Standing in the Palace of Westminster this week surrounded by the UK’s movers and shakers, I watched lords, ladies, cabinet ministers, members of parliament and platoons of besuited helpers and advisors tucking into some of the finest food and drink the nation has to offer. For it was the day when Devon’s finest cheese-makers, cider-makers, distillers, jam-makers, pork-pie creators and goodness who else had taken their wares to London in a bid to showcase the county’s rich and fabulous larder to the wider nation. Food Drink Devon - which is championing quality, sustainability and provenance wi ..read more

Food and drink innovation centre The Food WorksSW has launched an exciting competition offering food and drink producers, hospitality businesses or start-ups across the United Kingdom the chance to win a unique prize worth over £3,000. Based in the heart of the Weston-super-Mare Enterprise Area, the centre, which is the only one of its kind in the south west, is offering five days’ free use of a state-of-the-art development kitchen, each of which contains specialist equipment tailored to five key areas within the industry - bakery, dairy, drinks, commercial and trial. The centre’s New Product ..read more

For centuries food producers would make an item, put it in their shop or take it to a local market, and sell it. Now we live in a very different world, as Jeremy Clarkson has been discovering at the Diddly Squat farm shop featured in his popular TV series. If you are making edible items to sell, there are countless hurdles, and miles of red tape to negotiate, which is a good thing because the regulations are designed to safeguard and protect consumers. But there is a conundrum. At a time when most people are becoming more adventurous in their tastes and foodie desires, those who develop new f ..read more

A long time ago February 14th was probably as good a day to be celebrating the subject of love compared as any other - for that was when the ancient Romans commemorated Juno, queen of the Roman gods and goddesses. Back then things would have warmed up considerably the next day when the Feast of Lupercalia, a bizarre festival based on love-making, would excite things a good deal further. When the early Christians came along they were, of course, against such shenanigans. They soon invented a toned-down event which concentrated on the romantic rather than the erotic. They even had a saint at the ..read more

With news this week that the cost of food is being hit by record rates of inflation, many people will be wondering how they’re going to continue filling the pantry shelves. Having already soared to a record high of 13.3 per cent in December, food inflation rose even further in January to hit 13.8 per cent, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). Most food-shoppers will probably have had jaw-dropping-moments when they’ve spotted items for sale with price-tags which have stopped them in their tracks. Mine occurred in one of the cheaper supermarkets where I saw a sma ..read more

Someone once claimed we were a nation of shopkeepers, but anyone who knows the South West region will be aware that when it comes to food and drink we are more about artisan producers and makers of fine quality items than we are about retail outlets. The West Country has its stores and big supermarkets but, as a region, it is particularly rich in enterprises which focus on creating items as well as selling them. There’s a veritable forest of food and drink producers based across the wider South West - but the trouble with any kind of forest is that sometimes you can’t see the wood for the tree ..read more

We’ve experienced some wild weather recently, which may sound like an odd way of starting an article about food - until you remember that most of the stuff we put on our plates probably came from the great outdoors.  As storm after storm has hit this week, some of us in our cosy kitchens may have been sparing a thought for people like the farmers who must tend livestock in such conditions or who’ll be worrying about over-wintering crops and early planting regimes. But the folk I really think about as the wind rages and the Atlantic tries its best to invade the land are the people who go o ..read more

It’s that time of year when the palates of even the greediest food-lovers can become a little jaded. We’ve just been through the annual period of maximum consumption during which most of us will have eaten our way through everything from massive Christmas dinners to dainty canapés. We tried to ring the changes with our smoked salmon blinis and our signature turkey curry, but now we are running out of steam both as home-cooks and as creatures who simply must eat to sustain life and limb.  Adding to the culinary weariness there is the fact that we have one last celebration to enjoy (or endu ..read more

There’s a phrase about a thing being greater than the sum of its parts - which can be particularly relevant in the world of food and drink where the marriage of just a couple of items can produce an experience far more interesting and enjoyable than the individual ingredients are capable of producing on their own. And you could argue that Christmas is the time of year when we really reach out for these marriages made-in-heaven. Take port and stilton as a classic example. Most of us do not, on a daily basis, swill down a glass of port every time we take a nibble of the famous blue cheese - but ..read more

Following a recipe is always a bit hit and miss. In rural parts of the country it sometimes means home-cooks must scrabble about looking for alternative ingredients - until recently there was no way our smaller local shops could have carried the increasingly vast range of our burgeoning culinary requirements. The arrival of supermarkets and the ability to shop online has changed that, but now keen cooks have been hit by another hurdle - the rapidly rising cost of actually cooking food.  Estimates vary regarding the cost of powering a domestic oven - obviously it varies depending on which ..read more