Local chilli producer is red hot

Aug 15 2008 by Jane Hall, The Journal

A local chilli producer may be tasting red-hot success after attracting the attention of Tesco. Now other North East producers could follow suit. Jane Hall reports

SOMETHING hot – very hot – is happening at a windswept spot high up on the roof of Northumberland overlooking the bleak but starkly beautiful Cold Fell.

Not that anyone happening to drive past on the unclassified road to Coanwood five miles south of Haltwhistle, would realise.

Behind a row of stone-built cottages at Lane Head lies one of those quirky food producers that the North East seems to specialise in – the memorably named Trees Can’t Dance.

It’s not just its moniker that makes the business stand out, though. For Trees Can’t Dance has an unusual claim to fame. It’s the world’s most northerly chilli farm.

“Until someone proves me wrong and reveals chillies are actually being grown in the Arctic, we are without doubt the world’s most northerly chilli farm,” Dan May, the man behind Trees Can’t Dance, says proudly.

“Not many people will realise this, but on latitude we are actually 300 miles north of Moscow. That’s a great selling point in its own right.”

True. But it is the range of blow-your-head-off chilli-based spices, sauces, rubs, oils and ketchups that Dan and his team have been producing for the past three years that have put both Trees Can’t Dance and the hamlet of Coanwood on the foodie map.

Already selling at farmers’ markets across the region and available on the high street in Fenwick, Newcastle, as well as prestigious London outlets Harrods and Fortnum and Masons, it seems the business could really be about to hit the big time, however.

Tesco is looking to put three of Dan’s sauces – including the aptly named Flaming Hot Lips – on the shelves of its North East stores. And if the tie-in proves a success, customers in other parts of the UK could soon be adding the Trees Can’t Dance name to their grocery lists.

The man responsible for the move is Tesco’s senior buying manager for the North, Alistair Robinson. It is his job to drive local sourcing for Yorkshire and the North East and find quality local products to stock in his employer’s stores.

He admits to having been bowled over by both Dan’s enthusiasm for his products and the high calibre of the nine sauces, four jams, pickles and chutneys, five-spice blends and three in-the-bag marinades currently in Trees Can’t Dance’s repertoire.

He declares himself very hopeful that before the end of the year, Tesco stores across the region will be stocking the firm’s distinctive label with its lone tree atop a hill, and dancing clogs that appear to have been shed like leaves in autumn rolling down the incline. (The logo, Dan explains, is the dreaming tree – a place of permanence where you can solve your problems. “It’s an unchanging thing in a changing world; it does not dance.”)

Working out of Tesco’s recently opened York local buying office, Alistair’s labours are already bearing fruit, with 12 North East artisan food and drink producers now on the supermarket’s shelves under their own names, including Border Fields Cold Pressed Rape Seed Oil from Northumberland and County Durham-based Lanchester Dairies’ ice cream.

It’s all part of Tesco’s plan to boost sales of local produce nationally to £1bn by 2011.

Originally from Rothbury, Northumberland, and a Tesco stalwart of 22 years standing, Alistair is genuinely passionate about North East produce and singing its praises. He describes himself as believing in it wholeheartedly, and says that when he heard a North buying office was being opened, he pestered his bosses for the job.

Much of his time is spent on the road meeting artisans like Dan May in the hope he can sign them up to Tesco’s stable.

It’s a warm but breezy Thursday when Alistair pulls his car into the yard at Trees Can’t Dance after his three-hour drive from York. It is the first time he has ventured to this sparsely populated and wild spot, as at their last meeting it was Dan who ventured south.

At first glance it doesn’t look the best place on earth to be growing something used to balmier climes. But that didn’t put Dan off when he arrived at Lane Head in 2005, and started growing chillies from all over the world in two polytunnels on what was the site of a former agricultural engineering business.

In the process he has created the globe’s most northerly chilli farm, grown the world’s hottest chilli – Bhut jolokia – set up a blossoming business and, in a coals-to-Newcastle scenario, seen his products exported to Mexico, home of the fiery chilli. A new market is also opening up in Spain.

“The Spanish are not fans of hot food,” Dan explains, “but a shop keeper in Menorca was persuaded to take a case of our sauces by our distributor. Within days the shopkeeper was on the phone asking for another five cases.”

That’s the reaction Alistair is hoping for from Tesco customers should Trees Can’t Dance jump the final hurdles necessary to make it on to shelves.

Dan currently grows 70 varieties of chillies and farms around 2,000 bushes. The minimum yield he expects to get in any growing season from one bush is one kilo – more than enough to meet Tesco’s requirements.

Dan’s route to world-class chilli grower is an interesting tale in its own right. Originally from the South West, he worked for 13 years as an advertising photographer in the US and Central America, where he developed a liking for the local cuisine, and chillies in particular.

On his return to the UK he was drawn to Northumberland’s wide open spaces and started growing chillies for his own use. “They grew rather well,” he says.

Disappointed with the quality of the bottled chilli sauce brands available in the UK, he hit on the idea of filling a gap in the market by producing his own using homegrown ingredients.

“The first selling event I did was Hexham Farmers’ Market in 2005, and the sauces sold very well. I then did some other big shows and other farmers’ markets and the sauces continued to sell.”

Any thoughts Dan had of returning to photography were put on the back-burner. “People didn’t think it was going to work for me, which made me even more determined.”

The Tesco deal would be the icing on the cake. While many are sceptical about local sourcing initiatives, seeing the supermarkets as evil personified, Dan has no such qualms. “We take the opportunities when they come along, but we haven’t really cracked the UK market.

“Tesco would be the best opportunity to get into that market. I was the one who actually emailed Alistair about two months ago along the lines of, ‘I don’t know if you have heard of us, but ...’ and 40 minutes later he was on the phone. We organised a meeting in York and now Alistair has come to see us.

“We are seeing if we can make progress, but actually things are moving quite quickly. I am excited at the possibilities it will have for the business. I think the idea of locally branding something for the Northern region for something as unusual as chillies is brilliant.”

Having retired to Dan’s makeshift office in a former mobile home following his tour of the farm, Alistair says one of the big pluses for him was that the chillies genuinely come from Northumberland.

“In terms of the actual product, Dan was good enough to leave me a bottle to try. I added it to whatever we were having for tea that night and was, literally, blown away by it.

“This is a genuinely good product, and a genuinely local one for the North East.”

Alistair is keen to add more local suppliers to his growing list and is looking forward to meeting the scores of producers who will be at The Journal Taste 2 food and drink festival in association with Tesco at the Macdonald Linden Hall hotel, golf and country club near Morpeth on August 30.

The event is in support of The Journal’s buy, use, eat local campaign, follows the success of our Taste 1 food and drink festival held in April which saw more than 10,000 people descent on the National Trust’s Gibside estate near Rowlands Gill. Alistair will be at Linden Hall with his buying team and sees Taste 2 as one of the best opportunities he will have to meet so many artisan producers in one place.

“I love the fact that I am going to see so many suppliers I haven’t met before, and I will be looking to see if there are any products we can put on the shelves. It will also give us the chance to show people we are committed to local produce.

“As a supermarket it is our job to do the best for the customer, and we want local produce to be a part of that.

“Aside from all that, Linden Hall will be a great celebration of all that is local; it is something we should all be proud of.”

Alistair makes no promises, however. “What we can’t do is meet someone now and have it on the shelves this time next week. It has to be right for everybody, and for some producers the supermarket approach won’t be right and we all have to respect that.

“While I am always happy to talk to people and give them my opinion, meeting me doesn’t guarantee you are going to get a listing; the supermarket shelves won’t miraculously grow.

“But I am genuinely interested in helping local producers and in putting local products on the shelves that people will buy.”

Sales are at the heart of the success of any local sourcing initiative, however. If consumers don’t buy, then such schemes will die. Alistair adds: “I genuinely want to put as much local produce on the shelves as I can, but it doesn’t stop there. I want people to take it off the shelves in numbers.

“The ultimate aim is to get a local product and be able to take it national. That way we are really delivering growth to the local economy.

“My target with Trees Can’t Dance would be the whole of the North East, and if we can get the numbers right we could look to getting it into Yorkshire, and then who knows?

“But I can’t make that happen. It has to be up to the customer.”