13 minute read
CURTIS OF LINCOLN Great local
GREAT LOCAL FOOD
Tradition meets technology as one of Lincolnshire’s longest established butchers and bakers is making its products available on Yummy, the website which delivers fresh local food, right to you door...
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Words: Rob Davis.
THERE’S NOTHING QUITE LIKE the smell of baking bread. The scent is particularly prevalent on Lincoln’s Long Leys Road, the main site for the production operations of A W Curtis Bakers & Butchers of Lincoln.
Happily, A W Curtis is still thriving even amid general trading conditions, and even during Covid-19. And now, the availability of the company’s range of bread, meat and teatime treats will be available from Yummy, the sister company of Lincolnshire Pride which delivers fresh local food right to your door.
It’s one of the oldest butchers and bakers in Lincolnshire, not to mention one of the largest and the one with the most comprehensive ranges of products.
So old is A W Curtis, in fact, that its exact date of origin is unknown, but we are certain that it existed in something like its modern form in 1828, beginning life as a pork butcher. Today, A W Curtis Bakers & Butchers and its retail sister company Curtis of Lincoln is the most well-known butchers and bakers in Lincolnshire.
Our High Streets, though, have taken a battering during lockdown with footfall even more thin on the ground and the abundance of out of town retailers – not least among which is the big four supermarkets – driving people out of our town centres.
Today, A W Curtis is almost a 24/7 operation and though he’s researched the history of both his profession, and of the family business, the firm’s Neil Curtis is still discovering new facts about the company and its extensive history all the time.
In addition, he still keeps his hand in across the company, delivering or helping his team with production, despite having nearly 100 employees to look after as well.
Neil is still a dab hand with a sharp butcher’s knife but he’s just as sharp as a businessman, and a keen ambassador for local food.
“At times such as these, you’ve got to be able to roll up your sleeves and get the job done when it’s necessary,” he says.
“And we’ve 20 shops, so the demand is still there, we’ve got to keep the orders going out! At the same time though you’ve also got to embrace change, hence working with Yummy to provide our very traditional high-quality products but retailing them in a really modern way.”>>
>> “We’ve a greater number of products than before, and today there’s a bigger market than ever for especially food to take away. We’ve sausage rolls and pastries, filled baps and coffee for those who pop into our shops at lunchtime and probably half of our shops have seating areas which will reopen when the rules allow us to do so.”
It’s difficult to think of a better advocate for Lincolnshire food than Neil, and as he points out, food and culture are inextricably linked, especially in Lincolnshire. As a rural county it was more common –certainly prior to the industrial revolution –for villages to have regular days when a journeyman butcher or slaughterman would visit local villages and butcher the pigs that each villager would have kept domestically for meat. The practice was known as ‘pig-killing day,’ as prior to refrigeration, techniques like salting were used to preserve food for future consumption. It was a real ritual and neighbours would gather together to help each other out with ensuring they derived as much value from each animal as possible. They’d share pig fry and many other cuts that have today fallen by the wayside. Diets in previous centuries were incredibly fatty by today’s standards, but of course, their lifestyles were much more active so they’d need the energy for manual labour. As the industrial revolution consolidated communities, emerging centres of population like Lincoln began to gain areas where butchers habitually gathered to service a larger population. Butcher’s Court off the city’s Clasketgate Street was one such area, and with more of the population working over the successive 200 years, there became a more consistent customer base and so butchers began to occupy permanent premises, establishing their shops on the High Streets of towns and cities. At the time, single-species butchers were more prevalent, or at least beef and lamb butchers were. Pork butchers tended to operate as separate entities, because beef and lamb is traditionally butchered and sold only in cuts. Pork, by contrast, tends also to be cured, made into sausages, bacon, and manufactured into goods such as polony, brawn, and haslet or chine, in Lincolnshire – hence dedicated butchers creating the by-product of butchery. As the saying goes, every bit of a pig can be eaten, except the squeal. In a more frugal age even the animal’s bladder was retained as a receptacle for storing lard and it wasn’t unknown for people to make clothing out of pig’s hair! Naturally, there were fewer commercial breeds and a greater number of local ones associated with pre-industrial food production, and Lincolnshire livestock breeds like the Lincoln Red, Curlycoat, Longwool and Buff were more prevalent. >>
DISCOVER YUMMY IN LINCOLN...
Bringing fresh local food – like A W Curtis’s products – right to your door and now the service is available in Lincoln..!
One of Lincoln’s oldest butchers and bakers, A W Curtis is just one of a number of local suppliers you can buy from using Yummy. Yummy is the food delivery service which delivers produce from local butchers, bakers, fruit & veg suppliers, fishmongers and other local food businesses, with shopping delivered straight to your door. How does it work? Simply visit www.yummy.co.uk and browse through the different products available. Once you’ve chosen your products from each of our different Yummy partners, you complete one single secure checkout. Next, we visit each of our partners in turn, collect each of the different products in your order, then pack them safely and delivery them using our fleet of our refrigerated vehicles. We’ll deliver your Yummy box to your doorstep which means you can enjoy local food, from local suppliers, delivered to your door for maximum convenience. As well as local produce, Yummy has lots of practical groceries too such as milk, butter, honey, and sliced bread. n Discover Yummy now by visiting www.yummy.co.uk... you won’t be disappointed!
>> From the 1900s, our High Streets were a little more settled and butchers were beginning to consolidate their trades to become the multi-species butchers we know today.
By the middle of the 20th century, the company was already making pastry for its sausage rolls and pork pies, and so reasoned that selling them too wouldn’t incur much additional effort. The firm’s range of bread and bakery goods expanded and now the business is equally well-regarded for its butchery and its bakery.
A mini-booklet from 1928 in A W Curtis’s archives carries the strapline ‘Serving Lincolnshire for over 100 Years,’ so we can be confident that the company dates back to at least at least 1828, but Neil’s great-great grandfather Charles Curtis; great-grandfather Arthur William Curtis; grandfather Bert Curtis with his brother Frank and father Arthur Curtis with brother Ray and sisters Sheila and Barbara are all known to have run the business through the years. Now there is Neil with Susan and members of the eighth generation involved in the business.
In days gone by, the company’s slaughterhouse was based on St Marks Street, and a legacy of its presence remains in the form of a pig-shaped weathervane on top of what is now the JD Sports store and Tesco.
The vane is located on the site of the old St Marks Church and is a reminder of when the odd pig would escape its fate in the butchery and flee to the church opposite, presumably seeking holy sanctuary… trying to, quite literally, save its bacon.
Since then, the company’s operations have expanded and moved to its current location on Long Leys Road. >>
Above: A W Curtis began life as a pork butcher before diversifying into other butchery and eventually it became a bakery too. Director Neil Curtis is now making his range of products available on Yummy the website which delivers fresh local food right to your door across Lincolnshire.
>> From journeymen butchers to a permanent presence on our High Streets, to A W Curtis’s two mobile shops, selling meat and baked goods in a radius of about 20 miles from the city and finally to the rather more modern trading environment of Yummy.co.uk, the history and culture of how we buy and how we eat our food has changed dramatically.
Yummy has just extended its operating radius to include all of Lincoln, and now customers in and around the city can purchase products from A W Curtis, from the site’s greengrocers, fish merchants, farmers and food producers, then have all of the site’s locally sourced food delivered right to the doorstep in a single, convenient delivery.
And does Neil believe there’s a place for a traditional butcher and baker in the 21st century? “Absolutely! We still enjoy food; more than ever in fact. Recipe books, TV shows and websites are always presenting us with different ways to prepare food, and we live in an age in which the access to different ingredients is wider than ever, and free from seasonal limits. “So whilst it would be easy to complain about modern retail, actually we live in an age where food is produced to an unprecedented quality, cheaply, and with a better approach than ever to animal welfare. You only have to look at the Lincolnshire Show – when it returns to the calendar – to see that there are amazing farmers in the county who really care about their animals.”
“But as a society we’re busier than ever. The temptation of convenience is understandably appealing but still people appreciate that there’s something wonderful about a traditional family business which supplies great products.” “This past year has been unprecedented of course, but anecdotally I’ve had plenty of people reporting to me that in lieu of being able to go out, they’ve been enjoying cooking more at home and have eaten less processed meals. In the process they’re discovered just how wonderful local food can be.”
“Being a local food producer, too, we can also champion the products that have a special place in our hearts, like Lincolnshire sausages, pork pies, plum bread, haslets, and stuffed chine. Chine is virtually unknown out of the county, but it’s a real favourite in our family. I was working on our stand at The Game Fair when it was held in the south of the county and one very confused lady asked, ‘what’s all that grass doing in that ham?’”
“We’ll lose products like haslet and chine if we rely solely on national retailers for our food, but people like us can keep them alive. And if, the 21st century, we can enjoy a presence online with services like Yummy, we can suddenly take all of our wonderful local food to a much wide audience.” n
Find Out More: A W Curtis has 18 shops across Lincolnshire plus two mobile shops operating in Lincoln. Its products are now available at www.yummy.co.uk, delivering fresh local food from A W Curtis’s butchery and baked goods as well as fruit, vegetable, and fish plus groceries and other foods... right to your door!
TASTING NOTES
OUR FAVOURITE PRODUCTS FROM A W CURTIS & SONS’ RANGE AVAILABLE ON YUMMY, DELIVERING FRESH LOCAL FOOD RIGHT TO YOUR DOOR!
n White Crusty Loaf £2.14/800g. Curtis’s traditional pillow-soft daily bread, perfect for sandwiches or toast. n Wholemeal Loaf £2.43/800g Brown yeast bread, ideal for sandwiches or toast. n Small Farmhouse Loaf £1.63/400g Brown yeast bread, ideal for sandwiches or toast. n White Bread Rolls £1.65/pack four Soft white rolls ideal for savoury filling or burgers. n Lincolnshire Plum Loaf £3.63/430g The county’s traditional teatime treat, fruited sweet yeast bread, good served with cheese or simply toasted with butter. n Madeira Cake £3.34/350g Sweet traditional sponge cake, lovely with a cup of tea. n Teacakes £2.17/pack four Fruited sweet yeast bread, ideal toasted. n Jam & Lemon Tarts £2.42/pack six Individual pastry case filled with jam, lemon curd and rich coconut filling. n Medium Apple Pie £2.18/300g Apple pie, full of apple chunks, ideal for serving as portions with cream or custard either hot or cold. Above products available to purchase at www.yummy.co.uk.
LINCOLNSHIRE BUTCHERS
LINCOLNSHIRE FISHMONGERS
115LINCOLNSHIRE BAKERS
QUALITY AND LOCAL
With Yummy, you can fall in love with food all over again! Enjoy fresh, high-quality meat, fish, fruit, herbs, vegetables, bread, and other locally sourced food like smoked barbecue dishes, cakes plus speciality oils and sauces, all sourced from the local shops you already know and love.
You simply choose your favourite shops and select your items to create one ‘basket’ using our website. Complete your order, then we’ll pick up all of your products from all of the shops, pack and deliver all of your items together, right to your doorstep.
Yummy is the idea of Lincolnshire businessman Julian Wilkinson and owner of Lincolnshire Pride magazine. He’s a keen advocate of supporting local retailers and food producers, but also a fan of the convenience that online shopping provides. So now… he’s combined the two!
Julian and his team have partnered with trusted independent butchers like Simpsons Butchers, Carl Dunham Butchers, and Dawsons Butchers, Curtis of Lincoln for butchery and baked goods, smoked barbecue products from The Lincolnshire Smokehouse and of course, Yummy works with local greengrocers and farmers for fresh fruit & vegetables.
Yummy also provides seafood from East Lincolnshire Seafood and
THE LINCOLNSHIRE SMOKEHOUSE
LINCOLNSHIRE FARMERS & GREENGROCERS
CURTIS OF LINCOLN, BAKERS & BUTCHERS
LINCOLNSHIRE FOOD... DELIVERED!
Chapmans of Grimsby, locally made cheese from Lymn Bank Farm, and delicious cakes and teatime treats from Posh Nosh, Myers Bakery and Hawkens Gingerbread as well as jam from Jenny’s Jams of Lincoln. We will add more shops over the forthcoming months. If you are food producer or restaurant in Lincolnshire why not get involved? Yummy provides the amazing convenience of home delivery from local shops with one single doorstep delivery. We’re rolling out Yummy across the United Kingdom, starting with Lincolnshire and then the rest of the UK, prioritising local independent retailers, food producers and farmers. We will try to source local produce where possible, though sadly our efforts to source a Lincolnshire banana grower have not borne fruit – literally or figuratively – so we’ll also look a little further where necessary, to keep the quality of our produce high, our prices competitive, and our range comprehensive!
Enquiries If you’d like to get in touch, please email us at enquiries@yummy.co.uk.
SHOP NOW AT WWW.YUMMY.CO.UK
OR CALL 0800 122 39 39 BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9AM TO 5PM, MON-FRI AND OUR FRIENDLY TEAM CAN TAKE YOUR ORDER AND CREDIT/DEBIT CARD PAYMENT. OUR WEBSITE IS REALLY EASY TO USE, SO WHY NOT GIVE IT A GO!
