Real treat in store for festival-goers

Jul 15 2008 by Jane Hall, The Journal

VISITORS to the North East’s biggest celebration of food and drink will be able to dine out in style.

Exclusive picnic hampers featuring luxurious selections of the region’s finest produce will be available for festival-goers wanting to enjoy a gastronomic lunchtime treat at The Journal Taste 2 event in association with Tesco.

Pride of Northumbria recently gained Royal patronage when Prince Edward popped into the company’s high street shop in Newbiggin, Northumberland, for a bite to eat on a visit to the area.

Now you can enjoy eating like a prince yourself with one of Pride of Northumbria’s bespoke gourmet picnic hampers featuring a three course buffet from some of the region’s top artisan producers.

All the tasty treats will be hand packed into a wicker basket to be enjoyed against the Georgian backdrop of the Macdonald Linden Hall Hotel, Golf and Country Club near Morpeth – the stunning venue for Taste 2.

The hampers – which cost £55 for a couple – are the creation of Rebecca de’Wessington, who since launching Pride of Northumbria three years ago, has seen it grow from orders of just over 100 annually to an estimated 1,000 by the end of this year.

She will be the sole supplier of her luxury hampers for the Girls Aloud concert scheduled for Beamish Country Hall Hotel in County Durham on August 24, as well as our own Taste 2 event.

It was ironically at another high profile musical evening – Ronan Keating at Linden Hall in August 2006 – that Rebecca first got her big business break, when she was chosen to exclusively provide the hampers for concert-goers and VIP guests.

Now she will be back at Linden Hall on August 30 for Taste 2, where Rebecca will also be joining the 86 stallholders who have so far signed-up for the one day event.

“It will be wonderful to be back,” the 42-year-old says. “It was the Ronan Keating concert that gave a huge boost to my business, so I have a lot of affection for the place.

“I think it’s fantastic that there is to be a Taste 2. It will showcase a huge amount of food and drink – which is what I am doing on a smaller scale with my hampers – and it will create an awareness across the board for what we have here in the region.

“The North East doesn’t show off enough about the food and drink we have. We are getting better and people are becoming more aware, but there is more that can be done and Taste 2 is a prime example of that.

“I think it is very exciting to have this chance to show people what we have here in Northumbria.”

The Linden Hall event will be extra special for another reason – Taste 2 will also mark the third anniversary of Rebecca setting up her business, which is dedicated to sourcing the best produce from across Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Cleveland and County Durham.

Many of the producers favoured by Rebecca will be at Taste 2, which will be celebrating all that is great about food and drink in the North East with the help of Hairy Bikers Simon King and Dave Myers and a host of other local celebrity chefs.

Rebecca adds: “I want people to know that when they buy a hamper from me, not only are they supporting my business, but at least 10 other people in the region. It has a knock-on effect.”

She came to appreciate quality local food late in life. Rebecca used to work for HM Revenue & Customs in Washington, Tyne and Wear, but when she, husband Ian, 45, and their four children aged between 10-22, moved to Newbiggin in early 2005, she saw it as the chance to change career.

Ian builds websites for a living and had set-up the one for regional food group, Northumbria Larder. “We were talking about local food and how there seemed to be a revival in interest from the public for it,” Rebecca explains. “We talked about hampers and about offering the best Northumbrian produce.

“We felt the time was right to show the people of Northumbria, the UK and further afield the quality food and drink available in this region.

“Now I am doing corporate gifts, taking private orders and am supplying a number of holiday homes.

“People are realising that it’s nice to offer a hamper as a thank-you for hiring their holiday cottage. Leaving a £25 hamper of quality local produce goes a long way to telling someone how much you value them.”