fine food news
Ashclyst yoghurt is ‘best food’
in 10th National Trust awards
By MICK WHITWORTH
Yoghurt, English sparkling wine and
Pembrokeshire new potatoes took
the top honours in the National
Trust Fine Farm Produce awards last
month.
Celebrating their 10th
anniversary, the awards recognise
producers based on the conservation
charity’s 1,500 tenant farms and
estates throughout England, Wales
and Northern Ireland.
A record 62 products from 37
producers took an award this year.
Ashclyst Farm Dairy, based on
the Trust’s Killerton estate in East
Devon, grabbed the overall best
food trophy for its organic natural
yoghurt.
Martyn and Lorraine Glover have
held the 200-acre Ashclyst farm
since 1998 and built a processing
unit three years ago to add value to
milk from their herd of 80 Meuse
Rhine Issel cows.
Charles Palmer Vineyards near
Winchelsea in East Sussex was
overall drinks winner with its English
sparkling wine.
In a special award to mark 10
years of the scheme, Pembrokeshire
potato grower Trehill Farm was
named Producer of the Decade for
its consistent performance in the
awards since 2007.
The annual award ceremony was
this year held at Selfridge’s rooftop
Vintage Salt restaurant as part of
the store’s yearly Meet the Makers
campaign.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/
finefarmproduceawards
By ARABELLA MILEHAM
Ashclyst Farm Dairy is on the Trust’s
Killerton estate in Devon
Gabriel David to focus on NPD as Luscombe names new MD
By MICHAEL LANE
South Devon’s
Luscombe Drinks
has appointed a
new managing
director as part of a
restructure that will
see founder Gabriel
David take up the
role of chairman.
MD Adrian Collins (pictured),
who has held a variety of executive
roles in the food industry, will be
responsible for growing the soft
drinks business, while David will now
focus on new product development
and ingredient sourcing.
“I am incredibly proud to
be leading and guiding such a
committed and talented team
through an immense amount of
change, investment and growth,”
said Collins, who has been working
at Luscombe as director general
manager since March 2015.
He added: “It is an incredibly
exciting new phase for Luscombe
Drinks and I am hugely looking
forward to taking such an already
established company and brand to a
new level, pushing boundaries and
further transforming the artisan soft
drinks sector, driving Luscombe to an
even brighter future.”
Established in 1975, Luscombe
supplies its hand-made drinks
to independents across the UK
but has a policy of not selling to
supermarkets.
If I'd known then
what I know now...
This has not only increased
our margins, but helped us to
differentiate ourselves from the
competition through consi stent
quality. The only way to really
guarantee that is by having farm-toOLIVER WRIGHT BILLY’S HILL FARM SHOP, HEMINGFIELD
fork control.
As a result of this shift we have
minimal retail staffing. We hardly
from our own farm-reared beef but
I was 23 years old when I put
have anyone stacking shelves but
lines like jams and pork pies were
together the diversification plan for
have invested in skilled staff. We’ve
making us much less profit.
our 250-acre family farm seven years
trained up two apprentices from
We developed some products
ago. Looking back, the business
scratch: a butcher and
plan was too modest: it was a case
a baker.
of dipping a toe in the water rather
Our target is to increase
We’ve invested
than diving in headlong.
turnover by 20% year on year.
in equipment such
With hindsight we should
We’ve managed that most years. as bigger ovens, and
have invested in production skills
instead of handand capacity from the start – for
forming bread we have a bread
ourselves through trial and error, but
example, buying bigger ovens and
bun moulding line. This allows our
we also brought in an expert – chef
cold stores, rather than focusing so
staff to be more flexible as they
Stephanie Moon – to assist with
heavily on the retail aspect.
don’t have to be pigeon-holed in
recipe development. Now we make
The shop is 300% bigger and
a particular role. It has also made
ready-meals, pies, bacon, cured
the production area 2,000% bigger
us more efficient. Our turnovermeats, pastries and bread in-house
than when we opened, which is a
to-man-hours ratio has increased
and sell them at a lower retail price
reflection of how the business has
significantly over the years.
than we could if we bought them
evolved. The recession forced us to
The other focus for us is
in. We still use external suppliers
concentrate on driving down costs,
growing the trade side of the
from within a 10-mile radius for
and the most obvious way of doing
business, supplying lines like steak
items like jam, ales and wines, and
this was to produce more in-house.
pies to pubs. The main challenge is
cheese.
We were getting a good margin
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6
October 2015 · Vol.16 Issue 9
EU regulation of
artisan food comes
under scrutiny
A new study is to examine whether
EU food safety laws are too rigid for
artisan producers.
Slow Food Europe and UK legal
specialist Artisan Food Law (AFL)
launched the research ahead of the
international Cheese 2015 event in
Bra, Italy, at the end of September.
They argue EU food laws were
designed to regulate industrial-scale
operations and may be unsuitable for
small-scale, traditional producers.
Although there are derogations
exempting small firms from some
regulations, critics say the rules
are inflexible and are not applied
consistently across Europe
The study will start looking at
cheese, but may extend to other
products later. Slow Food and AFL
intend to feed their results into the
European Commission, which is
reviewing the fitness of food law.
AFL’s Gerry Danby said the study
will see if there is a case for taking
small producers out of the current
rules. In the USA, artisan production
operates under a separate regime,
although Danby said there were
drawbacks to a “two-tier” system.
George Rice of charcuterie-maker
Serious Pig said excessive paperwork
had made regulation “top heavy” for
smaller firms in the UK. “Producers
may be a victim of bureaucracy,
which wrongly suggests they aren’t
equipped to do their job,” he said.
that trade margins aren’t as good.
We’re keen to push cured meats in
particular. I think people are moving
away from Danish bacon and the
market for regional cured meats is
opening up.
Our target is to increase
turnover by 20% year on year.
We’ve managed that most years.
One of the biggest challenges
has been coming up with new
ideas and making sure the business
doesn’t get stale. If you churn out
the same standard pork pies all the
time, people will lose interest.
But there is a balance to be
struck between familiarity and
innovation. If you stray too far into
the exotic it turns people off. Steak
& ale pies have sold steadily from
day one. However, our Great Taste
award-winning bacon cured in port
and cinnamon doesn’t fly at any
time other than Christmas. It’s just
too niche for most of our customers,
most of whom associate bacon with
a fry-up rather than an ingredient
for combining with poultry or game.
Interview by LYNDA SEARBY
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