Farmers united

The walls of Bob Kennard’s office at Graig Farm Organics tell a story: on one a map of Wales is studded with different-coloured pins, representing the farmers in the Graig Farm Producer Group; on the other is a gallery of photographs from the time Kennard and his wife Carolyn spent in Africa working with small-scale sugar farmers. When they returned to Britain in 1988, they were shocked at the rise of intensive farming and the blandness of much of the meat for sale, so they began farming chickens organically at Graig Farm.



Over the years, people began asking for organic beef, lamb and pork, so they started looking for like-minded local farmers to help raise the animals. Now, nearly 20 years on, the Graig Farm Producer Group consists of more than 200 farms in Wales and the Borders, and in addition the Kennards offer a cornucopia of foods gathered in from local artisan producers.

The farm, at the end of a leafy lane in the Welsh hills near Llandrindod Wells, with its old barns and chickens pottering in the yard seems sleepy, but in the buildings behind, a team of butchers led by Mark Stephens are immaculately trimming ribs of beef and whole hams. In a separate room, handmade cakes, puddings, smoked fish, preserves and cheeses are being packed into boxes.

“Producer groups have to be the way forward,” says Kennard. “As the interest in good food has grown, a huge number of people have gone into direct selling, but it’s not that easy. People say to me, ‘I hadn’t realised the costs of just getting a parcel out to someone.’ For a small producer who just makes one thing, it can be a big headache, and from the customer’s point of view they might want to buy a cheese from an artisan maker, but the cost of postage and packing makes it too expensive. Whereas if they can buy a little bit of cheese, a little bit of smoked salmon, a rib of beef and a cake, it makes more sense.”

The criteria for everything they sell from Graig Farm are that it should be as local as possible and it must be the best quality. “Even though we have a lot of people working with us now, we try to keep things as intimate and local as we can,” says Kennard. “We want everyone to feel a sense of belonging, that they are involved in telling people the story of how their food is produced.”

A leading mover and shaker within the Soil Association, Kennard led the campaign to save local abattoirs, the lifeblood of local farming, from closure in the face of centralised plants, and rates traceability and animal welfare as top priorities. All Graig Farm meat is labelled with the name of the farm it comes from and the breed of the animal.

For Christmas there are geese (free-range and additive-free, but not organic) from Madgett’s Farm in Chepstow, and turkeys from the Mee family at Springfield Farm. Former dairy farmer Rodney Mee began farming turkeys at Springfield farm back in 1960 when his wife was given half a dozen as a present at Christmas. Now they have around 6,500, bronze and white, which potter around 35 acres, grazing on grass and feeding on grain which, being certified by the Soil Association, contains no growth promoters, antibiotics or “nasties”, growing slowly to 20-22 weeks. For the rest of the year the Mee family rear chickens, which are allowed to grow to 12 weeks, double the average age of an intensely farmed chicken. “I don’t understand people who say, ‘I can get a turkey cheaper in the supermarket,’” says Mee. “They don’t buy the cheapest thing when it comes to choosing a car. The trouble is people have got so used to the bland taste and dry texture of mass-produced chicken and turkey, they have forgotten how good they can be.”

New for Christmas this year is mutton ham (the Kennards are huge supporters of the British mutton revival), and there are award-winning dishes made by local cook Lavinia Vaughan in small batches in her farmhouse kitchen: tagine of beef with prunes, lamb cooked slowly with apricots, coriander, cumin, chilli and ginger, even roast turkey with stuffing and gravy.

Michael and Debbie Leviseur, who swapped London life for the Shropshire countryside, “very gently” oak-smoke award-winning salmon, Halen Mon sea salt, Welsh butter and cheddar at the Organic Smokehouse in Shropshire. They supply leading restaurants and shops as well as Graig Farm. “Smoking was always a hobby; I went to school in Ludlow and this region has such a reputation for food that it seemed the right place to start up a smokehouse,” says Michael. “Bob and Carolyn were our third customers and it’s great to link up with so many like-minded people who just want to do things the right way; it’s like an extended family.”

Graham Lambert of Organics by Order, resplendent in hat and flowing beard, supplies vegetables; the Authentic Bread Company in Newent, Gloucestershire, make old-fashioned puddings laced with cider, stout and cognac; fruit cakes decorated with nuts; mince meat and mince pies. Cranberry sauce and brandy butter, marmalades and preserves are made by Barbara and Robin Moinet of Kitchen Garden Preserves in Stroud in the way Barbara began making them from her own kitchen 17 years ago. And at Caws Cenarth, in Boncath, Dyfed, Thelma and Gwynfor Adams, who have spearheaded the revival of Welsh Farmhouse Caerffili, make a range of cheeses by hand using 100-year-old cast-iron presses, which include miniature Caerffili with Christmas pudding waxed coatings, soft blue Perl Las, and the Brie-like Perl Wen. “Small producers have let the supermarkets make profits on the back of them for too long,” says Thelma.

“More farmers should get together like this, because what customers want more and more is contact with the people making their food. Carolyn and Bob are doing a great thing, because it frees people like us, who never have time to update websites, to get on with farming, or making cheese.”

Graig Farm Organics, 01597 851655; www.graigfarm.co.uk

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Forman & Field

The tasting room at Forman & Field smells of cloves and cinnamon and rich warm fruit. “Just like my own house on Christmas Day,” says resident Roux-trained chef Lloyd Hardwick. Laid out on the table is a feast of goodies from potted lobster to three-bird roast, ham glazed with damson, grapefruit and mustard, mince pies and puddings; a heady mix of foods from farms and producers whose names will be in every food lover’s address book, and recipes prepared by Hardwick and his team in the kitchens in East London.

H. Forman & Son has been smoking salmon here since the late 19th century, when Jewish immigrants introduced the skill. “Originally they smoked Baltic fish, then they discovered Scottish salmon,” says Lance Forman. “The Scots had their own history of smoking haddock and herrings, but when they saw salmon being smoked in London they started doing it too, and two types of cure grew up. Ours, which we now call the London Cure, is very mild, with just a touch of salt and smoke, so that you enhance the flavour of the fish without obscuring it. The Scottish cure, on the other hand, is often more robust, sometimes peaty, often using whisky.”

For a hundred years Forman’s supplied some of the finest restaurants in the UK, then in 2002 they took over the struggling mail-order food company Marchents, which had tried to bring together some of the finest food in Britain, endorsed by food lovers’ champion, Henrietta Green. So Forman & Field was born, expanding and developing to take in more and more producers who shared the Forman values, and open up a whole new world of food to their customers.

The seductive list of foods on offer includes the famous Kelly Bronze turkeys; porchetta (boned, rolled young pig) from Pugh’s Piglets of Garstang in Lancashire; venison from the Denham Estate. There are hams and bacon from George and Amanda Streatfeild of Denhay Farm in Dorset, Christmas pies from another ex-Roux chef, Stuart Oetzman, made with rare-breed pork, and handmade cider and apple and orange and Cointreau puddings from George Hollywood of Georgie Porgie’s puddings in Devon, to complement Lloyd Hardwick’s own luscious, matured Christmas puddings. There are sumptuous cakes from Mrs Gill and former chef Michael Nadell, fruit liqueurs from Bramley and Gage, plus jellies from Victoria Cranfield – “a lawyer who got fed up with the fast world, and wanted to do something simple and natural”, biscuits from Popina and chocolates from Gerard Coleman of L’Artisan du Chocolat.

“These are all people who don’t think the be all and end all is supplying supermarkets, and whose produce is natural and pure, with no additives or preservatives,” says Mike Stainthorpe of Forman & Field. “This chutney is made by a lady in London, Susan Wheeler, who won a competition we had for people to send in preserves,” he says, picking up a jar. “She makes it with whole apricots, cinnamon, spices – it’s a real gourmet, rustic chutney. And this one is Kit’s runner-bean chutney made in small batches with just runner beans, onions, vinegar, sugar, cornflour and spices. We are constantly looking for new people who are making wonderful things but not necessarily marketing themselves.

“Some people have their own websites and sell directly to customers or to shops as well; others, like Pugh’s, tried it, but really they are just interested in producing good food and they want to get on with that. Then there are people like Claire Symington at Seldom Seen Farm, who are happy to take orders for her geese over the phone at the farm, but at a certain point, she can’t do it any more, because she has to get on with the plucking. Mail order is a tricky thing: you have to transport a mix of food safely, keep it cold, track orders and make sure that when the food is delivered it looks like a real treat, so people have a real sense of occasion when it arrives – and small producers are very happy to hand over all that to us.”

Forman & Field, 020-8221 3939; www.formanandfield.com

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Caledonian Connoisseur

In September, Gillian Bell celebrated two years of Caledonian Connoisseur, known colloquially by its web-name of Caleyco, based in Kelso and dedicated to sourcing foods from more than 100 farmers, fishermen, cooks, smokehouses, cheesemakers and artisan producers around Scotland. It all started when she was offered a job cooking aboard a yacht taking part in the Classic Malts Cruise. “The trip was the magical spark that changed my life,” she says. “It was truly inspirational. We sailed to the distilleries in the Western Isles, and I had to cook three meals a day for the guests, including whisky and travel writers. Being back in Scotland and having such wonderful, simple local ingredients to work with reignited my love affair with Scotland. I cooked with wild venison, local lamb and beef, live langoustines, bought straight from fishermen and delivered to the boat in a sheep feed bag, which I steamed with three different malts, and found wonderful Scottish cheeses.” The experience sowed the seeds for Caleyco.
When travelling in New Zealand she’d been impressed by the way small food companies and producers often worked closely in co-operatives, sharing skills, supporting and leaning on each other with benefits for everyone. “I thought we could set up something similar, which would give a market to everyone from local cooks making cakes to Ramsays of Carluke, who have built up a reputation for their bacon, hams, black puddings and haggis. We have some of the finest produce in the world in Scotland, the kind of food you won’t find in the supermarkets, but most of it was going abroad, and the rest was overpriced, underappreciated and undermarketed.” So Caleyco was born.

You can order everything from Legarth cross geese, which roam free at Alemill Farm near Eyemouth on the South East coast, to pheasant and partridge, wild boar, suckling pig, venison in myriad ways from the Fletchers of Reedihill Farm in Auchtermuchty, and award-winning handmade pies from Simple Simon’s Pie Factory in Biggar, including Christmas specials such as venison marinated in olive oil, red wine, juniper, orange and herbs, with heather honey and port. There is fruit cake with ginger, made by local cook, Liz Taylor. “The cakes are gluten-free, and the flavours are out of this world,” says Bell. Most of the beef, pork and lamb comes from butcher Billy Glendinning of C. A. Alexander & Son of Lanark, who specialises in the Aberdeen Angus beef that Bell grew up eating. Other local butchers and farmers supply rare-breed Highland, Belted Galloway, Shorthorn and Luing beef, and rose veal. All Glendinning’s beef comes from farms in the upper Clyde Valley, is hung for a minimum of 21 days, and is “fully traceable from farm to plate”, he says. He also offers venison and wild boar, Hebridean Black lamb, hung for around 10-14 days, from a smallholding on the Isle of Lewis, where the old-fashioned breed of sheep are allowed to roam around eating seaweed (“they say the meat has natural Omega-3 in it”), producing “distinctive meat, with a real lamb flavour”.

Fish is sourced directly from day boats by former chef and hotelier-turned fisherman Willie Little, who started his fish business, Ocean Traders in protest at the best local fish heading abroad, and now supplies Scotland’s finest chefs, from Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles, to Nick Nairn and Martin Wishart in Edinburgh. Farmhouse cheeses include Isle of Mull cheddar and award-winning Lanark Blue sheep’s cheese made by Humphrey Errington, along with cows’ milk Dunsyre Blue, a couple of semi-hard traditional white cheeses, and an old Scottish alcoholic drink, Fallachan (“lost treasure” in Gaelic), made with whey.

“There is a big demand out there for good food, but often a lack of opportunity for many people to buy it, which is why operations like Gillian’s are so important,” says Errington. “Many small producers like myself are rather Neanderthal when it comes to web-based sales. It goes with an artisan image; so it is wonderful for someone else to do it for us.”

Caledonian Connoisseur, 01573 227310; www.caleyco.com

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Try also

Heal Farm, Umberleigh, Devon (01769 574341; www.healfarm.co.uk). Everything for a feast, produced by Anne Petch’s family and team with the help of farming friends, from turkeys and geese, ham, sausages and stuffings, to casseroles, puddings and cakes made in their own kitchens.

Pipers Farm, Cullompton, Devon (01392 881380; www.pipersfarm.com). Peter and Henrietta Greig are pioneers of the idea of small farmers working together under one umbrella, and masters of online sales and deliveries of their immaculate meat, from turkey to venison, cooked spiced beef and ready dishes. Their new-look online shop offers a special launch pack of 56 portions of different meats.

Daylesford Organic, Kingham, Gloucestershire (0800 0831233; www.daylesfordorganic.com ). Fresh, seasonal and local goodies from turkey, meat (including venison) and smoked salmon to handmade cheeses, cakes, puddings and chocolate.

Brown Cow Organics, Shepton Mallet, Somerset (01749 890298; www.browncoworganics.co.uk). Norfolk Turkeys, geese, pheasant from the farm shoot, beef, festive sausages, homemade stuffing, bread sauce and cranberry sauce; vegetables, brandy clotted cream and sumptuous River Cottage yoghurt to pour over cakes and puddings.

The Well Hung Meat Company, Buckfastleigh, Devon (0845 2303131; www.wellhungmeat.com). Organic bronze turkeys, geese and ducks reared on local farms; gammon, boxes of chipolatas, stuffing, bacon, Rod & Bens fruit and vegetables and Godminster cheddar.

The Real Meat Company, Warminster, Wiltshire (0845 7626017; www.realmeat.co.uk). Range of ethically produced, tasty meat and poultry, sausages, prepared meals, etc, produced under the eagle eyes of farmers and campaigners Richard Guy and Gilly Metherell.

Donald Russell, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire (01467 629666; www.donaldrussell.com). Famous for supplying chefs with glorious produce, from Scottish seafood to wild game, meat and poultry.

Just poultry

Peele’s of Rookery Farm, Thuxton, Norfolk (01362 850237). Norfolk black turkeys reared slowly by James Graham with no medication or growth hormones.

Goodman’s Geese, Great Witley, Worcestershire (01299 896272; www.goodmansgeese.co.uk). Judy Goodman has 24 years’ experience rearing free-range geese. Also bronze turkeys.

Higher Fingle Farm, Crickernwell, Devon (01647 281281; www.exmoor-organic.co.uk). Rona and Nevil Amiss rear slowly grown organic geese, turkeys, chicken and duck

Just Seafood

Fowey Fish, Fowey, Cornwall (01726 832422; www.seafoodsdirect.co.uk). Family-run business supplying fresh fish from local boats – oysters, crab, mussels and scallops.

Loch Fyne, Cairndow, Argyll (01499 600264; www.lochfyne.com).
Famous for oysters, mussels, langoustines and scallops from the Loch, plus Freedom Foods-accredited salmon from Loch Duart and organic salmon from the Outer Hebrides.

Andy Race Fish Merchants, Maillaig, Inverness-shire (01687 462626; www.andyrace.co.uk). Scrupulously sourced local mussels, oysters, scallops, peat-smoked salmon, undyed kippers and fish from small boats

Just cheese

La Fromagerie, Moxon Street, London W1 (020 7935 0341; www.lafromagerie.co.uk). Specialises in French, Italian and the best British artisan and farmhouse British cheeses.

Neals Yard Dairy (020 7500 7653; www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk)
Glorious cheddars and stiltons matured in their own cellars.

The Fine Cheese Co., Bath, 01225 473257; www.finecheese.co.uk)

Just chocolate

Melt Chocolates, London W11 (020-7727 5030; www.meltchocolates.com). Fresh, light truffles, all made on site.

Chococo, Swanage, Dorset (01929 421777; www.chococo.co.uk). Features local ingredients including Mrs Pook’s lemon curd.

The Chocolate Society (0845 2308899; www.chocolate.co.uk).
The ultimate in grand cru and single estate chocolate