pulp from certified sustainable forestry, making it 100% recyclable. koehlerpaper.com

High pressure processed (HPP) juice producer Coldpress has introduced 1-litre bottles of lime & lemon juice for use in recipes, cocktails, mocktails and smoothies. Delis, food halls and foodservice outlets can buy the lime juice for £3 per litre, and the lemon for £2.50. cold-press.com

Recipe by Jules Mercer for Fine Food Digest

LOOKING FOR LOYAL CUSTOMERS?

The unique taste of my cheese will transport your customers to beautiful Swiss landscapes with fresh grass, crystal water and typical chalets. An experience that they will want to relive again and again.

More than 150 years of family-expertise in cheese-production: Affineur Walo has received more awards than Switzerland has mountains.

BESPOKE PRIVATE LABELLING Recyclable PLA Containers

Polylactic acid (PLA) is made from corn starch which is made from carbon dioxide and water. Corn starch products look and feel like traditional petroleum-based plastic, but they are recyclable, completely compostable and commercially biodegradable.

As a business, it is our ambition to reduce our impact on the environment as much as possible, constantly making small steps in the right direction.

At Shire Foods East Anglia we can now offer a full range of bespoke labelled products in addition to our wide range of branded goods such as Belvoir, Border Biscuits, Cawston Press, Fentimans, Tiptree, Garofalo, Wessex Mill & many more.

For further information please call 01366 381250

www.sfea.co.uk sales@sfea.co.uk

Mochi Bros ticks all the trend boxes with ice cream sandwiches

By Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox

Two popular desserts come together as one in newly-founded Mochi Bros’ vegan Gelato Sandwiches, hoping to appeal to consumers by combining the fashionable foods.

The ve products in the range of vegan ice cream encased in mochi – Japanese sweetened glutinous rice balls - are low-sugar, low-calorie, contain just a handful of ingredients and exclude both additives and preservatives.

The Baklawa sandwich is made with pistachios, cinnamon and orange blossom; the Lemonana, with Sicilian lemon and mint; the Roseberry avour contains sweet strawberry and rose. The Kahwa is a Colombian co ee sandwich, and the Shai Nana is avoured with Moroccan mint tea.

The wholesale price per unit is £1.65 + VAT, with an RRP between £3 and £3.50. mochibros.co.uk

WHAT’S NEW

Alcohol-free distilled drinks provider Bax Botanics is entering the luxury canned drinks market with two flavours : Smooth Sea Buckthorn & Tonic, and Zingy Lemon Verbena & Tonic. The drinks, which contain organic herbs, berries, roots and botanicals are available wholesale through Master of Malt, with an RRP of £2.40 per can. baxbotanics.com

Swedish distillery Mackmyra has released a limited edition single-malt whisky called Destination. The blend mixes a third of whisky aged in port wine casks with another third aged in traditional American oak casks, 25% in ex-Bourbon casks, and the remaining 9% in Spanish Oloroso wine casks. RRP £69.

mackmyra.co.uk

K’s Wors has added two new boerewors-style sausages to its range, Chakalaka chipolatas and cocktail sausages. The South-African style chipolatas, which come in 340g packs of 12, are available now, while 24 packs of the coriander & thyme cocktail sausages will be on sale from November. RRP £3.79.

kswors.co.uk

Natural Selection Foods has released a range of naturally fortified nut butters under a new brand called Nutri Butter. The peanutbased selection features the ‘Defence’ butter, containing maca, açai berry and cinnamon; the ‘Gut Friendly’ one, which has live cultures, turmeric and ginger in it, and the ‘Energise’ jar, which contains chia seeds and baobab.

The range was created alongside the company’s Knotty brand, which comes in three ranges: the classic ‘Peanut’, either Smooth or Crunchy, the ‘Indulgence’ butters, with added popping candy, crispy rice or banana, or the Core range of Pistachio, Cashew or Almond.

The Nutri Butter range is given an RRP of £3.99 per 180g, and £2.99 for a 280g jar of Knotty’s. evolutionfoods.co.uk

• Atlantic salmon are found naturally in the rivers and cool seawaters of all Northern Hemisphere countries. Canadian or Pacific salmon live in the rivers and cooler Pacific waters of North America.

• Atlantic salmon is considered to have the finest flesh and best flavour.

• Both types are farmed in saltwater sea pens as wild salmon do not feed when they return to fresh water to breed and quickly lose condition.

• Traditional salting, followed by cold-smoking were developed to reduce moisture and allow for longer storage.

• Old-style smoked salmon has a very firm, slightly salty flesh and a noticeable smokey flavour.

• In London, processors used milder salt and smoke levels, the London cure, because consumption was localised.

• Most modern smoked salmon uses even less salt in curing and lighter smoke, giving a softer texture and less flavour, but greater weight for sale.

• Hot-smoked salmon is cooked and smoked at the same time; it is rarely saltcured.

Paley Photography

Counter points Salmon, cold- & hot-smoked Food writer and former deli owner Glynn Christian offers up some category-specific conversation starters to sharpen your sales technique.

This is an extract from Glynn Christian’s book Taste! How to Choose the Best Deli Ingredients, published by Grub Street

MEET THE PRODUCER

Kate and Denis Dempsey left their jobs in Dublin and moved to the coastal town of Kinsale, Co. Cork, where they set up the first new meadery in Ireland for 200 years.

How did Kinsale Mead Co. come to be?  We started in 2017. We ended up on the hill of Tara, the megalithic capital of Ireland, and realised we were standing on the footprint of the great mead hall, where all the high kings would summon the tribes at Samhain festival (Halloween).

There would be up to 1,000 people in that mead hall, drinking mead, and we were like: ‘It’s been done before, so how hard can it be?’

What were you doing before? What made you choose to quit your jobs to make mead? I was working in IT, and Denis, my husband was an engineer.

We did a lot of research, we talked to a lot of meaderies around the world, because mead is a very close community. If you’ve got any questions there’s always somebody who’s done it before and can talk to you about very technical things, like floor drains and yeast.

Then we took the big leap. We moved down from Dublin to Kinsale, right on the south coast of Cork. We bought the meadery and the equipment that we’d done a little research on finding, and we sourced some fantastic honey.

What obstacles and challenges did you face along the way?

The biggest challenge is that people either don’t know what mead is at all or assume it’s going to be sweet and cloying.

Getting people to taste it is the way to get people to want to buy it.

It’s all down to the quality of the ingredients, and that’s reflected in the price. It’s definitely a ‘treat’ or a ‘nice gift’ price.

Mead is like a wine that is made from honey, so the better the honey, the better the mead. We were very concerned about it being pure, raw honey. If you heat up honey higher than hive temperature, which is about blood temperature, you lose the delicate flavours and you lose the stuff in honey that is good for you.

Our aim is to find the honey that has a beautiful flavour that will get through fermentation, rather than have honey that just tastes like adulterated food products.

What does the future hold? Do you have any new products or projects in the pipeline?

We’re always improving the recipe of our three main meads. Because honey is a natural product, it’s slightly different every batch of honey that we get.

For example, although the Atlantic Dry is made from orange blossom honey, you can’t tell the bees not to go anywhere else, so there’s always a little something else in there. The batch that we have at the moment, the bees have been going near some clover so it’s a little bit more herbal.

It’s a matter of getting the mead to taste similar to the previous batch, if not better, as we improve our technique.

We do have limited edition meads, but they are restricted to Ireland – so your readers will have to come on holiday to Kinsale and and do a tour of the meadery.

Are you hoping for some good sales at Christmas?  It’s a great gift: the Wild Red Mead is the one that sells the most at Christmas because it goes with flavours like mince pies and Christmas pudding.

You can mull it as well, which is really lovely when it gets cold, rainy and dark.

We also have a gift set of three 50ml miniature bottles. They’ll fly out at Christmas in the shops.

Are you looking for new distributors or to establish a presence in different places?  We would really like a distributor who works with artisan drinks. There’s no use being with somebody who sells a thousand lines; they don’t have enough time to promote every drink that’s on their list. We need some partnerships with people who will understand the mead and support it, and will know the right places where people are going to be looking for that kind of artisan product.  kinsalemead.co.uk

WHAT’S NEW

Artisanal snack maker Popcorn Kitchen has added another cocoa-based item to its dessertinspired range: vegan Chocolate Brownie popcorn. Marketed as both decadent and light, the 30g portions come in at 130 calories. RRP per bag, £1.39. popcornkitchen.co.uk

Entering the pre-mixed cocktail market, Elephant Gin is now selling a bottled Red Negroni consisting of equal parts Elephant Aged Gin, vermouth and bitters, rounded out by six months of ageing in oak barrels. For each 700ml bottle of Oak Aged Negroni sold (RRP £35.90), 15% of profits will go to the Elephant Gin Foundation, the company’s £1 million and counting fundraiser supporting projects to protect the African elephant. elephant-gin.com

Chocolate entrepreneurs Steve Russell and Giles Atwell behind the Russell & Atwell brand have released a Christmas set of their chilled chocolate truffles made with fresh cream, butter, honey and very little sugar. The trio features the classic Creamy Milk, Scrumptious Salted Caramel and a limited-edition zesty Seville Orange flavour. Also available in refillable glass jars, the gift set has an RRP of £21. russellandatwell.com

As the colder months draw closer, Opies has introduced a Forest Fruits with Cassis preserve for retailers looking to boost their gift selection.The jar of blackcurrants, raspberries, redcurrants and blackberries steeped in syrup and infused with blackcurrant liqueur has an RRP of £6.50 per 460g.

Pitched as a versatile product to enjoy with ice cream or yoghurt, in a savoury sauce, dressing, or even paired with cheese, it is the latest addition to Opies’ Fruits with Alcohol range, which includes Black Cherries with Kirsch; Peaches with Cognac; and Pineapple with Spiced Rum. opiesfoods. com

We ended up on the hill of Tara, the megalithic capital of Ireland

Hickory smoked almonds, cashews and peanuts

Hickory smoked cashews

CALLING ALL FINE FOOD DIGEST READERS Each year at harvest time LittlePod celebrates the farmers on the

belt who produce REAL Vanilla. Be in with a chance of joining LittlePod on the 17th October. This year on Monday the 17th October we are hosting an all-day At Home at the Chelsea Physic Garden. Would you like the opportunity to join us on the 17th October? We have saved two last minute invitations for readers of the fine food digest. Contact us via Instagram: little_pod.

MULTI AWARD-WINNING ARTISAN CHARCUTERIE

WITH PASSION IN CORNWALL

Deli Farm Charcuterie Delabole, Cornwall PL33 9BZ 01840 214106 www.delifarmcharcuterie.co.uk dfc@delifarmcharcuterie.co.uk

Melt in the mouth shortbread, the perfect treat for Christmas.

deans.co.uk T: 01466 792086 sales@deans.co.uk

Nazani Tea

Ready for the future of tea?

OVER THE PAST few years, a couple of trends have become very apparent – not just within the tea industry, but further a eld in the press. The secret is out. Major players within the market have reported a slump in sales of black tea and teabags due to traditional tea drinkers being a dying breed. The consumers of tomorrow are taking more of a wholesome approach to tea drinking. Not only that but they are opting for herbal infusions over the standard cuppa.

Being more ethical

In the age of awareness and the ‘conscious consumer’, people’s tea consumption habits are based more and more on the ethical sourcing and transparency of what they buy.

Are suppliers taking care of their teas and the environment? Who picks and processes the teas? When were the teas harvested? Consumers want to be

a part of the journey from seed to cup, and appreciate naturally grown and processed teas and herbals.

‘Wildcra ed’ and ‘biodynamic’ are terms being used more and more within the industry, as consumers demand natural, sustainable and honest speciality teas and herbals.

“Consumers are thinking twice before grabbing their standard ca einated tea bag, simply because it is ‘tea’,” says Nazani Tea’s founder Arleen Ouzounian. “People’s consumption is not a given, it is a conscious decisionmaking process. Convenience and homogeneity are no longer the determining factors for tea buying, which is one of the reasons for the drop in sales. Finally, the tea industry may enjoy the same revolution as co ee once did.”

Nazani Tea aims to provide consumers with an elevated and emotive tea experience. Based on

three principles (luxury, integrity and elegance), the company’s ethos is to provide consumers with a truly unique herbal infusion o ering, based on ethical sourcing, health and wellness, and transparency, giving herbal infusions the same love and care usually reserved for the nest co ees and loose-leaf teas.

Herbal infusions’ popularity

Along with the decline of the standard black tea bag, another trend which has not gone unnoticed is the massive growth in herbal infusion sales. In fact, one particular major player owes its recent sales growth entirely to launching a cold brew herbal infusions range. And another household black-tea-only brand has taken the plunge with launching a brand new herbal range.

“The ca eine-free lifestyle is growing year on year, with consumers increasingly becoming functionality driven and looking for health bene ts such as antioxidants, detox/purifying, immune boosting, calming and energising,” says Ouzounian.

“Camellia sinensis (tea) cannot provide all these health bene ts alone, and so consumers are splurging on herbal brews.”

Nazani Tea is working to resurrect ancient herbal infusions and with a focus on bringing innovative and new concepts to the market, including a new type of mint, a world- rst herbal infusion (red amaranth), unique cocoa blends and colourchanging wildcra ed brews. Commissioning harvests and working with small farming families across the world ensures freshness and traceability, which inspires consumers and sta alike. Handpicked, altitude-grown and foraged, are all words which appear in Nazani Tea’s vocabulary, and they’re proud of it.

Partner with Nazani Tea, says Ouzounian, and partner with the future.

nazanitea.com

WHAT NAZANI TEA’S CUSTOMERS SAY “Nazani Tea is the perfect 5* tea experience for our 5* spa. Besides the well-being aspects of this tea experience, the aesthetic experience is food for the soul and eyes! Most beautiful teas ever!”

Taffryn Kinsey, spa director, Four Seasons London Park Lane

“Nazani’s Tea Wild Mountain Mint is the best mint I have ever tasted.”

Guillaume Glipa, founder & coowner, Louie Restaurant

With consumers becoming ever more discerning about what’s in their cup and how it got there, Nazani Tea explains how it can help you keep your herbal infusion o ering up to date

Damask Rose Buds & Lemon Verbena

Red Amaranth & Lemon Thyme Kykeon (Traditional) Kykeon (Modern) & Chamomile Mountain Mint & Olive Leaf

Interview by Tom Vaughan

By the people, for the people

“IT’S COMMUNITY. YOU can’t buy it. You can’t knit it,” says Andrew Mason, a member of the management committee at Church Fenton Community Shop, near Wetherby in Yorkshire. “It’s the endorphins of the place, people like coming, they love the ethos.”

We’re sat in front of a oral print covered table at the rear of the shop on a sunny late summer morning. Two farmers hop o their hay-laden tractor to collect a couple of pasties, an elderly resident pops in for some milk and a natter with a volunteer cashier, and a lm-crew caterer who has made a 10-mile journey to pick up some of

VITAL STATISTICS

the shop’s ethically sourced produce strikes up conversation. “I make the journey here because I love what they’re doing,” she tells FFD. “I’ve got the same ethos and I can get my hands on items that I’d otherwise have to travel much further for.”

Since setting up ve years ago, the shop –sta ed and run entirely by volunteers – has become a shining light among the burgeoning army of community-run businesses, picking up a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in June of this year, the highest award a local voluntary group can achieve. While much of the recent attention has been lavished on the

collective spirit underpinning the enterprise, it isn’t virtue alone that has turned a rundown post o ce into an operation now turning over £500k a year: some very savvy business decisions have established the shop as both a vital resource for the villagers as well as one of Yorkshire’s best delis.

In 2017, the Church Fenton Post O ce –run by the same couple for 40 years – was put up for sale. With no buyer forthcoming, property developers began hovering. However, Mason and a group of other villagers, including his wife Jo and another couple, Jane and Stewart Hardman-Ferris,

Five years ago, the Church Fenton village shop was a tired Post O ce that no-one wanted. Today, it is a thriving community shop sta ed by an army of volunteers with a reputation as a foodie destination. Here’s the story behind its remarkable turnaround.

A team of more than 70 volunteers, including Jo Mason and Julie Atthews, run the shop

began to explore how they could keep it open.

“A group of us came together and formed a company called Church Fenton Community Shop Limited, which is a company limited by guarantee, meaning any pro t from the company has to be reinvested,” says Mason. “Then we drew up a business plan for how a community shop would operate and began the hunt for funding.” With a loan from the Public Works Loan Board, the Parish Council was then able to buy the asset and lease it to Church Fenton Community Shop Limited.

The rst job for the 70-plus volunteers was turning the site from a tired Post O ce with a tiny square footage into a 72 squaremetre retail space.

“We traded for the rst year in the small area of the old Post O ce while getting plans for a refurbishment done via a local architect for free,” says Mason. “Nobody gets paid in this shop, you see. The architect worked for free, the accountant works for free, the gardeners, the shopkeepers. We’ve got over 20,000 volunteer hours, 72 hours a week, and nobody’s had so much as a nickel.”

By the time the refurbishment began, the shop was already beginning to evolve as a business, thanks to volunteer buyers Jane and Stewart Hardman-Ferris.

“We took the shop over immediately from the previous owners and inherited their stock. It was all pretty basic – bread, butter, biscuits, a basic line of sweeties and tins of peas. They had nine di erent types of tinned peas! Who knew there were that many? But we started experimenting with a few little things. We got a few di erent oils in, and then we got a few di erent olives in. And then we got some pâté in and we installed a fridge and started stocking nice sandwiches. These things all started going out really quickly and we realised there was a market for it.”

Despite having no experience in retail,

Jane relied on her own love and food and, more importantly, her knowledge of the village to carefully expand the stock range.

“I’ve lived in the village now for nearly 20 years and watched the demographic change signi cantly, especially with younger people getting married and wanting more of a rural quieter life away from the cities.

“It’s quite a sophisticated bunch of folk that have moved to the village now and they have tastes that are far and beyond what would necessarily be available in a village. So if James Martin on Saturday Kitchen used, say, Gochujang paste, and they wanted to try it themselves, there wasn’t anywhere nearby that they could buy it. It was either a schlep into York or Leeds to go to a supermarket.”

One of the rst suppliers the HardmanFerris’s brought on board was Suma, an ethically minded vegetarian co-operative, which supplies the shop with the likes of dried herbs, pulses and grains. The couple then began building relationships with some of Yorkshire’s artisan producers. The result is a whole wall of the shop now dedicated to local produce from Yorkshire Pasta to York Gin to a Church Fenton Hooting Owl Gin, created by the Barmby Moor-based cra distillers using botanicals collected from around the village.

Other hits include a range of Aagrah curry sauces, based in Shipley, West Yorkshire; cheeses from the Yorkshire Dama Cheese, founded in Halifax in 2012 by a Syrian refugee; and Yorkshire Heart sparkling wine from Nun Monkton. Meat, pies and pastries come from nearby Starkeys of Sherburn and milk and dairy products from Longley Farm.

As the shop has grown, it has even evolved into its own brand, says Jane. The sympathetic wooden-shelves and bunting create an established aesthetic, while a local

MUST-STOCKS

Stringers flour

Staal Smokehouse smoked salmon Yorkshire Dama Cheese Squeaky Cheese Starkeys of Sherburn pies and meat Delicioso Spanish charcuterie York Wines

Hooting Owl Church Fenton Gin Lottie Shaw’s cakes

Yorkshire Pasta Longley Farm dairy products

Aagrah Sauces Guppys Chocolate Silver and Green Olives Pureety Seasonings

DELI OF THE MONTH

designer’s logo for the shop now sits on the front its own-brand preserves, provided by Bracken Hill Fine Foods.

“It’s become a destination,” says Mason. “People come from York, Tadcaster, Sherburn, especially those who are vegan or gluten-free as we have a great range catering to that. But we have to remember that we set up the shop to service our community rst.”

Destination foodies might help pay the bills, but the seven-strong management committee that runs the shop make sure the villagers, especially its elderly residents, remain a priority, with a full range of groceries and essentials.

“We make sure that we cater to everyone – from grumpy old men popping in for a newspaper, to those with very little disposable income who want to come in and get some bread and a can of 45p baked beans, to people with more disposable income who might want to cook a new recipe,” says Jane Hardman-Ferris. For some, the trip to the shop might be their only social interaction of the day. And for those who can’t make it out,

the volunteers also run a free prescription service dropping o medicine for villagers.

Every single aspect of the shop’s running is entirely reliant on an army of 70 volunteers some of whom enjoy the interaction of running the till, others who are happy to chip in with small background jobs such as breaking down and recycling cardboard packaging. Volunteers sign up for two-hour shi s on app Three Rings, while a WhatsApp group ensures that any problems are quickly addressed by an available volunteer.

The lengths and e orts everyone has poured into the shop are astounding, says Mason, but it does come with its challenges.

“We’re not dependent on anything except our volunteers. We need to make sure that we can man the shop from seven in the morning till seven at night. And for that the volunteers have got to feel respected, wanted, encouraged. So we never tell anybody, we only ever ask people, and it’s so di cult to get that ne line.

“I’ve been in business all my life. If I want something done, I tell one of my employees

to do it. But I might pay him £40,000 a year. Whereas you can’t do that with volunteers.

So it’s more like: ‘Oh, if you get 10 minutes, can you just check on the drinks fridge?’

There’s a whole vernacular that you’ve got to be careful about.”

Because sta ng costs are zero, the shop has been able to realise healthy pro ts – all of which have been ploughed back into the business. Volunteers recently built a raised bed vegetable garden, which villagers tend themselves, alongside a greenhouse, which means that – along with the established fruit trees – homegrown vegetables, fruit and herbs arrives on the shelves, and there are more plans afoot to keep on improving the business.

“I’ve lived in villages all my life,” says Mason. “I’ve been on parish councils for 40 years, I’ve been in business for just under 40 years, I’ve built on three di erent continents, prisons to hospitals, social housing, Grade I and II star listed buildings, but this is the proudest thing I’ve ever done.”

churchfentoncommunityshop.org.uk

Nobody gets paid in this shop. We’ve got over 20,000 volunteer hours, and nobody’s had so much as a nickel.

Puddings:

news from the guild of fine food

View from HQ

By John Farrand managing director

IS THERE NO other news? I was chatting to a revered cheesemonger at the British Cheese Awards this week, and we were wallowing in our mutual displeasure at the volume of political noise on TV, radio, and social media. Never have I been so disenfranchised with news media –and that is from a lifelong listener of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

The exacting news pages of this ne magazine cover the constitutional threads, distilling them and making sense of them for independent retail. It’s all there: the energy crisis; Labour’s

take on the business rates crisis; the cost-of-living crisis and what it could do to Christmas sales; rural business grants helping you to keep going; and falling food sales, which will inevitably lead to another, but di erent crisis.

I’m avoiding the c-word from this point on.

We have a new Monarch. Dr Anna Khan (p.5) points to the fact that King Charles III will be looking for food and drink brands that ‘are sustainable and ethical’ and that ‘his taste is likely to be di erent to the late Queen’s.’

According to BBC News, the King was partly responsible for the renaissance in artisan cheesemaking in the UK. Perhaps we can expect more cheese with Royal appointments. He’s clearly an advocate, demonstrated through his patronage of the Specialist Cheesemakers Association.

He’d be pleased with a healthy, fun and successful British Cheese Awards. I was there at the beginning of October, judging with industry stalwart, Alan Kirby, the cheese buyer (amongst other deli items) at Booths. We had a harmonious morning, assessing 20-or so blues and then

The Word on Westminster

By Edward Woodall ACS

LIZ TRUSS’ APPOINTMENT to Prime Minister means yet more assessment of the Government’s priorities and outlook. Thankfully the her opening speech gave us an outline of her priorities: grow the economy, tackle the energy crisis and support the NHS. The key challenge for the Government isn’t focus but timing. We will have a general election in 2024 and they need to show they are delivering, and do it quickly.

It appears that despite the £100 billion-plus energy support package, the new PM’s focus on tax cuts remains, with plans to revise

National Insurance increases still in play. This economic strategy is all predicated on the idea that growth, stimulated by tax cuts and deregulation, makes everyone better off. This appears to suggest a pro-business outlook.

But we all wait with interest to see where else this Government can deliver growth. Arguably, the challenges facing the UK are more entrenched than can be addressed in a two-year window. There is a real risk that the Government looks at short term tokenistic interventions rather than tackling longer term productivity, investment and skills challenges. We think what many retailers are craving is certainty.

The energy support package that has been announced provided reassurance, but businesses

GENERAL ENQUIRIES

Guild of Fine Food Guild House, 23b Kingsmead Business Park, Shaftesbury Road, Gillingham, Dorset SP8 5FB UK

news from the guild of fine food

deliberating over a packaging class. I know there’s more trouble to come as the end of the year approaches, but it felt good to celebrate the British cheese community.

World Cheese Market debuts

Therefore, it is not all bad. World Cheese is set to be a cracker next month as we assess more cheeses than ever, welcome our judging panel of global diversity, and give all visitors a chance to celebrate Welsh food and drink. You’re invited to the World Cheese Market, the inaugural trade show running alongside the judging. I’m going to invite HRH – he’s bound to accept and help us celebrate the importance of artisan cheesemaking and informed cheese selling.

That will certainly make the news.

need how it will work and what happens after the initial six-month package is finished. It doesn’t look like wholesale gas prices, or geopolitical problems will have been resolved by then. We can’t run lights and fridges on goodwill.

We also need to know what the Government will be doing about upcoming regulatory measures that are putting pressure on retailers. Are obesity regulations going to dropped? Will the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme be delayed? Certainty on these issues is needed to avoid pointless costs.

The PM’s priorities and outlook appear promising, but we need to see if they can ‘deliver, deliver, deliver’ on the details.

The Guild team are getting ready to head to Wales for World Cheese Awards.  Join us at the World Cheese Market on 2 November. Open to trade and press only, sample Welsh food & drink, visit over 30 trade stands including cheesemakers, affineurs and cheese accessories.  The winner of the Young Cheesemonger of the Year, organised by the Academy of Cheese, will be crowned –and you’ll have the chance to witness the Super Jury decide the World Champion Cheese 2022 first-hand. We hope to see you there. To sign up for a free trade ticket, visit gff.co.uk/ worldcheesemarket

Food lovers at Southwark Cathedral

At part of the celebration of Great Taste winners, the Guild recently opened its doors directly to consumers for the first time on 5 September.  Food-loving attendees tasted their way around 25 tasting stations meeting winning producers and tasting their food & drink products. Visitors and producers alike relished the chance to meet in person, successfully testing a format that we hope to repeat to

gff.co.uk

THE GUILD TEAM:

director:

Farrand

projects director:

Farrand Sales director:

Sales manager: Ruth Debnam Sales executive: Becky Haskett

Marketing manager: Sophie Brentnall

Operations coordinators: Matthew Bunch Chris Farrand Sepi Rowshanaei

825200 info@gff.co.uk gff.co.uk

Tel:

Coley Operations & marketing director: Christabel Cairns

Operations managers: Claire Powell Meredith White

Data & systems project manager: Lindsay Farrar

Finance director: Ashley Warden Financial controller: Stephen Guppy Accounts assistant: Julie Coates Chairman: Bob Farrand Director: Linda Farrand

Edward Woodall is government relations director at the ACS edward.woodall@acs.org.uk

I’m avoiding the c-word from this point on.

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