May 09 - Meet The Eggheads | Taste Magazine from Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and Humber

Meet the eggheads – quality and efficiency the Chippindale way, Global leads – news from a busy IFE and keep it in the family – The secret of Booths’ success

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Foreword by Judy Bell, Chief Executive, Shepherds Purse Cheeses Ltd

To maintain our rural food economy in Yorkshire and the UK, we must support the raw food industry. As raw foods include milk, cereals, beef, pork and chicken, they serve as a product in themselves and most of the country will eat meat and drink milk every day. However, these raw foods also serve to fuel the regional food industry. Local producers like ourselves strive to create the very best cheese and ice cream, bread and cakes, beers
and wines, but to create this quality produce we are reliant on quality raw materials. That we get these raw materials locally matters.

The challenges we have all faced are many – none less important than the fluctuations in price that have filtered through the markets at varying rates over the past three years. Following the increased cereal and fertiliser price in 2007-08, we witnessed the milk price slow to catch up. Many farming families were pushed out of the industry as it became almost impossible to make ends meet. For those that managed to survive they eventually saw their margin return. For producers like ourselves it took at least six months for the majorm multiples to react to the market and increase the prices to the end consumer. For the small producer or farmer, these delays are very difficult to ride out. We must respond faster.

Alternative uses for our raw foods will also threaten our local food industry. For example, as demand rises for wheat for the production of biofuel, our bakery industry must forge links with quality growers to secure a consistent supply and preserve their industry. We must value our local quality produce.

The answer to these challenges can only be found in a more responsive community that has a shared vision to create the very best produce made from quality raw foods and continue to innovate year on year. A more responsive community can only come through shared knowledge and understanding. There are challenges ahead for the food industry in the region and we need to build good working relationships with our suppliers, with our customers and with each other. By listening and understanding we will be able to react to every challenge and take advantage of every opportunity.

We are fortunate in Yorkshire to live and work in such a great county. The recent launch of a new tourism initiative, Welcome to Yorkshire, encompasses the quality and diversity of food production in this beautiful, diverse county and highlights the tremendous talent we have in the region’s eating establishments. This is building upon the work of the Regional Food Group over the past eight years, which encouraged hotels, restaurants, B&Bs and pubs in the county and beyond to use local seasonal products. This has opened up a local market for all businesses large and small. Visitors to the region seek out the products and request details of availability in other regions when they return home. We must seize the opportunities that are presented by this initiative.

In a world where we are trying to consume less, what we consume matters more. Quality is more important than quantity and quality resides in regional produce.

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