Booths selects Yorkshire’s best

SUPERMARKET chain Booths is giving a winning bunch of Yorkshire’s finest small producers a chance to hit the big time.

After a Dragon’s Den style challenge, the leading regional retailer handpicked a number of local producers to be represented on its shelves for the first time when its new Ripon store opens later this month.

Most of the products chosen have never been sold by a large retailer before.

The successful businesses will go forward to work with Booths and develop their products, which may one day be household names right across the region.

Among the products to have made the top grade is a delicious sloe gin from near York, the world’s only truly authentic Swaledale cheese, a healthy extra virgin rapeseed oil made in Collingham and a range of homemade jams and chutneys from Leyburn.

Booths buyer Phil Godwin said: “We were bowled over by the quality of the goods delivered by some of Yorkshire’s smaller food producers.

“These are passionate individuals who are making exceptional products that have not had the chance to reach a wider audience by making it into the larger stores.”

A total of 50 local producers were given 15 minutes to impress Booths’ buyers at a special event organised in conjunction with the Regional Food Group in February.

Thanks to the event, Booths will now become the first national retailer to stock Sloe Motion’s award-winning sloe gin.

Currently only found in specialist wine merchants and delicatessens, the gin won a gold star in the 2008 Great Taste Awards and also picked up gold in the drinks category of the Daily Telegraph’s Taste of Britain Awards.

Produced at Green Farm in Barton-le-Willows near York, it is made to exactly the same recipe as it has been traditionally in the home for many years.

Local big cheese Mandy Reed, with her daughter Louise and trainee cheesemaker son Sam, will supply their award-winning ewe and goats cheeses to Booths’ new Ripon store, as well as its food stores in Ilkley and Settle.

The family behind The Swaledale Cheese Company are the only artisan cheesemakers now making Swaledale cheese to its original recipe.

In 1995 they achieved Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status from the European Union for both Swaledale Cheese and Swaledale Ewes Cheese and now produce approximately two tonnes of cheese a week.

One of the more unusual products selected is Yorkshire’s Original Extra Virgin Rapeseed Oil which is made by Wharfe Valley Farms in Collingham.

Booths’ buyers were so impressed with the cold pressed oil that they decided to stock it in 17 stores throughout Yorkshire, Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire.

There are no chemicals or heat treatment involved in making the oil which means it has an exceptionally high nutritional value.

Another fruity favourite was White Rose Preserves range of all-natural, home cooked products which include spicy slow roast tomato, Wensleydale and red tomato and ginger chutneys.

From their base at Hill Top Farm near Leyburn in Wensleydale, the family company was started by Jonathan and Helen Sunter in 2005 after they won top awards at the Wensleydale Show for their blackcurrant and raspberry jams.

Mr Sunter said: “The Booths listing is a great boost to our company because its reputation for quality matches our business ethos. We’re really looking forward to the new Ripon store opening and hope to run a series of tastings for customers.”

Also spicing up the new store will be Curry Cuisine’s authentic range of spice mixes, pickles and chutneys, many of which will be available from a supermarket for the first time.

A range of salt-free spice mixes, including one for onion bhajis which only requires the addition of water and onions, will be on offer as well as the company’s aubergine pickle which won a Gold Taste Award in 2008.

A bumper crop of herbs will be sourced from Herbs Unlimited which is based in Sandhutton near Thirsk. Started by ex-chef Alison Dodd 17 years ago, the company grows a variety of herbs as well as unusual herbs such as hyssop, garlic chive and lemon verbena.

A new selection of beers will be on offer from the World Top Brewery in Wold Newton.

This award-winning micro brewery produces a range of traditional beers using high class home-grown malting barley and the purest chalk filtered water from the farm’s own borehole.

Its range includes award winning Wold Top bitter, Falling Stone bitter and Wolds Way pale ale plus Wold Gold.

Booths has always placed a special emphasis on sourcing the very best seasonal and local produce. As a result, many of the cheeses, meats, fruit, vegetables and even confectionery that Booths stock can’t be found in any other supermarket.