Get Seasonal - Episode 4 - Love British Food

Get Seasonal - Episode 4

12th March 2026 • Love British Food • Love British Food

Ian (: 00:00

Hi everyone and welcome to the Love British Food Get Seasonal podcast. I'm Ian Nottage and I'm here with my partner in produce, Graeme Collie. Hi there. Yeah, today we're going to be talking about seasonal British produce that we'll be looking at for March, April and May. We have guests Anna Blumfield from Deersbrook Farm and Ladies in Beef, Lee Maycock from Tewinbury Farm Cookery School and our resident

Forager Colin Wheeler-James first off though just a little bit about Fresh Direct. Ian I hear that you've Recently got a new award is this through the leaf mark? Yeah, so Really pleased to say that all of our contracted British growers for Fresh Direct are now leaf accredited for those you guys don't know what leaf is a lot of people understand red tractor and so on but

Leaf stands for Linking Environment and Farming. Linking Environment and Farming, sorry. And it's basically to ensure that the growers and the farmers and the producers are doing all the right things from a sustainability point of view, encouraging nature, wider field margins around sort of fields to encourage birds, wildlife, insects and so on. Yeah, there's a whole raft of things in there that needs to be qualified for the leaf mark.

But yeah, it's a bit of a commitment to sustainability and British produce going forward. So, yeah, really pleased with that. I understand you've got some good news as well, Graham. that right? Something to do with a sustainable achievement? Yeah. So we've at King's Food, we've been ranked as first in sustainable food across universities by People and Planet University League. So it's a ranking.

every university and it's all about ethical and environmental performance. So yeah, we're proud of that. That's good news. Brilliant. Well done. Congrats. Right. So moving on. First off, we're going to have a chat with Anna Blumfield from Deersbrook Farm and Ladies in Beef about exactly what Ladies in Beef is, but also what they do at Deersbrook and how they work sustainably. Anna is a third generation farmer producing grass-fed beef and

pigs in Braintree in Essex. Welcome Anna. Hi, thank you for having us. Thank you so much. I guess really we want to sort of understand a bit more about what you guys do at Deersbrook and the ethos of the farm, et cetera. But a question I think for me is we talk about seasonality, the whole thing of the Love British Food, Get Seasonal podcast is we talk a lot about things like fish, which is seasonal and fresh produce, but does

seasonality affect your real livestock and beef in particular? Yes absolutely, I think we're all wishing for the spring to hurry up and come along. yes, ⁓ yes. beef farmer that's for sure. Yeah the rain, the weather, a huge part of what affects farming, growth of the grass, if anyone's got horses or even... do, I do. Or plays football or has children who play football you're going to know that those pitches and those fields.

are completely sodden and ⁓ absolutely the grass doesn't grow so well. Yeah the weather's our biggest challenge seasonally but they're also obviously it works with us greatly by the amazing amount of rain and sunshine that we do get it on the British Isles here which is fantastic for our pastures generally. Yeah yeah generally not right now no definitely not.

So the cattle themselves, so they graze on the pastures and it really does change their diet. And then that affects the meat and the flavours and the composition nutritionally, the meat throughout the season. in the winter, for instance, we're in the, going back to the spring, we make our own hay and silage. So when the grass is abundant and growing really nicely, May, June kind of time, we keep that.

we ferment the silage, we wrap it and so the grass ferments, we leave it wet. And that's amazing fermented food for the cattle in the winter when the natural grass is dormant, when the meadow grass is dormant. But that brings on a slightly more nutty tone to the beef. Okay, really? Okay. If you literally have side by side, if we freeze some and have side by side, if you go to the real estate palette, you would notice those differences.

Obviously we think that's an amazing thing. To some chefs who want complete consistency throughout the whole year, they might disagree, which is why some chefs that we've found, they say, they want the American green fed because it's 100 % consistent. You get the same marbling as changes throughout the year. So you get the different fats, you get the different flavors. Still amazing, amazing beef and amazing nutritional values.

But it does change. So you are what you eat, as they say. that's the magic, I think, of food. know, to meet some cheese makers down in the West Country, Barbas and Jamie Montgomery, and they say the cheese changes taste throughout the year. And in early spring, when you're taking the milk off, you can actually smell wild garlic because they've been grazing on that. It doesn't come out in the cheese, it's sort of, but the whole thing of, you know,

the grass and the carrot and everything else is going on in there. It's yeah, it really is, you know, big, big difference. Your cattle are out all year, I believe. Is that right? They're outdoors all the time? They are, yes. We have to obviously rotate the fields around and have some march lands and different fields, we're fortunate we've got some nice light sandy land as well. And we also strip graze, something we call mob grazing, have a lot of genetic farming methods.

So we move the fences every day and let them have different portions of the field. So farming like that, you keep the goodness in the soil. The manure naturally going into the soil helps with the soil biodiversity. It locks in the carbon. So this huge myth busting to be done. Red meat bashing that goes on in the headlines a lot. Well, yeah, we'll talk about that. There's so many different avenues to go down.

So it benefits the livestock, the environment and then us the consumer with the nutrition and the protein. Excellent. So how long have you been doing the regenerative piece? Because that is a real buzzword at the moment, isn't it? it's, think, as I understand it, my sort of limited knowledge, a few friends of mine are doing the Regen Ag, but it's almost like farm like your grandfathers did. know, it's a sort of principle. Yeah, absolutely. And we still trade under my granddad's name.

It's every carcass that comes back to our brick tree on the farm and has his stamp still in it, which is lovely. How many cattle do you have? We were a thousand head. We are just under that now. So we're kind of streamlining slightly. So we moved, I moved back, this is my family farm and I moved back 13 years ago with my husband and two children. And I started making changes with my husband because my dad had a commercial head, more of the continental breeds who would go off.

It was still a suckler herd, the cows and bulls having the offspring, the offspring come and go. They go off to the big supermarket depots and what's that. Since coming back, we've changed the breed to the native Sussex cattle. wow, yeah. And the native, obviously British breed thrive on the British pastures. Yeah. So they don't need the different feeds, the added feeds.

and other things that go into commercial herds. So that really worked for us. And then I started selling farmers markets and food festivals, couple of years. And then we got the planning permission for the butchery on the farm. So now we have a full butch, craft butchery and sell to the public and we sell to restaurants and different things like that as well. Great. So you're doing a whole circular thing. Presumably you're not slaughtering animals on site, but they'll come back to you and you'll butcher them.

They're getting the love all the way through and you know, not just being hacked a bit, so they're with a big band saw. Yeah, that's it. We're very lucky to have an amazing local abattoir. There's a lot of smaller abattoirs ⁓ have closed and are closing because of all different legislation and different things that haven't helped them. So we are extremely lucky to be able to do that full chain with our local abattoir. you've mentioned about the weather.

Well, as a horse owner, yeah, can sympathise. I might be tapping you up for some hay, actually, as well, because ours has just gone through the roof. So you've got any spare. But what other challenges do you face as a farmer? mean, obviously, yeah, weather is the biggest and it's I think that's the same whatever you grow, whether you're growing carrots, cows or pigs. But what are the big challenges for you guys at the minute and particularly in the British farming world? where should we start? Yeah, go on. You can go political.

Yeah, let's go political. It was pulled, so we had subsidies, as we know, with everything and, know, Christmas time with the 8p vegetables and what have you. We never pay the full price of what food costs to make. So this is how we've been brought up for a couple of generations now and it's what the public are used to. So then there's an outcry if anything elevates, but paying the true cost.

or if you're going to supplement the true cost of food production, then the government need to provide a long term plan. Last year, they were doing a scheme, the stewardship schemes, which, you know, they had their faults, but you know, they worked. But overnight, there was no warning at all. Through any of the avenues, there was no whispers, there was nothing. They literally pulled the schemes.

So then there's no backing. No backing. If you had ones from a couple of years ago, they were going to continue those ones until the time. you kind of refresh every two years, two, three years. But there was nothing. They literally cut it off and then there was nothing. What does that do to you as bee producers from importers? I there's an argument about, you know, cheap imports and things. Does that make you very uncompetitive in the market when you're looking at

whether it's South American beef or Argentinian or, know, from, I think Australia is on the agenda now or something. So yeah, extremely. As you know, with any business as well, you've got all the rates have gone up, haven't they? has gone up, water has gone up, electricity has gone up, wages have gone up, everything. And then yes, if you've got your income cut, your support cut, it really is panic stations, to be honest. The imports that come in, obviously there's

a huge worry about how they're, how they brought up what the welfare is, what's gone into them with antibiotics and all sorts of medications. There's, with the EU guidelines, obviously there is monitored, but we know probably with most industries there are backdoors and there are ways and we know that that happens. Yeah, it's quite scary to think people don't realize what's on their plates or what they're ordering or

whether it's the supermarkets or restaurants, it's really hard to get that full traceability. Even if you're trying, it's not always easy and it's not always clear. No. So it's not really a level playing field, is what we're saying. Absolutely. Yeah. Another side of that is that the grass-fed beef with the native breeds, it does take longer. That was a question. How much longer would it take to rear your cattle as opposed to what the word we use, conventional produced beef?

The commercials, because my dad had commercial head, they would go off to the abattoir 16 to 18 months. Our cattle are 24 to 28 months. Sometimes 30 months. At every day's cost, right? Yeah, every day's cost. You've got the manpower, you've got the grazing land, you've got all the inputs that go into that and space. You can't overstock, you have to get to

and the space which is you want to do. holds the chain up if you like. Not that we think about it like that. Yeah, no, get it. it's just, yeah, land is money and everything else. So it's all the input costs really that drive the price at the end. But it's well worth it. Yeah, think that's it. a much better result with the ender bill. It's a challenge. So, sorry, this is a really staff question. There's a chef, I don't know this. So do you, is it?

bull cows and or steer cows and females that get used for the meat or is it just the the males? So it's both. Sometimes we keep the heifers, so the young girls coming through to replace breeding stock. Yeah. So as some of the cows get older and we then keep some of the girls to replace the cows and we buy the bulls. And all the heifers, all the girls stay

all the cows are ours, it's called a closed herd. So we can self-generate our next generations. We buy in the bulls as and when they need replacing. Right, okay. But you can't taste the difference between male beef and female beef, I guess? No, I have never noticed a difference. No, no, it's a really dull question, especially for a chef. it's, yeah, I always think, yeah, girl cows, milk.

boy cows beef. Yeah, I know it's all about breed and so on. yeah, it does. It literally comes down to breeding because some you know, going back in my granddad's day, he had a house cow. You'd have a cow for there'd be both. So they provide milk. And then when it came to the end of life, there'd be the beef and they'd be a man. If you go commercial, conventional dairy, obviously they're bred

Yeah, not the right shape or use their energy, growing muscle. You want to use energy with amazing. So yeah, it was quite good. It's quite encouraging. I don't know you probably noticed this, but there's a lot of the sort of trendier restaurants and more sort of forward thinking that are using ex dairy herds and things. And I think it's great that it's going that way. But if I'm being honest, I had some dairy rib the other day. It was pretty tough, to be fair, but it was tasty.

But it was pretty tough. and it also would depend, so you go back to your cheese makers, their ex-dairy cows would be probably quite different to commercial conventional ex-dairy cows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because of the breeding, because of the attention, because of the food that they're eating. Lots and lots of variables. So this is the challenge, you know, with chefs, I mean, once we had, think we spoke about this briefly before, but when you get the carcass, do you really struggle getting rid of the front end?

you know, as we say, because everyone wants the loins and primals and sirloins and fillet, not when people want stick in pieces and shanks and, you know, the forecourt is really, do they? Yeah, we don't struggle at all. Really? That's good. I literally baby step each phase of building the business. So we're doing farmers markets and food festivals by doing tastings, talking to people. We really built up a huge real foodie, really knowledgeable.

customer base. with the awful, literally no detail. We almost can't get enough of the quirky cuts. Really? we were to sign another cow, would be beautiful. It's like the eight legged chickens. But I think that's our biggest challenge for chefs and for supplying into restaurants because a lot of time the quirky cuts, there's not the

quantity per carcass and we're all about carcass balance for a restaurant a sirloin is amazing because you can have exact uniform, nice volume of them, nice quantity of them. know, each plate will look the same and it will all be perfect. So when we're talking to restaurants and chefs quite a lot, depending on the style of restaurant and what have you, a trio of beef is amazing for fine dining. You know, you can have the shin, you can do your fancy little bombs.

and gorgeous things. You can have some steak, can have bavettes or you know can have different things because they're smaller quantities but plate is still full. you know you can kind of it just takes work doesn't it? think this yeah yeah as I say so different restaurants see things differently. The other way around it is special boards you can have your steak.

and then you can have rump steak and then when that's sold out you can switch to sirloin or you can switch to ribeye or you can switch to flat iron and go through then the slightly more different cuts or the tri-tip or the picanha you know so much the carcass and to use you know to get this real best of the carcass so you know by coming to craft bitches and they really know the animal and then say a whole selection of different ways of cutting

So you could kind of, have like a steak selection. Again, not every restaurant this wouldn't work for, but it's kind of, you need to be flexible. ⁓ Yeah, interesting. But interesting also about the offal, because that's one of my biggest bugbears is that we don't eat the whole animal and people go, ⁓ I like offal. When I was a kid, I was brought up on that. was, you know, lamb's hearts and ox liver and everything else and absolutely delicious. But I think we may have lost the art of how to do it, to be honest.

⁓ So do you sell directly to restaurants or do you go through sort of catering butchers or? So we mostly we sell direct. We have got some links through a few different catering butchers as well. But yeah, we mainly direct. And obviously you've got the farm shop as well. Tell me else I'm talking about. Ladies in Beef. Yes. I'm not quite sure what I was looking for on the website, but yeah, so tell us a bit about that. ⁓

It's a collective of female beef farmers from up and down the nation. Julie Greed and Manette Batters founded Ladies in Beef and they set up the national campaign of Great British Beef Week. We're now in our 16th year. So starting on St George's Day, 23rd to the 30th of April, we kick off the national campaign for Great British Beef Week.

So you may have noticed in supermarkets, lots support us with stickers and banners and posters, recipe cards, local butchers. Retail butchers can apply for packs, you know, to give to customers recipe cards and what have you. And then it's a great way to fish chefs. Tinkering on the idea of how's it going to go with their customers. It's a great trial week to say, great fishers beef week. Let's see what the feedback is. Yeah, excellent. Probably a good way to get some of the lesser cuts or

inverted commas, lesser cuts and off or whatever else, you know, so that's really interesting. So ladies in beef, obviously champion it. Do you find it harder as a farmer and being a female? I know in our industry, in the restaurant world, and it's getting better for sure. But I think the girls still do get a bit of a harder time and they've got to prove themselves more. Do you find the same in farming or? Yes, probably quite similar in a lot of industries. But yes.

It's quite bizarre whether we're at on the farm or in the bit tree or even we take the animals sometimes, you know, to the country shows and country fairs. So we can talk to the customers and point them in our direction and show them the animals. example, at one of the country fairs last year, was just a guy, nothing to do with us, just a guy standing behind me. He wanted to see the piglets because they were feeding from the mum.

in the pen and so he was standing behind me to get a better look and the lady and gentleman came in to ask a question and he looked right over my head and spoke to him. Yeah, yeah. It happens in literary all the time, you know, I'll be serving, I'll be cutting and they'll speak to the Saturday boy. Yeah. He doesn't know. exactly. It's my job. It is bizarre. Obviously, once you start talking and they understand ⁓ it's

Yeah, you can have all the logos, t-shirts and all the things and they still would look to the man. We've got a lot to learn still, think, there's a way to go. so what else do do as ladies in beef? Obviously you're championing the sort of Great British Beef Week and stuff and anything else you guys get involved with to sort of empower women, I guess, in farming and... Yeah, mean, supporting each other is huge. We also are very much linked with...

the Women in Meat Awards. ⁓ right, Which is fantastic. Female butchers are all part of the food chain and all part of getting amazing food, meat and beef to the plate. And then we hold meals. So we've got a meal on Greater British Weave Week in our barn. We have an amazing chef come, Alan Patton, and we do a nice tailing. yeah, last year, think it was, he did smoked heart skewers.

The pre-starter, we do the nibbles and so things like that play around with on there. Alan's very good friend of mine. Oh really? I'm amazed he's actually cooking with beef because he's got a thing about pork. that's his thing. We do a pork one as well. Yeah, we've got Peyton's porketeers, his little flying crowd. But Alan's a great, great guy, so yeah, known him very, very well. But yeah, he's good one to have on your team.

and creative as well. That's amazing. So Anna, thank you so, so much. A real insight there as well. And sorry for some of the daft questions, but yeah, we're all learning. us again, where can consumers, customers get your beef and pork as well? I forgot to mention you, also rear pigs, don't you? So we're Dearsbrook Farm, felt like the animal Dearsbrook Farm. We've got a website and we're on the social medias as well. Fantastic. And get along to the farm shop and I might pop over and pick up some hay.

if you've got some going too. That's great. Thank you once again. It's lovely to to you and I look forward to trying some of your beef. Thank you. We're going to be speaking to Lee, just kicking off and talking about the Cougarie School Turingbury Farm, a little bit about what he's doing over there. So Lee, welcome. Thank you very much for the invite. Pleasure, pleasure. So give us a bit of insight into who you are, what your background is, because

Obviously I know you very well from many, many years and you've got a pretty impressive CV. And then tell us a bit about what you're up to now with Shrewbury Cookery School. Okay, so me, I started life as a chef way back. Had a trip over to the Channel Islands, worked over there for a couple of years. Went to the Ritz London for two years. Left the Ritz, went to Le Manoir for two years.

Left there, ended up in California working for George Lucas on several of his Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, cooking for actors. Came back to London, worked with some fine dining, eaten fine dining, and then set up a consulting business to hotels, restaurants and airlines, which I ran for 15 years, which was global, which was great. Then did some work for the England football team. So I did two World Cups with the players. I did the South Africa World Cup and the Brazil World Cup.

And now run Tewerbury Cookeley School, which is two minutes from home and I don't need to get a plane to work. Excellent. Like I said, that's a pretty impressive CV. George Lucas, England football team, you know, the man, well, the really just every sort of run of the mill places where you were. Absolutely. I went on to co-pilot this morning and asked for your resume league and yeah, I was going through going, blimey, blimey, blimey. You don't look old enough for me. I'm not, honestly.

Yeah, exactly. He's got a picture in the attic somewhere, I'm sure. So there you are at Tewinbury. How long have been at Tewinbury? Three and a half years we opened the cookery school. It's flown by. Yeah, I remember when you first went in there. can't believe it's that long. Yeah. Crazy. And so at the school, are you open to general members of the public? Is it just for hospitality industry? Or can anyone get involved? And how do they do it? Absolutely anybody. And the reason when we set this up, my thought was

Yes, general public classes were obvious. We do lots of corporate classes because we're on the estate, we've got a 60-bedroom hotel. They do lots of conferences, so obviously they send them down here and they do team building events for them. We also work with some local schools, which is lovely. So a couple of three schools actually are in here on a sort of monthly basis. We also do chef development, craft training. So when we built the kitchen or designed the kitchen,

I tried to cover all of those off, if that makes sense. So it was user friendly for children. But also if we have got chefs in here doing development work, Equate is good for them as well. It's lovely space. And they're right on the river. The whole side is bi-fold doors. They all get opened up and it's just a really nice setting. Yeah, as I said, obviously we've been lucky enough to be down there a few times and we actually hosted

last year's Universal Cookery and Food Festival at Tewinbury. yeah, so give us a bit background about the farm as well, because obviously the cookery skill is an element of the farm. But I mean, the farm's pretty impressive, right? The cookery skill is a very small cog in a huge operation. So it's just over 700 acres of arable farm. We're quite lucky that we're reasonably self-sufficient. So we've got obviously our own Herefords on the estate.

We've got our own south down on the estate and we've got our own middle whites on the estate. we're pretty much covered for beef, obviously lamb and sheep. We've got several outlets of areas of chicken. So we've obviously got a great supply of eggs. And we've also got two areas dedicated to hives. So obviously we're self-sufficient with our own honey, which is lovely. We've also got two acres of garden, which we grow obviously all year round. And we've got two poly tunnels in there as well. So.

That then is really the driver for content and ingredients for the cookery school. We'll go to the garden in the morning, pick what's available, and obviously then that will appear on the cookery school that day. So we're driven by change, by the seasons of what's available. again, as you know, we do this thing called roots, which is like an outdoor dining experience. So the guests turn up to the garden.

We give them a tour of the garden, show them what we're growing, how we're growing it, why we're growing it. And then they sit in the field. We pick the produce, cook in a big wood-fired oven. that's again, lovely experience outside. No menus, it's literally driven by what is available that day. Brilliant. I've been lucky enough to be a part of that as well. So yeah, it's a great experience, which is really interesting because that is real field to fork. mean, you you're not talking about air miles to air, you're talking about air yards. Yeah, absolutely. Or food yards.

Do you find there's a growing interest in sustainable and seasonal amongst the guys that are coming to the courses? I I guess probably, we're professional chefs more so, the members of the public, are they understanding seasonality or do you really find you've got to teach them? No, I don't know. I think some of the general public knowledge is as good as some of our chefs' knowledge, if I'm honest. Really? And I'm sure lockdown was a key driver for this.

people have had time on their hands, they know if they weren't baking sourdoughs, they were probably planting stuff in the garden. most people now that come through roots, I say we do this tour of what we're growing, how we're growing. I try and get that into a 20 minute window. So it gives me a couple of hours to cook. I think that part of the tour could last for hours because people are just so interested in how to grow stuff, know, what's growing, companion growing.

you know, what we do at different seasons, what you know, how the polytunnels can help us, you know, start earlier, finish later. There's so much interest in that. So to answer your question, yeah, it's I think it's almost equal. Really, that's interesting, actually, because I know it's a big thing in food service now, isn't it? It's the sort of the chef thing is, you know, all about local, seasonal, etc. But yeah, it's quite reassuring that the

general public are actually embracing it now as well, which is good news for growers and producers. And I think they understand as well that when they go to their supermarket, everything's available all year round. But they also understand that there's a cost to that. You're going to pay a premium for something that's air freighted halfway around the world. If you want asparagus in the winter, you'll pay a premium for it.

People understand now that we have a six-week window in this country for asparagus and it's on every day here while it's available, but when it's gone, it's gone. exactly. What sort of courses are you guys running now? people are interested in getting involved and everything from bakery to really is. I mean, I keep adding them all the time, but we've got about 40 that are available. Not all at once. Obviously, we do them on a sort two-month rotation. But I mean, some of the...

Popular ones are probably like that we do a wild game workshop, which is really popular because I've obviously got a deep rooted passion in deerstalking and shooting. Obviously this time of year is quite sad for me because we finished the season on Saturday, so no more shooting for a while. yeah, that... You might have to go back and do some work. I know, I know. We do have more driven by the summer months, but we do a wood fired and barbecue fire pit class and we do a global flavors class, which is really popular.

We do a plant, roots, grains and greens, which is popular again because there's this sort of recent interest in plant-focused foods. We do quite an interest in these called kitchen secrets and chef shortcuts. So that's again, just passing on knowledge to the general public about making life a little bit easier in the kitchen. Really? I might get myself on that one. absolutely. Artisan bread baking, we do that one. That's popular. Curry nights, gastropubs.

knife skills, brunches. We used to do a chef's table. So on a Friday night, rather than it being a class, it sort of opens up into a sort of restaurant scenario. We've got a lovely big 12 foot oak table. We can get 10 guests around and then I cook canapes and then four seasonal courses for them. So that's the only one we do that's not hands on essentially. Brilliant. And I think obviously we've got Colin, you guys all know each other really, really well.

Obviously from a foraging point of view, you incorporate a bit of foraging into the school as well, think, don't you? We do. We've got a local... I'm not the expert. I've got a local forager I employ. He comes down and we do tours around the lakes. I think it's amazing what they find, you what you think you're walking across a bit of grassland and they're on their hands and knees picking stuff. it's, it's very... He's a very knowledgeable guy. He also picks a lot of our botanicals and he makes our Tewinbury gin for us. wow. Yeah, no, he's a clever guy. They all are these foragers.

Very knowledgeable. I've got a quick question for all three of you actually. So Lee picked up on a point now that everything is available all the time in the supermarkets. I'm working for Kings. was lucky enough to do my carbon literacy training just before Christmas. And one of the biggest problems with sustainability within the West is our expectation that everything is available all the time. So we talk about like Lee saying more plant based like

what we can do to be more sustainable, eat less red meat. We talk so much about the diet, but actually the biggest driver is all this produce that's been flown around the world because aeroplanes are the biggest culprits. So does anyone see that that's ever going to change or do you think that's now just here to stay? For my part, I think in produce world actually there's very little which is aerated.

because of the cost. I think, you know, there are certain things that have to be air freighted because of the shelf life from very far away places. So there is an element of that. But things like your lemons, oranges, limes that we can never grow in this country, very rarely would they see an airplane. It'll be road or sea freight because A, it's more sustainable, but B, it's actually the cost is a lot cheaper than air freight. Yes, you will get things like air freight, mangoes and so on. And to be fair, I think it has to be bit offset. We've had

guys on this show that, you know, we know that they don't use anything which is imported whatsoever, which is really applaudable. But it is very difficult if you're a group restaurant or chain restaurant, pubs, whatever, that there is an element of imported food. Otherwise, we would deprive chefs of lemons, melons, limes and pineapples, which I don't think anyone really wants. But I think it's, you know, it's digging deeper and actually understanding where what is air freight, what is sea freight. And to be fair, sometimes

Seafood isn't as bad as from abroad, isn't as, is less environmental impact than trying to grow stuff in this country out of season with light pollution, energy and everything else. The inputs are actually higher, you know, and if we want to have tomatoes in December that are UK grown, it's doable and some people have looked into it, but it is very expensive and it is quite involved as a bit of an environment. Less sustainable as well, isn't it? Yeah.

Maybe it's the air freight then maybe maybe it's you know Do we ever see that there'll be a change in the amount of produce that's air freighted? within Supermarkets as well. Yeah, supermarkets are a bigger culprit. I think Yeah, I think it is I mean, yeah The air freight question is a tricky one because hey, it does add costs to stuff But we have some of our customers that completely take an air freight out of their food chain If you like, which is a plausible

you know, because that's that's a starter they're making. But I think, you know, it is a bit of a trade off that if you want that premium product, if you if you ever eaten the air freight mango as opposed to a sea freight one, you'll know the difference is it's night and day with the level of rightness, sweetness and juiciness because that was picked off the tree, put on a plane and two days later it's in the UK. That would never work on a sea freight. So I think it's some and some. But yeah, I think there is a big move to remove air freight for produce. But

You know, we shift an awful lot of other stuff, including people by air as well. yeah, maybe. mean, again, Colin, sorry. You were just going to say, yeah, just very quickly. I think it's very difficult to try and rule that out. So I kind of come from that angle and a different approach. So you're air frating limes, using your lime juice for a dish and then you throw the rest away. So what I try and focus on is how you can get the maximum out of every single bit of that product. So if you are afraid.

You're going to get two or three uses out of it and you're not going to throw any of it away. So I take a slightly different approach to it. It's the same with with animals, you know, with beef. And I'm sure animal have a view on this. But it's that thing of everyone wants the back end, everyone wants the, you know, the loin and the fillet and all those from the rump. And then what do we do with the rest of the beast? You know, do we eat the offal? Do we eat the front end? Do we eat the sticking piece and so on? So that is a really solid approach across the piece. I think, you know, don't waste anything.

make it relevant and make it into food and yeah, I think it's a point. Yeah, it's interesting isn't it? We get asked at work, know, we're really driven to what we should and shouldn't do and people talk about air-fraited produce and then you say well okay that's fine you know so during the winter what fruit do you want us to sell? What veg do you want us to serve? We don't just want root veg, we don't just want apple, what do you want? Or maybe we look we find a better way to cook them.

or make them more interesting and talk about what's in season coming up. yeah. Lee, do you have an opinion on the amount of produce that's bought in from other countries, particularly by air freight? I think there's a case of chicken and egg isn't there here because if the customers are not demanding it through the supermarkets, I'm sure the supermarkets wouldn't import it. Yeah. So again, I think it's back to this educational piece, isn't it? Is educating the general public, educating, you know,

even some of the chefs in hospitality to understand what's available here. And there's more, think, available now than there used to be. People are exploring better ways to grow, ⁓ you know, produce, like I said, whether it's here or out of a polytunnel, that certainly extends our growing seasons. But what's lovely for us in the school is when we do these sort of educational bits on what's available and what we're using, it does open up people's eyes, you know, because some of them do think that, you know, you can get strawberries and raisins and blueberries all year round. Well, clearly you can't.

So yeah, think there is a bit of a, it's customer demand that's driving a lot of this, I'm sure. And that's about education, isn't it? Of course. So it's really maximising as much British produce as possible and then using, supplementing with others rather than sometimes it feels the other way around. What's really interesting is that when we first opened, we were audited by the Independent Cookery School Association and he sat in one of the classes, made notes all night and

At end of it, when all the guests had gone home, I sat down with them at this one to one and he said, you're really lucky. says you've scored 88 out of a hundred. says, I've never given anybody a score above 70, 75. He says you've done really well. Well, I was more concerned where I dropped the points. And he said to me, you've lost a couple of points on your produce. He says, because you had kaffir lime leaf, you had ginger, you had chili, you had X, Y and Z.

I said, well, we've just delivered like an Asian class. How can I not? And again, I just thought that was amazing that they can pick up on that. I know it's not grown here, but sometimes you need ingredients that sit outside of what is seasonally available in the UK. absolutely. Yeah, I suppose talking about, you know, British produce, what's growing, what's available here is a good opportunity to talk to Chef Colin about

Foraging what's coming up in the springtime? I know we were talking earlier on calling about it's a bit quiet at the moment But it's it's soon to become foraging time again. Yeah, it's it's just starting to feel a little bit like spring which is which is great because it's a It's been pretty wet. We don't get lovely green growth if we don't have wet So I tend not to get as bothered by a bit of rain as I used to but there's still a lot of stuff out there to find

I went for a walk on New Year's Day and I did a of a LinkedIn post and an Instagram post on just some of the edibles I found on New Year's Day. And I think I found something like 20 different edibles just walking the dog along the lanes. So there is still stuff out there at this time of year. Things like Jack by the Hedge, garlic mustard, which Ian said he found in his garden today, which is lovely. ⁓ It's a brassica. Very excited about that. Yeah, brassica got a really nice, gentle sort of garlic flavor.

Big heart-shaped leaves, very difficult to get it confused for anything else. The only other thing that looks similar to it is also a really nice edible called ground ivy, which tastes like goat's cheese. So it's real smack in the mouth flavor. And again, that's available this time of year too. Real, ⁓ really good edible, a sort of wild garlic flavor, another one, which is around a lot at this time of year is three-cornered leek.

looks a little bit like a daffodil, but it's got a beautiful, gentle garlic flavor and it's really starting to push up everywhere at the moment. As is the ubiquitous wild garlic, allium arsenum, bare garlic, ransoms, whatever you want to call it. Such an iconic forageable product that most people, that with blackberries and elderflower, are often one of the first wild plants that they feel brave enough to go and forage. So that's again starting to show at this time of year. So what's coming up sort of?

further on. So if we're looking into sort of March, April, May, what should they be looking out for now? Because that's got to be a really good time for foraging, right? It's a great time for foraging. All of your leafy greens have got lovely, fresh, young growth, so you don't have to worry too much about woody stems and things. So can pretty much just pick and eat. So things like cleavers, pine cones, it'll be starting to show in the next month. Little tiny pine cones, February, you can cook them whole in a sugar syrup and and candy them. Absolutely delicious.

and larch and spruce as well, but bang in season for seaweed. So seaweed is at its absolute best at this time of year. There's some amazing seaweeds out there. And the really good news about seaweed is there are no poisonous British seaweeds. So you can eat any seaweed. You just have to work out what's best to do with them because some of the textures can be a little bit challenging. going back to the pine cone thing. So.

I was always a bit concerned with like there's a resin in pine. Is that not right? Is that which is toxic? Is or does the cooking get rid of that or? Yeah, the resin isn't poisonous and it's often the actual resin itself is often used to flavor gin and used as a botanical. But it's it's it's very strong flavored and a lot of people are put off by eating pine because it's often used as a scent in household cleaners. So a lot of people munch on a pine cone and think, oh, it reminds me of toilet cleaner.

That's because a lot of the cleaning companies use it but no it's a I mean pine cones are Challenging so they've got a lot of time and in them you pick them when they're really small You can then boil them in it and a one-to-one sugar syrup for about 20 minutes till they go tender and then Strain them out reduce the syrup down till it's really sticky and then put them back in the syrup and they'll last for a year So I tend to make them once a year. They're really really nice. But again when you eat it, you get a lovely pine flavor

Well you do get a little bit of that sort of drying tannin in your mouth so you have to be selective about what you use them for. So they're very good chopped up and used in a flapjack for example or in a crumble topping or you can use them individually sparingly it's like garnish a panna cotta or something. Wow okay and any pine would be okay so that either got to be scott's pine or douglas fir. No any pine any pine is good but you can also use larch and spruce as well so the larch roses the little pretty red roses are the immature

large cones you can do you can cook those and you can eat them raw off the tree as well and then spruce when spruce starts to ⁓ spend out his new shoots the very lime green tips off the off the branches you can pick those straight off the tree and eat them and they taste like grapefruit skin really every day is a school day yeah isn't it just so you still running the courses through the school at the minute this time of year is it yeah as ever

It is busy this time of year. expect a bit like Lee, one of our sort key revenue streams has just passed Christmas and gift vouchers. It's amazing how many gift vouchers we sell. And we tend to see people starting to cash flows in at this time of year. And I think because the weather's miserable outside, people are looking for inside things to do. So we tend to do very well at this time of year. And conversely, when we come to the summer and the summer holidays in particular, we don't actually run courses in August now at all. We just take our family time.

Because if the weather's nice, you're down in Devon and Cornwall, you don't want to be in a cookery school. You want to be out on the beach or out in the moors or something. So we try to structure our courses around what we think that people want. Although that's never easy. No, it does feel a bit like the Battle of the Cookery Schools here today. not at all. I think it's great. And I think the more we get recognized for being able to provide this service, I think the better. And we've got some great cookery schools down near us here in Devon. We've got Ashburn Cookery School. We've got River Cottage.

We've got high grains. We've got some fantastic, fantastic cookery skills down here. So it's really good to be able to be seen as a little sort of as a place to go to learn how to cook and to learn different, different skills. And we all complement each other really nicely. it's a really good thing having so many in the area. Yeah, excellent. Are you finding the same, Uzzly, that people have more of an interest in seasonality now? Obviously a lot what you do is very much around origin and fermentation.

naturally that lends itself to the seasonality piece. But are you finding people are more aware of it, more interested in it? think definitely. I think definitely. And I think the danger is that we surround ourselves by people who are interested in that. We don't sometimes think about the bigger picture of people who only use supermarkets for food. So it's very easy to it's very easy to think that you're making a massive difference. But I think that I think it's almost become more polarized. We have a small, small amount of people who know and want to know more.

But we have the vast amount of the population who just don't know. we need to we're not reaching them yet. And that for me is that for me is the big challenge. Yeah. Couldn't agree more on that one. I think, you know, so we were in our own little bubble, I think sometimes and people would naturally graduate to what we do because they're like minded. But yeah, I think that is probably another whole podcast in itself as we engage with those guys that we all know it. We've all seen it. You know, the kids that don't know that a potato grows in the ground or apple grows on a tree.

There's a big, big, big piece of work to do on that. I think, yeah, 100%, I think we'll be making small strides, but it's minimal to the rest of the population, I'll be honest, which is sad. But yeah, it would be interesting to find out how we, I know there's lots of good work going on with different bodies about making kids see food in schools and so on, but yeah, I think it's bigger than that.

And I would really categorize our customers into two different sections. There are the ones who want to learn to be more sustainable, to be more self-sufficient, to waste less. But then there's the vast, vast portion of our customers are also people who just want to come and learn a specific skill. that pasta, be that Sri Lankan. So it's, our customers are very much split into two demographics really. Yeah, I agree. So yeah, as a cookery school, you also work with caterers. So it's not just the general public.

I'm assuming Lee does something similar which I think is really important because you can go to college you can learn to cook you go through your doing Apprenticeship or you work your way up through the ranks, but the landscape of cooking is changing all the time I know we talk a lot about fermentation actually It's not necessarily something you're taught when you're at college or the early parts of your career But it's becoming more and more important. So I suppose I'm just flagging that actually, you know, that's another

another avenue for the cookery schools to work with. I think, I think for me, it's very gratifying to do both. love teaching the public, but actually I get so much of a buzz out of sharing the real sort of deeper skills and understanding that we've had time to develop with the, with the sort of the corporate world and actually upskilling them and, and making things that we do available for them. So I, as you say, I've worked a lot on creating fermentation modules for some of the big contract caterers and allowing them to do fermentation safely.

⁓ and and as recognized by their primary authority and by their HSEQ teams. So yeah, Dovetails end very nicely with the public stuff. Yeah, brilliant. Have you got a recipe for us this time around? of course. It wouldn't be the same without. No, yeah, exactly. So my recipe for this time of year is probably my favourite thing on the shelf in the cookery school. And it's pepper dulse, seaweed and it's fermented in honey.

So I know that not everybody has the opportunity to go and harvest pepper dulse seaweed, but if you do, it's very easy to recognize and it's got the most unique flavour. It tastes like fresh truffle. It's absolutely insane. You just would not expect it from a seaweed. But that fresh truffle flavour is very hard to capture because it's a real top note. It's a real elusive flavour. And this is one of the things I love about fermentation. It's about finding the way to capture that fleeting flavour. my favourite way is to just...

to rinse your pepper dulse under some cold water, it dry, pop it into a jar, and then just cover it with raw honey. It has to be raw honey, not the supermarket sort of processed stuff. Cover it with raw honey, leave it for six weeks, and then you can eat the honey. It's got this lovely sort of iodine-y, slight sort of truffle honey flavour. The seaweed tastes like it's just picked off the beach moments before, so it preserves it beautifully. But then you get left with this wonderful, clean

fresh oyster, fresh seawater flavour. It's the most amazing flavour. And because of the fermentation, the flavour profile is really stretched. So you get the honey first. You've got a few seconds to actually savour that. Then you get the seaweed flavour. And again, you've got time to appreciate that in your mouth. And then you're left with this clear, beautiful oyster seawater flavour which just lingers in your mouth for ages, for several minutes after you've eaten it. It's an incredible product. ⁓

So you the honey off of the seaweed or just leave it in there? no, leave it in there. So you can, the seaweed tends to sink after a while. So you can skim the honey off the top if you just want the honey. But I'll often just, I'll just often just leave the seaweed and whole pieces in there and just sprinkle on top of like a grilled goat's cheese or whatever I'm using it for. It's amazing. Amazing. I always think like every time you give us a recipe, it always sounds so interesting, but it's not intricate. It's not complicated. It's very basic, simple.

Just understanding those flavours, isn't it? Basic and simple. That's me all over, Yeah, well, same here. Same here. No need to brag about it. Ian, what's your, what are your top tips for what's coming up in season from Fresh Direct or just across the industry? So it is still that season where we're not quite into spring. There's probably not as many things about as we'd like, but to be honest, it makes you, you know, I've always said, you know, make sure you're better chef because you've got

limited larder to work to and you can get more creative with it. the one thing I do love at the minute, rhubarb, false rhubarb is banging season at the minute. Lovely pink stems that you know we all know the rhubarb as. That'll be going on till about April and then we'll be moving to open field after that. So the difference between the two, false is the stuff that's grown indoors, lovely pink stems, very delicate flavour. Open field is the much

a little bit of time to wait, it's one of those sort of first spring veg that we all really, really look forward to and get very excited about. PSB or purple sprout in broccoli, that's going to be around till about May.

for UK, it'll probably go beyond that in terms of if you're looking at import, but if you want UK grown, you're looking at sort of around May time for that. And purple sprout is really getting popular now. It's overtaking tender stem. And I see it a lot more now in retailers where you never used to because people look like it looks a bit leggy. It's a bit weird, but it's a great veg, especially if you just char grill it, retain the colour or just lightly steam it. It's delicious. Why do we not really talk about a lot of shallots?

We have UK availability year round now at Fresh Director of Shallots. Working with a partner called Parish Farms. So brilliant, know, long shallots, round shallots. If you're familiar with shallots, they're slightly sweeter than a regular onion, more delicately flavoured, but it tends to use quite a lot in fish cookery and so on. But yeah, they're really lovely. Root veg, obviously still a good bet. You know, again, for UK produce, carrots, obviously, but including the heritage varieties, which are getting popular.

Now the sort of the colour, the yellows and the purples and so on. And again, it helps to add a bit of colour to sort of those sort of all sort of late winter sort of coming into spring menus as well. So Chantilly characters as well. They're lovely little baby sweet type potatoes. Celeriac, still good UK. Very much back on trend, actually. Celeriac was a bit of an ugly sister, if you like, but it seems to be growing in popularity. We actually did a dish.

at work last week, which is like a celeriac shawarma. So we basically made like a giant don of kebab out of celeriac by slicing it thickly, marinated it in some sort of Moroccan type spices, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, that stuff, and literally layering it after it's about sort of two foot log and then just slowly cooking it in the oven and carved it like a don of kebab. So that's that was quite interesting. ⁓ And obviously things like beet roots as well.

again, the ones that are growing in popularity, things like the Keogia beetroot or the candy stripe, golden beetroot, white beet. So it's not just about that purple, you know, very earthy flavoured beetroot now. So, you know, if you can dig it out and say that there's a lot of good UK growers that are around. So, you know, that adds a splash of colour as well. Jersey Royals will be coming in from about May or they'll be in from April, but really the best quality and the best price will come.

kicking around about May through to July. You can get some early stuff, is grown under glass or polythene, which will be sort of even available from January, February. But do you want to get a consistent product? So you want to be sort of waiting till about May. And again, we're way off first salad leaves in the UK. But if you really, really want to go British for salad, then maybe look at stuff like vertically farmed grown leaves, which are 12 months of the UK. And also look at

people like Western Zoo we had on here a few episodes back where they're growing things like pea shoots and micro leaves and micro salads under glass. So you're getting a year round availability of that as well here. Very passionate about the UK sort of story. Looking very quickly at fish. We always try to encourage people to try different species. There's even more now because cod prices are going to be rising pretty dramatically because the quota has been reduced.

which will drive up price. So now is a good time to go for things like coli. And we're getting some incredible coli coming from Shetland, would you believe? Really stunning quality fish. And I know a lot of chefs look at things like coli and whiting as poor man's fish. It's a poor substitute for cod and haddock. But honestly, we're getting some great stuff coming through. So worth a go. And also other species like hake. You know, again, it'd probably be a bit more affordable when compared to the likes of cod.

because of that restricted fishing. Flatfish will stop spawning about end of March, April. So you're looking sort of April onwards, the quality should be really, really good on flatfish because they throughout the winter months, they tend to spawn, which means they carry a lot of row, a lot less flesh. So that they will stop spawning now. So flatfish is good to get back on the menu.

Wild bass should be looking at from about April after there is a period of fishing ban for wild bass around the UK and that comes to an end in April. good sustainable choice now as well as it's going up the ratings on the MSC as well. Mackerel, we've probably got a little way to go yet. So Mackerel season will kick off from about April for UK, but the fish will be at its best from June onwards really into those summer months.

just to watch out on that. There's likely to be a higher price on Mackerel than historical because again, that's facing some increased quota restrictions as well. And again, shellfish should be good, reasonably priced. And again, shout out for Shetland Mussels. We've been using those for quite a while now. Fantastic quality, really good product, very clean and nice and plump. So yeah, in a nutshell, that's pretty much it. Could go on for hours as I normally do, but.

Yeah, that's a bit of a potted seasonality insight. Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you. And obviously, if you want some British beef, then there's the Dersbrook Farm in Essex, which Anne has been telling us all about. And if you would like to enhance your cooking skills, ground up Cookery School and the Cookery School at Tewenbury Farm. Excellent. Cheers. Thanks, everybody, for coming. It's really important that we do this for Love British Food and just to direct people.

to their website and what they're trying to do across the industry. I think like we've said today, there is a market for produce from other countries. We can't survive on British food alone, but we do need to maximise what's available, particularly within the public sector, I think is quite important. And then finally, the nod that we always have to give, Universal Culinary and Food Festival. Any details on that? Because I know

both you, Ian and Lee are directors of this so do we know any dates or anything yet? It will be September again we can't release the venue yet because we're just in talks at the minute so watch this space but it will be again amazing as ever Mr Weed and James leading the foraging and Lee keeping it all together basically and keeping us all in line. Brilliant, September's not too far away that'll go quickly I can't wait. Well cheers guys. Yeah thank you.

Thanks Lee, thanks Colin, thanks Anna, much appreciated. Bye bye. Bye bye.

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