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Countryside-based food producers are declared winners at Rural Business Awards

Two farm shops and a third generation fruit grower have been declared the British countryside’s best food and drink producers.

It happened at Thursday at the Rural Business Awards, which is the UK’s only dedicated national business awards for the rural community, operated in partnership with the CLA and actively supported by the countryside sector as well as MPs across the UK.

The Rural Business Awards are sponsored by Janine Edwards Wealth Management Ltd, Principal Partner Practice of St. James’s Place Wealth Management.

At a glittering ceremony held at The Belfry Hotel & Resort in the Midlands on October 13, Yorkshire's Keelham Farm Shop was named the awards’ Best Food & Drink Business in the UK. With a winner, runner-up and highly commended in each sector of the awards, Starkey’s Fruit in Nottinghamshire came second with runner-up, while Gloucestershire's Jolly Nice farm shop came third with a  very well-deserved Highly Commended.

Keelham Farm Shop is a family business that sells and celebrates great tasting food. Based in Skipton, Yorkshire, it supports local producers and farmers and makes a difference to the local community by providing jobs and supporting community work.

The shop runs an innovative Veg Exchange Scheme and a weekly shopper-hopper which picks people up from local communities, giving people without their own transport access to fresh, affordable food.

A delighted James Robertshaw, who is the co-owner of Keelham Farm Shop, said: "The whole Keelham team are thrilled that we’ve won such a fantastic award which understands and celebrates rural businesses like ours.

"It’s the relationships we’ve built up with over 400 local farmers and producers over three generations of Robertshaws, that allow us to deliver affordable fresh food to around 19,000 customers a week.

"Yorkshire is a county of riches when it comes to farming and land-based business, and it’s really exciting that together we are helping to put Yorkshire on the national foodie map."

At Nottinghamshire's Norwood Park, three generations of the Starkey family have been growing fruit since 1910.

Today the farm is a major fruit grower, producing some 400 tons of strawberries and 50 tons of blackberries this year.

The farm, which is resplendent with many ancient oak trees and apple orchards, is home to several species of native birds,such as woodpeckers, nuthatch, owls and goldfinch.

There are also a range of different butterflies, too.

And the family is not content to rest on its laurels. For it has introduced an innovative new drinking pouch which comes complete with  a built-in straw.

It is aimed at bringing the farm’s Bramley apple juice to a whole new market of school children.

Suzannah Starkey said, after receiving her two awards for Starkey’s Fruit, “I’m totally thrilled. I think it’s the most brilliant scheme to support rural businesses. With our pouches we are trying something that didn’t exist before, we’ve taken it on and it’s massively exciting – and now we’ve been recognised for that and we’re chuffed to bits!”

Jolly Nice is a family run, sustainable local farm shop and take away café in rural Gloucestershire, using local suppliers and fast gaining a reputation for Harriet’s Jolly Nice ice cream.

The family has been farming the land since 1928 when Harriet’s great-grandfather started milking Shorthorn cows there.

Jolly Nice chefs Sarah Parker and Emily Forster collected their awards on behalf of owners Simon and Rebecca Wilson, who they said were “thrilled” to get the recognition in both categories of the awards.

Sarah said: “The business started from a tiny, tiny company – Rebecca’s daughter with her ice cream – and it’s grown. We’re really happy that the business is getting to be recognised because it has grown from nothing.”

Rural Business Awards co-founder Jemma Clifford said: “Our food and drink category is a very important one in our awards, as here we can often see how rural businesses have the opportunity to excel over their urban neighbours by using the rich produce available on their doorstep. In this category we were looking for food businesses which were using local, fresh ingredients and turning that into successful enterprises which celebrated the rural way of life.

“Our entries certainly didn’t disappoint. Our winner, Keelham Farm Shop in Yorkshire, simply ticked every box. This was a wonderfully strong candidate which both supported local food producers and offered some really innovative, practical solutions to help local people access fresh locally grown food.

“When we saw the work of Starkey’s Fruit in Nottinghamshire, we loved the way the business’s new juice pouch was delivering authentic Bramley juice to a wide market. We found it quite simply an elegant piece of eco-innovation, which simply and impressively delivered a sustainable business promise. Starkey’s is a very well established and well-known brand which is still growing English fruit and delivering it to the marketplace.

“And our highly commended firm, Jolly Nice is a first rate rural business and a fantastic start-up. Jolly Nice has a very high positive impact on the local community, one of our key judging criteria, and we felt the quality of the home-grown food, not to mention Harriet’s Jolly Nice ice cream, made it a very worthy highly commended.”

Aimed at organisations based in the countryside, the Rural Business Awards recognise excellence in a range of different business categories, from innovation through to employment. Now in their second year, the awards were the brainchild of Leicestershire businesswomen Anna Price and Jemma Clifford, who believe that rural enterprises are often overlooked by other business prize-giving schemes based in urban areas. The award scheme has been praised by MPs including Nicky Morgan and Andrew Bridgen, both of whom have lent their support to the successful initiative.

CLA Director General Helen Woolley said: “I am delighted to have been a part of the judging panel and to see first-hand the passion for rural business demonstrated by all the finalists. There were some outstanding entries and my congratulations go to all the winners, every award is truly deserved.”

Rural Business Awards sponsor, Janine Edwards of Janine Edwards Wealth Management, Principal Partner of St James’s Place Wealth Management says: "The Rural Business Awards has seen a number of commendable and outstanding finalists. It has been a pleasure for my team and I to be involved in the whole process, and we are delighted to see that each and every winner has achieved the recognition they deserve. It is a huge accomplishment for all of the finalists to be involved in such a high-profile event and I’d like to congratulate them all on their success now and in the future!”

Entries for the 2017 Rural Business Awards open on November 1 – so any rural business that feels they deserve recognition for their achievements is strongly advised to get in touch! For more information visit: www.ruralbusinessawards.co.uk. Find out more via social media on:
T: @RuralRBAs
F: The Rural Business Awards

Keep up with the Twitter chatter and use #RBAs.
The full category list:
1.      Best Rural Start-up
2.      Outstanding Rural Diversification Project
3.      Best Rural Apparel Business
4.      Rural Innovation of the year
5.      Best Rural Manufacturing Business
6.      Best Rural Professional Services Business
7.      Best Rural Creative or media based business
8.      Social enterprise / community project of the year
9.      Best Rural Tourism Business
10.  Best Rural Sporting Business
11.  Rural Employer of the year
12.  Rural Entrepreneur of the year
13.  Best Food & Drink Business

That's Food and Drink would like to offer its hearty congratulations to all the winners.

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Laytons Champagne Brut Reserve

Laytons Champagne Brut Reserve is a very, very special Champagne indeed.

Just because a Champagne is called "Reserve" does not, always, mean that it is worthy of that title.

But in the case of Laytons Champagne Brut Reserve, this Champagne is really extremely worthy of that title.

There are some Brut Champagnes that have a very low sugar content, hence they are called dry or Brut. Sadly the only thing that can be said about them is that they have no sweetness in them.

As a result they are more of a chore than a pleasure to drink. At least to my taste.

However, this is most certainly and definitely not the case with Laytons Champagne Brut Reserve.

Yes, it is obviously a Brut Champagne, there is no sweetness, yet there are a complex range of differing flavours.

When one takes one's first sip of Laytons Champagne Brut Reserve there is a hint of apple blossom and apple juice, with a delicious note of the freshest of fresh white grape juices.

It's an extremely lively and very effervescent Champagne that bubbles and fizzes very nicely in the Champagne flute, the bubbles dance and caress the mouth in a most delightful way.

The That's Food and Drink Taste Team do not care what you might have heard previously or might have been led to believe about other Brut Champagnes being the best in class, but in truth
Laytons Champagne Brut Reserve is one of the better, if not the best, Champagnes of its type.

It's not as expensive as some, but always guaranteed to be smoother and nicer of taste.

A magnum costs  about £45, 75cl bottles about half that.

http://www.laytons.co.uk/content/nv-laytons-brut-reserve-1

That's Food and Drink Wine Festival

As part of the That's Food and Drink Summer Wine Festival we are reviewing two very good wines today.

They are both very different from each other, but both are very eminently drinkable.

The first is a sparkling Italian wine, Bortolin Angelo Valdobbiadene, Prosecco Superiore D.O.C.G.

It is a 2015 vintage and is described as "Extra Dry."

However, I have to say that this wine did not "drink" as an extra dry wine.

There was, to my taste, a sort of underlying sweetness that gave me hints of the fruits of the summer, with the taste of the grapes perfectly balanced.

This wine is a perfect representation of the Prosecco type of wine and it is, very much, a "superiore" representation of this wine.

It is recommended to drink it whilst it is still young, so it is best not to be laid down in a wine cellar or a winestore for any great length of time.

It is best served at roughly 8 to 10 degrees centigrade, that's about 46 degrees Fahrenheit.

It is suggested that it is kept in the refrigerator for a minimum of time and that previously it should be stored in a cool, dark place. 

The second wine tasted was a fine example of the craft and skill represented by the Australian wine makers.

It is the '15 wine, labelled as apo|stro|phe stone's throw.

It is described as a Riesling/Gewürztraminer wine/blanc wine, great southern '15.

What to say about this wine?

I love the cool, crisp Riesling style of wine making, but it must be said that this '15 Riesling (with the addition of the  Gewürztraminer grape) actually, to my mind at any rate, takes this style of wine to (I hate to use this term, but I feel that this is one rare occasion that it is genuinely justified) another, higher, level.

It is a simple and highly effective wine. There is the beautiful simple -yet, paradoxically, complex- taste of the Riesling grape and the  Gewürztraminer grape, yet there's the extra oomph added by the nurturing and warming Australian summer sunshine.

Ideal with snack foods, light snacks, main meals, deserts or just chilling in a wine cooler on the patio, this Larry Cherubino Wine is imported into the UK by Halgarten Druitt.

To learn more visit http://www.apostrophewine.com.au. 

 

Glorious! Soups!

Yes, soup, Glorious! soup comes from the foodies who run Glorious! Explorer.

They take your tastebuds through a wonderful tour of the whole wide world!

You will find yourself travelling over the Atlantic to visit the Eastern seaboard of America to enjoy a very delicious New England Butternut Squash soup.

Next stop, the Indian Ocean where we visit the tiny island paradise of Goa, where you will thrill to a tasty and pleasingly spiced Goan Tomato and Lentil soup.

Next you will come back to something a little closer to home, a perfectly delightful Spanish Chicken Paella soup, which is new to the range.

Now, let's go back over the Atlantic to visit the South Eastern USA, to taste a bowl of Texan Four Bean Chilli soup. Mmm! Absolutely delicious!

Now we travel back around the world to the Indian subcontinent where we will try some Mumbai Lentil and Chickpea. Another culinary tour de force in a soup bowl!

Still in Asia we visit the country of Singapore to sample some Singapore Crushed Tomato, then just a short distance away we find ourselves indulging in the luxurious flavours of Fragrant Thai Carrot soup. I must admit that I had no idea how wonderfully tasty you could make a carrot! Now, I do.

And you'll absolutely adore your visit to Vietnam for the Vietnamese Supergreen soup!

Then the final leg of our journey takes us over to West Africa, where we will find some delicious and highly evocative West African Chicken Soup.

The recipe for each of the soups in the range has been carefully created by expert chefs who know more than a thing or two about how to craft a perfect bowl of soup!

Each recipe is exquisite in texture, appearance and, most importantly, in taste. And each soup tastes completely unlike the other soups in the range, so there is definitely something for everyone in the range.

And they are "skinnylicious" too and ideal for people who cannot tolerate gluten. So, serve up with some gluten free crackers or gluten free rolls or fresh sliced bread and it's a feast for everyone!

And they are as good as homemade, too. And at under £1,40 in leading supermarkets, you really will have something to write home about... from  Spain, Texas, New England, Goa, India, Singapore, Vietnam or West Africa.

However, there are other soups in the range, so do stop by at www.gloriousfoods.co.uk to learn more.