Our Blog

We live in a time of great change in our ‘food systems’, the complex webs of production, processing, transport and consumption, and it seems almost incredible that, whilst the world has managed to halve the number of seriously hungry people to about 800 million, it has doubled the number of overweight and obese people to around 2 billion. There are so many problems out there, from over-popu ...

You don’t hear much talk about it these days, but the ‘hungry gap’ is a long-standing description of the period between mid April and early June when British farms have finished the winter crops, but aren’t yet ready with the Spring ones. It is traditionally the time of year when the quantity and variety of food is at its lowest, which can seem very strange when the sun is shining, and the ...

We have many Saint’s days in these islands, and the one that comes along this week on April 23rd, Saint George’s day, normally heralds the start of the summer: cricket replacing football, and long evenings spent outside in the (we hope) sunshine. In our kitchens, Saint George’s Day has always been associated with roast beef, bread and butter pudding and, if you are lucky, a good tea of scon ...

I’m absolutely buzzing to share this message from Chloe, Project Officer for the bee-rilliant Bee the change campaign: “2021 is the year to Bee the Change!" The Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s new Bee the Change campaign is all about simple, quick micro-actions people can do to make their postcodes more bumblebee-friendly. It doesn’t matter if they live in the city or the countrysid ...

We are delighted to hear that you would like to continue your support for our work and be part of our exciting plans for 2021. Despite the many operational challenges in 2020, here are some of the highlights of what we have achieved with your support: In early 2020 we launched a new project, the Fowey Valley Bumblebee Project. Working with partners in Cornwall, this project is testing the Univers ...

We’ve got more weeks of this, you know, and it isn’t too late to make the best of it. The one thing that you may have more of on your hands than you did before is time, and time is one of the key ingredients for learning new cookery skills, and experimenting with new dietary choices. You can even start to change your underlying habits to make your kitchen a more sustainable place. I have jo ...

Known also as the Lunar New year, or the Spring Festival, it’s the most important of the many Chinese festivals and can trace its origins back into the time of the Bronze Age. The idea started off as a date that marked winter sacrifices to gods and ancestors, a pagan festival that brought people together at the turning of the year. One idea was that a mythical beast called Nian needed simultane ...

Tucking into pasta made from scratch in a rich ragu it isn’t hard to conjure up why I find plant based eating a joy. Through plant-based eating I’ve been led to understand food, appreciate seasonality (though if we could not be in leek season any more that would be wonderful), and actually learn how to cook properly. Much like the banana bread and sourdough moments of 2020 as people returned t ...

We were thrilled to receive Dexam’s wheat fibre measuring cups. These were a fabulous way to support our latest six week food education programme as all our recipes were converted into cup measurements to avoid the need for weighing scales, which ensured everyone could participate using them from home.  This format is something we are hoping to repeat again with different groups throughout ...

Whether fondue for you means cheese or chocolate; there are so many unknown uses that your fondue pot holds….or could do, if you owned one. Let us enlighten you on a few of the surprising wonders of owning a fondue set Fondue. Whether you prefer to dip strawberries into a warm chocolate sauce or bread into creamy cheese, using your set for its original function is fun and exciting every time ...