Save a Cheese Campaign Launched to Preserve Earthquake-hit Parmesan

Cheese lovers are being encouraged to join an online campaign to help save one of the most famous cheeses in the world – Parmesan – production of which has been devastated by recent earthquakes in Italy.

In May 2012 two powerful earthquakes struck the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy - heart of the Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parmesan) producing region.

Parmesan producers now face financial ruin as the warehouses storing these highly prized cheeses crumbled under the impact of the tremors of May 20th and 29th, damaging 10 per cent of the annual production - a total of 608,000 cheeses.

The cheeses, now unable to complete their maturing process look to be headed for the bin as buyers shirk the fallen Parmesan.

However the Save a Cheese Campaign hopes to relieve the plight of these producers and cheeses by taking an innovative step and offering them online at www.saveacheese.com and in so doing give people the chance to buy their own piece of artisan history.

The Save A Cheese campaign is being headed up by award-winning artisan Welsh cheese maker John Savage-Onstwedder of Teifi Farmhouse Cheese.

John, whose raw milk cheeses have won countless awards - including The James Aldridge Memorial Trophy for Best British Raw Milk Cheese - says he could not stand by when he heard of the plight of his fellow producers in Italy, and is travelling to the region to meet with producers. As an organic farmer John will try to source certified organic Parmesan.

Says John, “As an artisan, raw milk cheesemaker I understand how important it is to support raw milk cheesemakers wherever they me be, because they are an endangered species not just in the UK, but all over Europe.”

Retailing at £22 per 1kg wedge the Parmesan bought through the website will be ready for distribution next month; with the price including postage and packaging, and the cheese will be stamped with the ‘Save A Cheese’ logo.

The bulk of the money will be paid to the individual cheesemaker with one further Euro per kg going to the Parmigiano-Reggiano Consortium for distribution to other cheese producers affected by the earthquakes.
Adds John, “The Campaign’s aim is to offer you the chance to help the struggling Parmesan producers by purchasing your own wedge of ‘Quake Cheese’, to be delivered direct to your door with a healthy slice of karma.”

(PICTURED: John Savage-Onstwedder of Teifi Farmhouse Cheese at home near Llandysul in West Wales with his own award-winning cheese.)

WJ King wins Gold

Horsham Best, Red River and Brighton Blonde produced by Horsham based WJ King have just won gold at the coveted Great Taste 2012 awards after being judged by a panel of 350 of the nation’s most discerning food and drink experts over 45 days.    

WJ King is a new style of micro brewery, using only the finest, natural, local ingredients and traditional brewing techniques to produce the finest quality local ales.

To achieve Gold in Great Taste is a significant achievement for any food or drink producer and results are eagerly awaited.  The scheme, run by the Guild of Fine Food, has been described as the epicurean equivalent of the Booker Prize and in 2012 a total of 8,807 different food and drink products were entered.

‘This means a lot to us here at WJ King. It is the first time that we have entered any of our beers into these awards and are thrilled to have won gold stars for Horsham Best and Red River, 2 of the old favourites that have been with us for over 10 years and for Brighton Blonde the latest beer to be added to our cabinet of some of the finest real ales in Sussex.’ Ian Burgess, Head Brewer.

The Real Ale sector is the fastest growing sector in the pub trade and new style microbreweries like WJ King are attracting a new generation of real ale fans all over the south east of England.

This new generation of Beer drinkers is passionate about what they eat and drink and have a real thirst for knowledge about the provenance, ingredients and manufacturing process of what they are drinking.

Judges this year included Pete Brown ‘the beer drinker’s Bill Bryson’, restaurant critic and Masterchef judge Charles Campion, and over 300 food buyers from leading food halls, delicatessens and farm shops, including Harrods, Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason.

New Sweet Treats Waffle Stick Maker

Sweet Treats Waffle Stick Maker

Waffle Goodness in a Stick!

The mouth-watering smell of hot delicious waffles is hard to resist - now you can enjoy those same freshly made scrumptious waffles in an easy-to-handle stick shape, thanks to the new Sweet Treats Waffle Stick Maker. Perfect for sharing with family and friends for a fun breakfast or quick dessert, or even a tasty fondue, waffle sticks are also quick and easy to make. This nifty machine will turn out six waffle sticks in minutes, ready to dip or decorate with your favourite toppings.

Waffle Sticks couldn’t be easier to make. Simply pre-heat the Waffle Stick Maker, wait for the green light to illuminate, pour in the batter mix, close the lid and wait for approximately two minutes for six tasty waffles to bake. To retain the crispness of the waffles, simply pop them onto a wire rack to cool. If you want to make more waffle sticks then just repeat the process. And the great thing about waffle sticks is that they can be frozen and then reheated in the oven or toaster until hot and crisp.

The Sweet Treats Waffle Stick Maker also comes complete with inspirational recipes to get you started. Try chocolate flavoured waffle sticks, or how about buttermilk waffle sticks with a warm fudge dipping sauce. Or, if you prefer just drizzle plain waffle sticks with syrup or honey and serve with ice cream, the choice is yours! And if you are feeling more adventurous there’s a recipe for a savoury waffle stick with a rich cheese dipping sauce.

Cleaning your Waffle Stick Maker is quick and easy. When you’ve finished making your waffle sticks simply wipe clean the non-stick plates, then store away ready for use again.

Sweet Treats Waffle Stick Maker is great value too, at around (RRP £24.99) – available from Lakeland.

More about the Sweet Treats Range
Sweet Treats is a fantastic range of electrical home-baking products designed to give families hours of fun in the kitchen – not to mention offering some inspirational gift ideas. Choose from:

Sweet Treats Cupcake Maker £21.99
Sweet Treats Brownie Maker £24.99
Sweet Treats Cake Pops Maker £21.99

Food Business Start-up Boot Camp: London, 15-16 September 2012

Food business expert Monique Borst

A brand new workshop for people dreaming, or at the early stages, of running their own food business comes to London on September 15-16, 2012.

Led by food industry expert Monique Borst, the Food Business Start-up Boot Camp is touring the country this year and comes to Wallacespace Covent Garden at the end of September.

London is home to many innovative and entrepreneurial food businesses from individuals making cakes, pickles and jams to sell at farmers markets to success stories like Neal’s Yard Dairy and The Monmouth Coffee Company.

But starting a food business can be a daunting task ... you need to be aware of all the rules – environmental, health, licensing and insurance – competition is fierce and profit margins are small. You also need a marketing strategy to give your business the best chance of being seen and heard and a realistic business plan.

For anyone starting that journey, or people with a fledgling business who are wondering ‘where next’? this Food Business Start-up Boot Camp will be a practical, inspiring and fun weekend. A combination of talks, exercises and a glimpse behind-the-scenes of a local food producer and retailer.

Delegates will:
• Increase awareness of their own business environment, including generating a business idea, the best legal structure for your business and understanding what skills, knowledge and personal qualities you need.

• Find out how well they know their market. Learn that your customers really aren’t ‘everyone’.

• Look at costing and pricing their product or service. How do you work out how much to charge? Whether you are selling a product or providing a service this session helps you to decide on a clear structure for your pricing policy,

• Take the time to learn about ways of financing their business and work out when their business will break even? In this session you will complete a personal survival budget and test the financial viability of your business.

• Learn how to stay on the right side of the law: the minimum standards for premises, personal hygiene and food safety, licensing, insurance.

• Learn how to control your business: get a grip on the records you need to keep and how to manage overheads

Monique is a great facilitator: calm, funny & credible. I thoroughly enjoyed and benefited hugely from her "Food Business Start-up Boot Camp"!

Details
Food Business Start-up Boot Camp, 15-16 September 2012
£295 per person including all refreshments and a delicious local lunch
Venue: wallacespace, 2 Dryden Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9NA

About Monique Borst
Monique is passionate about good food, made and sold with integrity and imagination. She brings a practical, business focused perspective on the niche food sector and start-up knowledge. She has over 20 years experience in the food and retail sectors and worked with companies like Harrods, The John Lewis Partnership, Waitrose and clients including House of Fraser, Blenheim Palace and Knebworth House as well as a number of smaller, independent food retail and food service clients on food strategy, improving sales and profitability, developing products ranges and menus. Monique’s clients are very honest about the fact that the reason they chose to work with her is because they either simply don’t have the time, expertise or confidence as an owner to make the decisions to really drive their businesses forward on their own. Monique is an independently selected member of The Future 500, a network for rising stars across the UK.

Louis Tomlinson Birthday Cake for Eleanor

London cake makers The Cake Store got overloaded with Twitter followers after Louis Tomlinson, from One Direction, ordered a cake for his girlfriend Eleanor Calder, who was 20, yesterday.

He ordered it last week and they delivered it at 12 noon, yesterday, and the happy couple answered the door to their delivery driver.

The amazing Birthday cake was presented to Eleanor, who was reportedly overwhelmed.

Louis Tweeted a big thank you to The Cake Store who have since been inundated with interest.

Swap your burger for a bag of nuts and help save the planet!

The UK is being urged to go nuts for the environment by swapping burgers for bags of nuts on Monday October 22nd to celebrate National Nut Day.

National Nut Day in the UK is promoted by Liberation Foods CIC, the pioneering farmer-owned Fairtrade nut company. October 22nd is well-established as National Nut Day in the USA and the organisers want Britain to ‘go nuts’ in the same way!

This year’s focus is on switching to nuts to help the environment.  If we in the UK eat less meat and highly processed veggie foods – our planet will benefit.. This will keep a lid on greenhouse gasses and won’t use up our valuable land resources.

For people who already eat plenty of meat and dairy products such as most people in rich countries, nuts and ‘nutty’ legumes – like Brazil nuts, cashews, peanuts and walnuts - are a good nutritional alternative to meat says Dr Donal Murphy-Bokern, independent agri-environmental scientist and author of several studies on food system impacts. 

“One of the keys to sustaining our planet is for those of us in the richer half of the world to switch some meat consumption to relatively unprocessed plant-based products such as nuts,” says Dr Murphy-Bokern.

“For every calorie consumed, the greenhouse gas emissions from the production of the meat and dairy component of our diets is nearly four times that of plant-based components. 

“Cattle and sheep release large quantities of methane gas as they digest their feed. And livestock generally require 4 – 8 kg plant protein in their feed for every kilogram of protein produced.  The overall result is that much more resources are used in meat-based diets, and very significant pollution problems are caused to our air and water by livestock farms.”

Dr Murphy-Bokern believes that when we reduce our meat consumption we often tend to replace some of it with other high protein foods such as nuts.

Both meat and nuts have the pleasant savoury taste described by the Japanese as umami – the fifth basic taste after sweet, salty, sour and bitter.

“Just as we seek some sweetness in diets, it is reasonable to speculate that people naturally migrate from one ‘umami’ taste to another, so when cutting down on meat they are likely to transfer to nuts or another umami food,” says Dr Murphy-Bokern. 

“Using plant-based ingredients high in umami is a feature of traditional cuisines which are low in meat.  Reducing meat consumption by half in the average ‘western’ diet is not difficult - and nuts are a high protein and environmentally friendly option.”

National Nut Day celebrates all that is great about eating nuts. As well as being a delicious snack and cooking ingredient, nuts are:

• Highly nutritious – a source of vital fatty acids, omega fats, protein and many vitamins and minerals.
• Good for the environment – switching our main source of protein from meat to nuts whenever we can helps to reduce carbon emissions. In addition the trade in Brazil nuts helps to preserve the Amazon rainforest.
• Good for the soil - legumes such as peanuts bring vital nitrogen to replenish  the soil as they grow.
• Good for our health – the UK Government’s Chief Medical Officer says 18,000 premature deaths from heart disease would be avoided every year if we cut our meat consumption by half. Nuts are a good value form of protein which can help us do this.
• –Available as Fairtrade! UK nut lovers can now buy Fairtrade Brazil nuts, cashews, peanuts, walnuts and almonds in many supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose plus other outlets.. This means the farmers and gatherers are protected by the guaranteed fair deal which comes with Fairtrade.

Visit the UK National Nut Day website for more information about our activities: www.nationalnutday.com.

National Nut Day is supported by The Vegetarian Society, The Vegan Society, Sustain – the alliance for better food and farming, the Sustainable Restaurant Association, and more.

Celebrity supporters include chef, broadcaster and food writer Allegra McEvedy, foodie and home expert Aggie MacKenzie and peanut devotee Harry Hill.

(EDITOR: That's Food and Drink would like to add a word of caution: If you have a medical condition (diabetic, an allergy condition, etc.) it is advisable to seek medical advice before commencing on any dietary change, no matter how well-meaning, as outlined in this article.)

Sainsbury's Increases Price Paid To Dairy Farmers

Sainsbury's is bucking the trend by increasing the price paid to British dairy farmers through the sustainable Cost of Production (COP) model. From 1st July, the standard litre price will rise to 30.56ppl.

Following a majority vote in April, the model is designed to reward Sainsbury's Dairy Development Group (SDDG) farmers for outstanding animal welfare and environmental standards. With the price currently sitting at 30.30ppl, one of the unique elements of the COP is the quarterly review of feed, fuel and fertiliser. This will ensure that the most volatile elements of costs will be reviewed every quarter and the COP milk price changes to reflect these varying costs, in turn ensuring a fair deal for the 324 farmers involved.

Alice Swift, Agriculture technologist at Sainsbury's said: "While input costs continue to be so volatile for farmers, we're pleased to show that the model is delivering a fair price for everyone whilst most importantly being sustainable for the whole supply chain.

The COP model was developed to be transparent and robust for our farmers however this is also good news for customers who want Sainsbury's to do the right thing on their behalf."

Mansel Raymond, NFU Dairy Board Chairman continues: "Farm gate costs of production are currently over 30ppl, and rising. With this in mind I'd like to congratulate Sainsbury's, whose cost of production model, which reflects feed, fuel and fertiliser inflation, will be awarding a price increase to farmers from 1st July.

"Dairy farmers need a sustainable future; further price cuts will jeopardise this and be met with real anger."

The first quarterly review uses data from Dairy Co Datum which will affect the Sainsbury's milk price from 1st July 2012. The model was developed with independent consultants to suit all Sainsbury's farm types and sizes and ensure their sustainability and profitability in the long term.

FACTFILE:

Sainsbury's 20 by 20 Sustainability Plan

• By 2020, Sainsbury's will source all key raw materials and commodities sustainably to an independent standard. The plan also includes doubling our British sales, being number 1 for animal welfare and putting all waste to positive use.
• Sainsbury's has supported British farming for 140 years and we continue to work collaboratively for the best solutions on price, animal welfare and carbon efficiencies. This year marks the 5th anniversary of Sainsbury's Dairy Development Group. Sainsbury's now also has farmer Development Groups across Pork, Beef, Lamb, Cheese and Wheat
• The model is implemented across farmers of Wales, England, Scotland.