Festival will give a taste of North East

Apr 23 2008 by Jane Hall, The Journal

You have supported us, so we are supporting you. So says one of the team behind the hugely successful Look What We Found gourmet ready meals brand as more than 60 North East food and drink producers prepare to gather alongside a host of local celebrity chefs for one of the region’s biggest culinary experiences of the year.

It will have taken The Journal just three weeks to organise our first Taste North East England Food and Drink Festival in association with the National Trust planned for this Saturday [APRIL 26] at Gibside estate near Rowlands Gill.

Local artisan food and drink producers signed-up to the idea in double quick time – with scores more adding their names to a reserve list in the hope of securing a last minute pitch for the day-long event.

Local chefs – including Hairy Biker Simon King from Prudhoe, Northumberland – are giving their time for free to host cookery demonstrations using local, seasonal ingredients and to meet stallholders, while the likes of regional food group Northumbria Larder, Waitrose in Hexham, and City Centre Partnership, which runs the Sunday quayside market in Newcastle, have all come on board with sponsorship.

Keith Gill of Look What We Found believes the launch of The Journal’s buy local, use local, eat local campaign at the end of January to encourage consumers, retailers, hoteliers and restaurateurs to use their purchasing power to support the region’s artisan food and drink producers, explains the fantastic backing there has been for the Gibside event.

Mr Gill said: "The amount of coverage The Journal has been giving local food on the back of the launch of your Taste campaign, has been very much appreciated. It is what has been needed. We are supporting your campaign, and I think everyone else is backing The Journal too. I think it’s a case of if you show support to the food industry, then we will support you."

Look What We Found, made by the Consett-based Tanfield Food Company founded in 2004, will be exhibiting at Gibside.

Mr Gill said: "We will be asking what people think. We have just launched customer feedback bubbles on the back of packs asking questions like, ‘do you think free range tastes the best?’

"We want to tap into what people think – and if anybody has any traditional recipes they want to pass on, then we will have a look."

Look What We Found has just completed a series of successful taste testings at the Asda, Benton, Newcastle store. The range is available in Asda’s North East shops, Booths in the north west, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose nationally, and is on the menu at British Airways Club World.

Mr Gill, who along with Tanfield Food co-founder Roger McKechnie was behind the Best-selling Phileas Fogg crisps, said: "Asda and ourselves have both been pleasantly surprised with how the tastings have gone. The sampling exercise really was phenomenal and we are getting very good levels of sales in Asda. We have seen 15% uplift on running sales."

Mr Gill believes Look What We Found is on the verge of becoming a major national food brand. "The market is coming our way as people are becoming more concerned about healthy eating, sustainability, wastage and carbon impact. The way we cook the meals and the product mix all fit into that new agenda."

As a company Tanfield sources the very best local produce from the region’s farmers, who are featured on product packs. Dishes include Tweedside Honey in English Parsnip Soup where consumers can read about Frances Robson of the Chain Bridge Honey Farm near Berwick and her hardy northern European bees.

Thousands are expected to descend on the ancestral estate of the Bowes-Lyon family for what promises to be a spectacular celebration of some of the best food and drink available anywhere in the UK. Apart from stalls there will be a wine and beer marquee, crafts and face painting for children, cookery demonstrations and music from North Tyneside Steel Band.