Your top ten North East stockists

May 22 2009 By The Journal

IT'S no good producing the best food and drink in Britain if you have nowhere to sell it. We salute those firms who find success in selling local goods.

The Pantry

In the shadow of Bamburgh Castle, The Pantry offers the best in local produce. Since owner Julie Spruce opened the store in 2001, she has made a point of stocking the quality on offer from the region’s producers, including Heatherslaw, Mr BBQ, Wildon Grange, Look What I Found, Doddington cheeses, and kippers and crab from Swallows. The delicatessen offers the best in tasty treats for local families and tourists alike.

Moorhouse Farm Shop

Moorhouse Farm Shop has generations of farming experience to draw on. As well as stocking the best in local foodstuffs and offering a comfortable coffee shop haven, the Stannington Station store stocks pork, beef and lamb reared on its own family farm, then matured and cut at the farm shop butchery to ensure maximum flavour. An extensive range of joints, steaks, sausage and burgers as well as fresh chickens can be picked up, as can home-made pies and ready meals prepared on site.

Blagdon Farm Shop

Shoppers don’t have to venture out to rural villages to find stores well stocked with local delicacies. Blagdon Farm Shop, near Newcastle, aims always to fill its shelves with Northumbrian produce, before looking farther afield for the “best of the rest”. The owners sell only food produced by farms that are either organic or following traditional farming methods. A wide range of freshly picked fruit and vegetables from the farm and Victorian walled garden at Blagdon are also worth adding to your basket.

Stewart & Co

Even more central to Newcastle is Stewart & Co, in Jesmond. As well as offering the finest in home-baked treats to “complete” morning coffee or afternoon tea, the store runs an in-house butcher’s, producing hand-made sausages and dry-cured bacon. Bookworms will soon be able to settle down with the enviable combination of an enjoyable read and fine snacks when Stewart & Co takes charge of the cafe at Newcastle’s new Central Library when it opens later this year.

Brocksbushes Farm

In the heart of the Tyne Valley, near Corbridge, Brocksbushes Farm has pick-your-own strawberry and raspberry fields, asparagus fields and an award-winning farm shop and tea room. Over the past 25 years the site has evolved from an acre of soft fruit with a tiny farm store to the thriving rural retail hub it has become today. The farm’s current 35 acres of soft fruit, and five acres of vegetables, enable it to provide fresh fruit and vegetables for picking from the middle of June until the end of October.

Food Local Food

As the name suggests, Food Local Food is committed to promoting the wealth of producers from our region. Where other stockists focus on attracting customers in, Bothal-based Food Local Food allows you to have the goods delivered to your door after you order online. The company brings together produce and products from more than 100 North East suppliers – meat, vegetables and dairy from the region’s farms, biscuits, cakes and desserts from our bakers, fish landed on our own coastline and beers from our own breweries – all on one website. www.foodlocalfood.co.uk .

Tully’s of Rothbury

There was a time when all products lining the shelves of village stores would be local, because it was the only way to ensure freshness and quality. That’s the tradition Tully’s of Rothbury has endeavoured to continue. The Coquet Valley store has operated as a grocer’s for more than 100 years. In the early days the family used to take a travelling shop, a horse and cart in those days, as far as Otterburn and the North Coquet Valley. In 1998 Edwin Tully, the third generation of this family of grocers, retired, selling the concern to Rich and Sue Hurst, who have dedicated their time to refurbishing and restoring the shop interior.

Piercebridge Organic Farm Shop

Piercebridge Organic Farm Shop has seen farmer Chris and Liz Hodgson featured on Rick Stein’s Food Heroes of Britain. That’s what they have become locally too, in the attractive little village of Piercebridge, just outside Darlington. As well as rearing their own organic chickens, beef cattle and sheep, the couple also run a cafe alongside the food store. The perfect place to stop off to stock up on County Durham's finest wares.

David Carr’s corner shop

David Carr’s corner shop in Longframlington, Northumberland, took the top national honour in the best shop category for rural retailers, in 2006. Described as the “hub of the community” by judges. While David stocks the best in local fruit, veg and produce, neighbours R Green and Son provide the finest cuts in locally reared meat. What was once the “second shop” is now the centre of the Greens’ operation. If you're searching for locally-focused stockists, then a trip to Longframlington could well be in order.

The Country Barn

Farm shop, coffee shop, village shop – The Country Barn, in Widdrington, Morpeth, offers one of the more spectacular spots to fill your basket, with views over Druridge Bay. Based at Widdrington Farm, the site has been in owner Hugh Annett's family since 1515. Today the modern and well-stocked store offers the kind of culinary treats that bring a pantry to life, including beef and lamb fresh from the farm. The deli sells now renowned Cornish pasties and sausage rolls, as well as Chevington Cheese, invented by Hugh's ancestors.