The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Rosemary on July 02, 2013, 08:12:21 pm
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"Unfortunately, the big negative from the show, also comes from the food sector. If Scotland really does want to be portrayed as the Land of Food and Drink, then crappy burgers in dry rolls at around a fiver a time must be consigned to the history books."
The quote above is from the editorial in The Scottish Farmer last week.
How does the catering rate at your local livestock market and local agri show? Does it actively support quality, local produce and producers?
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im sure iv seen angus beef in a roll, quite pricey but popular.
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At the Royal Welsh Spring Festival there was quite a bit of local produce. I had sausage in a roll (acutally 3 sausages) they were locally produced and lovely. Oh well, back to the diet :(
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We're as likely to choose an auction mart to eat out at as any café or restaurant.
Most of ours do proudly use local produce, yes.
The best (in our opinion) is Mitchells (Lakeland) Auction at Cockermouth :yum:
The biggest and best breakfast is at Longtown ;)
The best fish and chips in the north of England (that I've discovered so far) is at Hexham Auction Mart.
The teeny atmospheric mart at St John's Chapel has a wee van outside. The bacon butties are awesome. :)
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I used to do catering at shows and festivals. The good ones charge a reasonable pitch fee, some can be upwards of a £1000 or they put the lot out to contract out to a big supplier that will cream off the burger van as that makes the most profit then sell pitches on to other caters often at huge fees so they have to charge high prices to cover their costs.
I did a big farming show two years running, I was booked to do healthy food but our biggest seller was always the free range Norfolk Black bacon served in a fresh bakers roll from our local village bakery. I managed to make a profit although I was next to a bigger operation as we concentrated on quality and good service and if anyone asked about where the meat came from I had the wrappers to show them.
Using local producers takes effort and some although they produce good quality products they may not be suitable for fast food service, its just so much easier to go to Bookers and buy a cheap mass produced sausage that is full of grease and little else which probably costs them 10p.
The East of England show ground used to have policy that to obtain a pitch you had to prove your supplies were sourced locally which is a good idea but I think the pitches should be priced on takings with a smaller booking fee.
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The sad reality is, profit will be king...I think most people are conditioned (sadly) to expect just a burger or just a sausage at out door events
where as if you have a little regular spot pitch ,(roadside lay-by) where the customer will return time after time, it would pay to make yourself a good name, using quality produce.
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I have no idea... As a vegetarian, I always take my own food. Don't want anything with sugar, either, or white flour - well, nothing with wheat, really - so there's nothing left to eat! Except, sometimes, strawberries.
I do find that they often overcharge on drinks, too. £1.50 for a teaspoon full of instant coffee with some hot water is a bit much. So I take my own flask, too (should have decaf, anyway - and try getting that anywhere...)
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free range Norfolk Black bacon
is that turkey ham? ???
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free range Norfolk Black bacon
is that turkey ham? ???
No :thinking: i think he means bacon from Large Black pigs kept in Norfolk ;D well i hope they do.
Mandy :pig:
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well i do lots of shows marts etc and this does need sorting the best i would say is lanark by far there is no other worth the effort .The festival is at lanak so there wont be a problem with food very clean and nice .I have apps to stop asda is fave rd with marks and Spencer top for sand wighis
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Wasn't too impressed with Lanark, don't think that the sausage had ever heard of a pig let alone contain any.
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My bacon came from these people, http://www.scottsfieldpork.co.uk/ (http://www.scottsfieldpork.co.uk/) rare breeds black pigs.
I always went for quality as on a two to three day event you always will get repeat custom from exhibiters. Its a very tough market and the bigger outfits I have seen could not care less about their customers, on the standard burger in a bun the burger and the bun have probably cost less than 50p.
The funny thing is I do not eat meat and my original concept was vegetarian food, which at the bigger festivals sells well but at some shows you do very little sales and still have to pay the same amount for the pitch so I broadened my range.
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:wave:
I find that you have to search at the big shows for decent, local produce. It's always there, but often at a high price.
I find the food is often better at the small agricultural shows, where you have a 50/50 chance of buying decent local food. Lincolnshire is pretty good for food though.
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Best ever catering at a show I went to was a portable (in a van) wood fired pizza oven! Choose your topping, it was rolled, covered and baked in 90 seconds and tasted awesome! I usually find as someone else said, that the big pitches go to ghastly caterers, and the smaller shows have local independent ones who always provide better food. Round here, some of the smaller shows have really top notch locally sourced food - local venison, boar and rabbit burgers for example, and good vegetarian options including caribbean and curries. Mind you, we are lucky enough to have a very developed food culture here. i think the journalist in your case is bang on the money - it's up to people to stop buying expensive rubbish food and demand more. Sadly, you will probably have to go rough a stage of having crappy burgers before people stop buying them, then these largemoney driven bids for pitches will stop and encourage new smaller local businesses in. You might have to pay extra for it though!
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Hmm, yes and some of the big boys seem to ba able to buy a monopoly >:(
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Bath and West show was pants :P the livestock food hall was expenisive and the portions small. Compared to Devon show they suck. The burgers and mobile food stalls were good but as usual they were very expensive.
On to a related subject :-J the toilets at B&W were awful i know we have animals but we don't live like them, in fact nothing likes to live in it's own sh**, the toilets were overflowing in the livestock carpark and the sanitary boxes in the ladies were also overflowing! a big thumbs down for them I doubt i will go again.
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On to a related subject :-J the toilets
Have to say at both Three Counties Malvern & Cheshire show the toilet facilities were exceptionally good, constantly serviced by a whole raft of operatives, plenty of soap & towels and very clean.
Food mixed bag as ever the usual dross burger vans and stuff but if you looked hard and paid the price there was good food to be had (the pizza oven mentioned on a previous post was at Malvern and there were some good local foods available at Cheshire)
Mandy :pig:
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Melton Market, has a lot of food resellers and the majority are top notch. The pub does breakfast and its a resonable affair.
Newark Market is probably the best breakfast at markets I attend, they have had their moments, trying other sausages, but most farmers aren't shy at expressing their distaste :farmer:
Markets down south surprise me Vince and Pullin I think near Cirencester, struggled last year at the rare breeds sale, they had a tiny little frying pan machine and couldn't keep up, it must have been close to an hour wait.
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"Unfortunately, the big negative from the show, also comes from the food sector. If Scotland really does want to be portrayed as the Land of Food and Drink, then crappy burgers in dry rolls at around a fiver a time must be consigned to the history books."
The quote above is from the editorial in The Scottish Farmer last week.
How does the catering rate at your local livestock market and local agri show? Does it actively support quality, local produce and producers?
I read that and thought it was interesting..... Myself I thought it was a little bit harsh. The food isn't brilliant at every stand, but there are some good food stands there. The prices are high, they have been for years because they have a captive market! If I know people are visiting, I tell them to bring a picnic if they can.
I would say there are three kinds of food stands at RHS, stands in the food hall, stands in the show ground who have paid for their particular pitch as a trade stand, and the company that RHS has a contract with. There is good food available- what other show do you see stall selling fresh shellfish to eat? I haven't seen that anywhere else.
The contracted company isn't great, it's effectively fish and chip type food, but a bit less good than your local chippie. However- it does sterling service for exhibitors. Where else can you get something hot to eat at 6:30 pm on Sunday night ahead of your 3 hour drive home? No where else in the showground- that's what RHS have the contract for. I would add though, the stock mans restaurant- they haven't changed their menu in at least 15 years!
In all honesty, why should it stop at food? What beer do they sell in the herdsmen? Shouldn't they be promoting local scottish small beer/ale/cider producers? But no one ever mentions that....
Strathaven show does a great lunch- they use a local bakery, and they do great food.
Beth
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Since it is the RHS that this is about,all pitches are on a rental even the ones (contracted to the show). Gilbert(country kitchen) had an involvement with the previous caterers (strachan kerr) All the food retailers could be cheaper if the show did not charge an arm and a leg for there pitches. i think from memory the herdsmans rental is£18,000 and the smaller stands are £1,800 Try getting a burger van into T in the park. I liked the simmental steak burger at a £5 washed down with a £3.50 pint of lager
Biggar show catering is run by a small tea room.
regards bb
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I had really good stovies at the Highland ;D
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I neglected to attend southsheep last year, but when I went in 2012, there was a notable absence of anything on offer that had any lamb in it, which was pretty poor....
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I neglected to attend southsheep last year, but when I went in 2012, there was a notable absence of anything on offer that had any lamb in it, which was pretty poor....
That's really bad, I wonder if they couldn't find anyone, didn't bother to try or assumed all sheep farmers get to eat plenty of lamb the rest of the year?