Butchers bringing home the bacon! - 24/02/2010
The 2009/10 BPEX Butcher Roadshow came to the Three Counties Show Ground in Malvern on the 24th of February attracting 44 butchers from the Midlands to enter 241 products in 12 categories for the judges to scrutinise. The Food Centre won a total of 6 awards including 2 golds, 3 silvers and we won category champion in the black pudding contest. The Food Centre makes all its pork products using rare breed Gloucester Old Spot pork that is reared on our own estate. The pedigree of the meat and the skill involved in preparing the products were acknowledged by the judges who appreciated the superior taste of the award winning bacon, sausages and black pudding. There were gold awards for the black pudding and Traditional Sausages whilst the Centre’s bacon and beef sausages picked up silver awards.
John Brereton, head butcher at the Food Centre said,
“We are over the moon...it’s great to know that the products you are selling are of the highest standard and that the customers are getting the best quality product available locally... These are long established recipes that we have tweaked along the way to get what we think and hope is the best product and the results this year have helped confirm this”
We employ 9 butchers who all contributed to the products on offer and were all overjoyed with the success at this year’s BPEX Road Show. Some of the butchers started at the Food Centre as apprentices such as Andrew Brassington (19) who has been at the Centre for more than 2 years and won a silver award.
Andrews says,
“The Food Centre has given me the training and support to become a fully trained butcher and for that I am really grateful...entering competitions and winning awards is more than I expected after having been in the trade for just two years”
World Marmalade Champions - 14/02/2010
The World Marmalade Festival, held for the fourth year, on February 14, at Dalemain Mansion and Historic Gardens near Penrith, attracted over 800 entries for its marmalade competition, including 110 entries in the Artisan category. The Ludlow Food Centre consolidated its 2009 double gold win by winning a gold award in the Artisan category with its Hand Cut Seville Orange Marmalade. The Centre was also awarded a silver award for the more traditional ‘Lady Windsor’s Marmalade’ that is based on a historic family recipe.
Over 1500 people attended the festival which raises money for ‘Hospice At Home’ and ‘Help For Heroes’ with money from both the competition and the admissions going to help the charities. Among the sponsors for the event was Fortnum & Mason who will be stocking the winning entries, including the Food Centre’s Hand Cut variety, in their prestigious shop in London’s Piccadilly.
Darren Marsh, Tess Slater and Pam Greenham make up the award winning team at the Food Centre who were extremely happy to win at the festival for the second year running. Darren says,
‘It is such an honour to win two years running and even better that our first opportunity to sell our marmalade outside of the Food Centre is going to be at Fortnum & Mason’
The Food Centre’s winning marmalade will be unveiled, and available to taste, in London on March 8th at a special Marmalade Breakfast to be held in the Gallery Restaurant at Fortnum & Mason.
Ludlow Food Centre joins the Twitter race - 11/02/2010
Its true! We are officially on Twitter. It may have taken a while for us to join but we already have some followers and would love some more. So if you want to keep up with the latest offers, events and news from Ludlow Food Centre click the link on our homepage or go to twitter.com to become a follower. Look forward to tweeting with you soon!
Charity Support - 11/02/2010
Ludlow Food Centre have chosen to support the Air Ambulance as our charity of the year. As a rural business we see and read about all the fantastic work the Air Ambulance do and when we asked our staff to vote for their charity it was no surprise that the Air Ambulance came out on top. We will be holding a fundraising event with the Air Ambulance later this year but in the meantime we would like to ask any visitors to our website to follow this link to see how they can help www.countyairambulancetrust.co.uk. The main focus of fundraising activity will be to support the HELP (Helicopter Emergency Landing Pads) campaign which is being run to develop a network of helipads around the region that can be used for secure landings. This campaign was launched in 2008 and the first new Helipad was opened at Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital in October 2009 but needs continued support if further pads are going to be built.
FARMA Conference 2010 - 25/01/2010
On January 25th the Ludlow Food Centre received visitors from all over the UK as part of a tour of the region’s best food producers. The visit, which was organised by FARMA (National Farmers’ Retail & Markets Association), saw 60 delegates visit the Food Centre, most of which owned or ran farm shops in other parts of the UK. The visit preceded the ‘Farm & More’ Conference which was held at the Telford International Centre where over 120 businesses exhibited to over 600 delegates. All the delegates were treated to a proper full breakfast as part of ‘National Farmhouse Breakfast Week’ which included the Food Centre’s Gloucester Old Spot Sausages, bacon, black pudding and even white pudding.
The Food Centre was chosen as an example of best practice and a leader in its field by FARMA organisers Gareth Jones and Rita Exner. The main point of interest was the Centre’s 8 production kitchens that make everything from cheese and bread to jam, and even readymade meals. Guests were impressed with the size of the Centre saying it was ‘ a great achievement’ to have built such a varied local food establishment.’
Farmhouse Breakfast Week 24th-30th January 2010 - 24/01/2010
In Britain we love a fry up and to celebrate this quintessential British meal Ludlow Food Centre will be helping you to pick up the best possible ingredients. You will find award winning sausages, bacon, black pudding and freshly baked bread not to mention our very own take on the classic tomato ketchup made by Darren and Tess in our jam and pickle kitchen. If you love a proper breakfast we hope you will come and get quality, locally sourced and produced ingredients to make it special.