Food Glorious Food & Shrinking our Waste

Food Glorious Food

On Thursday, I was at the Food Glorious Food event held at Over Barn Farm to find Gloucestershire’s best food and drink producer. I was on the judging panel alongside Rosie Ginday (AKA Miss Macaroon), Phil Vickery (TV Chef and ex England Rugby player), Paul Williamson from Hillside Brewery, and Adam Henson (TV Presenter, Author & Farm owner).

The judges including myself, Phil Vickery (TV Chef and ex England Rugby player), Rosie Ginday (AKA Miss Macaroon), Paul Williamson from Hillside Brewery & Adam Henson (TV Presenter, Author & Farm owner)

 

I was really pleased to see the high calibre of finalists that the Gloucestershire area has to offer ranging from sustainable vegan produce to low sugar fitbakes and wine ice cream.

 

We are proud to promote these local food and drink suppliers as they provide real support to their local communities, creating new jobs and innovative ideas. 

 

The competition was really hard to judge as the standard was so high but the overall winner in the end was Deborah Flint from The Pie House at Cinderhill Farm located in the village on Lydney who make sausage rolls and foggies (a Forest of Dean pasty). Created using the very best of local produce, their sustainable ingredients include seed-topped rolls to interesting fillings which make their pasties completely unique.

 

Food Glorious Food Winner 2019, Deborah Flint from The Pie House at Cinderhill Farm

 

They win £10,000, technical support and premium shelf space in all our 52 Gloucestershire stores. 

You can read more about their story here (Pie House section).

 

All the ten finalists will also appear on the shelves of our Gloucestershire stores as part of our Best of our Counties range.

 

‘Shrink our Waste’ event

On Tuesday we held a plastics event at Shrewsbury University which sadly I wasn’t able to attend but I have received very positive feedback from it. This member event showcased what we are doing as a Society to reduce waste and single-use plastics. The event gave the chance for members, colleagues and community groups to have an open discussion about what is happening locally and to develop shared practical solutions.

 

60 people attended the event and we were able to connect 18 local community initiatives already in place in Shropshire to help tackle single-use plastics, helping to maximise the overall impact across the county. I was particularly pleased to hear that Lucy Sutton from our Ludlow Food Store attended the event to provide her views on how we can reduce single-use plastics.  Lucy approached me at the Colleague Forum last year to share her ideas on this issue, and since then has supported our activities, including at this recent event.          

 

I am really proud to see our colleagues like Lucy getting involved and please continue to leave me comments and have your say on these important issues.

 

Mike Pickering, CSR Manager with Lucy Sutton from our Ludlow Food Store

 

Fairtrade Fortnight

We’re near the end of Fairtrade Fortnight which has been a real success so I’d like to thank everyone who has helped organise our activities this year. We’ve been promoting Fairtrade products throughout our stores over the fortnight and have had really good engagement with colleagues, Members and customers.

 

We’ve held Member events at our Bourton, Bicton and Chipping Norton stores where we have promoted our Fairtrade recipe booklet and had instore demonstrations. At the Chipping Norton food store, Cat Rayner, the Campaign Manager at the Fairtrade Foundation, spoke passionately about their campaign to get a living income for women cocoa farmers in West Africa. She made quite an impact with our Members dressed in her banana suit!

Cat Rayner, Campaign Manager from the Fairtrade Foundation at the Chipping Norton Food store raising awareness of Fairtrade to our members

 

The highlights video of Jennie Simpson, who won our Ethical Adventure of a Lifetime competition to Guatemala to see our Fairtrade coffee, has been viewed over 32,000 times, a fantastic result. Co-op News also published a really good interview with Jennie – to read it click here.

 

That’s all for this week on my blog, if you enjoyed reading on the various topics don’t hesitate to let me know your comments below.