News

The Bromfield Priory, the latest Shropshire cheese by the Ludlow Food Centre, has been awarded a medal in the hotly contested British Cheese Awards, considered the ‘Oscars’ of the UK cheese industry.

Produced in the style of a Cheshire or Wensleydale, the white, crumbly-textured cheese is the creation of cheesemaker Dudley Martin who can be seen working in the glass-fronted, in-store dairy most days. It is made using locally sourced whole milk, before being matured for 10-12 weeks for a mild, mellow flavour. Since its release the Bromfield Priory has become one of the Food Centre’s best selling hard cheeses and Dudley has had to step up production in order to meet demand.

Delighted at the news of his medal win Dudley says, ‘The British Cheese Awards is a major event in any cheesemaker’s calendar and this year there were 910 entries submitted by 183 different companies of all sizes, so for the Bromfield Priory to be recognised against such stiff competition is absolutely fantastic.’

To make the grade, each entry was blind tested by an expert panel of judges led by Blur Bassist and cheese enthusiast Alex James, Prue Leith, Sophie Grigson and head buyers from Waitrose, M & S and Sainsbury’s, among others. Juliet Harbutt, Chairman of the British Cheese Awards, says, ‘What the awards reveal is the quality, depth and quantity of the amazing cheeses being produced in this country. We are now challenging chefs, retailers and consumers to think British.’

Dudley will find out whether his medal is gold, silver or bronze and if the Bromfield Priory has been voted an overall category winner at the prestigious awards dinner in Cardiff on 26th September, which is followed by The Great British Cheese Festival, 27th – 28th September, at Cardiff Castle.

There was a party atmosphere this Friday 18th and Saturday 19th April at the Ludlow Food Centre, Bromfield, as we celebrated a hugely successful first year in business.

Visitors to the store over the weekend were treated to a host of free samples and a chance to meet the Centre’s own butcher, baker, cheese and jam makers who normally work behind the shop’s eight plate glass windows producing quality fresh foods each day.

Cheese connoisseurs were invited to make a beeline for dairy man Dudley Martin who is readying to launch his latest innovation, a white crumbly-textured cheese inspired by an old recipe developed by the monks at what used to be Bromfield Priory, now the village church. Shoppers were asked to try two variants of the Bromfield Priory cheese: one mild and mellow, the other mature and tangy – the most popular choice will then go officially on sale.

Managing Director Sandy Boyd has seen business go from strength to strength over the past 12 months and demand for the Food Centre’s award winning bread, meats and deli produce is so high that the kitchens have had to double production in order to keep up.

He says, ‘It has been an eventful first year that has seen us win awards for our handmade sausages, black pudding and breads; open the doors to the immensely popular Conservatory Barn Café and the Windsor Conference Room and we are delighted we have managed to save the newly refurbished Bromfield Post Office from closure. We recently conducted a customer survey to see how we are doing and have been thrilled and excited to receive such a positive response. It’s important to listen to what the locals want and with that in mind, development has started on a range of special dietary foods, including diabetic and gluten free, which we hope to launch later this year.’

More good news for the Food Centre came earlier this month when incumbent dessert maker Catherine Moran of Sweet Stuff Slow won Best Producer at the 2008 Observer Food Monthly Awards. Her ‘Pots of Deliciousness’ made with Valrhona chocolate and local orchard fruits, were highly praised by cookery writer Nigel Slater and are produced in the Centre’s new enterprise unit, designed to support and progress young local food entrepreneurs.

A Ludlow based dessert company is celebrating the sweet taste of success after winning the coveted ‘Best Producer of the Year’ at the prestigious fifth annual Observer Food Monthly Awards, it was revealed this weekend.

Catherine Moran’s Sweet Stuff Slow beat off stiff competition from several other speciality producers to take the top accolade for her handmade ‘Pots of Deliciousness’. She collected her award at the glittering ceremony at London’s Shoreditch House having wowed a panel of food writers and chefs including Nigel Slater, Tom Parker-Bowles, Ruth Rogers and Jay Rayner at the tasting lunch in November.

For Catherine, this national level recognition comes as she celebrates two years of being in business. Currently based in the new enterprise unit at the Ludlow Food Centre, Bromfield, she started out in her Orleton farmhouse kitchen preparing decadent, single-portion desserts using her own homegrown fruit and premium quality, high cocoa Valrhona chocolate, for sale at local farmers’ markets and food fairs.

She now produces 500 pots a day and is listed with Fortnum & Mason along with several independent delis and farm shops across Shropshire and Herefordshire. Following the good news of her Observer Food Monthly award and the glowing endorsements of food writer and campaigner Joanna Blythman, who discovered Sweet Stuff Slow at the 2007 Abergavenny Food Festival, Catherine is bracing herself for an influx of orders and some long days ahead at the stove.

She says, ‘It all feels like a dream but I’m expecting reality to kick in at any moment. I was blown away to hear that Joanna had loved my Shropshire Damson Crème Brûlée and nominated me for Best Producer, but to hear that I’d won was unbelievable. I’ve had some fantastic feedback from some of the country’s most respected food experts; Nigel Slater commented that my Pots of Deliciousness were amongst the best commercially available desserts he had ever tasted. That is the most wonderful reward after two years of hard work getting the business off the ground.’

Sandy Boyd, Managing Director of the Ludlow Food Centre, is delighted for his tenant producer. He says, ‘We built the new enterprise unit as a development platform so that up and coming food producers from Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Powys could grow and excel in a ready made retail environment. Catherine was our first tenant and within weeks her puddings were on our shelves selling like hotcakes. She has done amazingly well in the past 12 months and everyone here is thrilled at her success in the Observer Food Monthly Awards.’

With her Damson Crème Brûlée coming in for special praise, Catherine’s Lavishly Luscious Lemon Posset and Rich Chocolate Mousse, both Gold winners in the 2007 Great Taste Awards, were also commended by the judging panel. The full range of Sweet Stuff Slow desserts is available at the Ludlow Food Centre. For other stockists and more information on the Sweet Stuff Slow desserts range, contact Catherine Moran c/o The Ludlow Food Centre, on 01584 856000, email catherine@sweetstuffslow.com or visit the website: www.sweetstuffslow.com.

John Brereton of the Ludlow Food Centre has been awarded the title of Black Pudding Category Champion with his highly praised homemade black pudding at the West Midlands Product Evaluation Event and Regional Roadshow for butchers, organised by the British Pig Executive (BPEX).

The event, which took place at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern, Worcestershire last week, saw a record-breaking 49 butchers from across the region submit a staggering 300 products for evaluation by esteemed industry judges.

Ludlow butcher John was delighted to win the Black Pudding category at his first attempt in the competition. He said, ‘Although the Food Centre has only been open for nine months, I’ve been a butcher for nearly 18 years now, however I’ve never really made black pudding for sale to customers. I started experimenting at home and developed this recipe using all fresh ingredients so as to create the most preservative free and traditional product as possible. There are easier and quicker ways to make it but if you want top quality traditional black pudding you’ve got take a bit of time over it.’

BPEX butchery and product development manager, Keith Fisher, says, ‘We were absolutely delighted and quite astounded by the sheer number of products entered by butchers from across the West Midlands region this year. Our judges really had their work cut out to get through all of the entries.

‘Of the 300 products entered, 267 achieved awards – 112 of them gold – a sign of the remarkable quality of products. Congratulations to all those butchers who attended the event and our Category Champions.’

The Product Evaluation Events recognise and reward product excellence and innovation among butchers. The judges use the following criteria: overall appearance; size and colour; ease of cutting; texture and structure; and most importantly taste and smell.

John’s champion black pudding is on sale at the Ludlow Food Centre butcher’s counter.

The Ludlow Food Centre is to co-host an event on 21st February celebrating the worldwide success of British film Atonement, adapted from the Ian McEwan novel and filmed on location at nearby Stokesay Court.

The film, directed by Joe Wright and produced by Working Title, has already won two Golden Globes and is nominated for 14 BAFTAs and 7 Academy Awards. The DVD, which features deleted scenes involving scores of Ludlow residents, is scheduled for release 4th February and is No.2 in the DVD charts before it even goes on sale.

Supported by Advantage West Midlands, the event will take national and regional representatives from British film, tourism and regeneration agencies around Stokesay on the new Atonement location tour, taking in recognisable viewpoints from the film such as the library, drawing room, fountain and lake where Cecilia (Keira Knightley) goes swimming. Guests will then move on to the Food Centre where a locally sourced lunch will be laid on the first floor conference suite.

Ludlow Food Centre and Stokesay Court now represent two of the town’s most high profile visitor attractions, each generating worldwide publicity and serving to raise awareness of the South Shropshire region as both a leading travel destination and premier filming location.

Look out for our resident luxury dessert producer Catherine Moran of Sweet Stuff Slow in the February edition of Shropshire Life magazine.

Catherine, who works from our new enterprise production kitchen to the left of the main entrance, is attracting lots of attention for her handmade ‘pots of deliciousness’ and Food Centre customers will already know just how good her rich chocolate and seasonal fruit puddings are.

Read Catherine’s story of growing up in an Irish country hotel and how she eventually decided on a complete career change to set up her own food business almost two years ago.

Shropshire Life is on sale now near the Food Centre tills.

The first two soft cheeses to be produced by innovative rural retailer the Ludlow Food Centre have proved so popular with customers that the in-house dairy is struggling to keep up with demand.

The ambiguously christened ‘Cheese with No Name’ and the uniquely shaped, rind-washed ‘Croft Gold’ were among the top ten best selling products over Christmas, with over 350 cheeses sold. As a result cheesemaker Dudley Martin is looking to double his current output while expanding the range to include two hard cheeses and, eventually, a blue.

Dudley, 38, who comes to the Food Centre from award winning Lightwood Cheese in Worcester, was given free licence to create a selection of original cheeses to be sold in the store’s delicatessen when he joined the team late last summer. Using 300 litres of whole milk a day, which he collects himself each morning from a nearby Estate farm at High Walton, Dudley separates and reserves the double cream to produce a mild, extra creamy, mould-ripened, Brie style cheese.

In their haste to gauge customer reactions with a series of December in-store tastings, the first Food Centre offering was released without a name and, after much deliberation while searching for an alternative, the quirky moniker has stuck.

The Croft Gold is made in a similar vein to the ‘No Name’ but shaped using square moulds and washed in a weak brine containing Herefordshire King Offa cider brandy every three days for up to four weeks, before being matured for a further month. The result is a golden soft cheese with a colour and texture redolent of Port Salut.

Scheduled for a spring unveiling is Dudley’s first hard cheese, a mellow, crumbly-textured wheel, closely followed by a clothbound Ludlow Cheddar, 600kg of which is currently maturing on beech racks for up to 12 months. With the Earl of Plymouth Estate dairy farms producing around 8000 litres of milk per day, the cheese making potential of the Food Centre is considerable and they are presently on target to produce 5 tonnes of cheese per annum.

Working in the Food Centre’s glass fronted dairy, alongside ice cream specialist Vivien de Haan, has been an eye opener for Dudley, not least because he works in full view of curious shoppers. He says, ‘It’s been brilliant to have the time to develop such original products and the fact we keep selling out means we’re having to increase production after only three months. Being watched while you work is a novel experience but the Food Centre is all about showing people where their food comes from and there’s nothing better than hearing them rave about a cheese you’ve laboured over for several months!’

The Cheese with No Name and Croft Gold are available now from the Ludlow Food Centre cheese counter.