Blog Forman and Field

Follow the link below to listen to Lance chatting to Peter White on last Friday’s You and Yours program for Radio 4. Peter came to visit us recently to take a tour round the smokehouse and our new restaurant Formans London in particular. They talked about the new premises but also revisited the story of our Olympic relocation and compulsory puchase battle.

Click here to listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00l36gv (available until Friday 3rd July

I always struggle to think of good ideas for birthday gifts and other special occasions. To be honest, I just don’t have time to shop, and I’m sure many of you are the same.

For that reason I am delighted to introduce The Handpicked Collection who are offering Forman & Field customers a £5 Gift Voucher for orders over £30 placed up the end of August. To claim your gift voucher click on the voucher below, choose what you want to buy and then enter HP12 into the Voucher Code box at the checkout.

All the products are selected by a panel of “influential trendsetters” – have no fear, I’m not one of them! – so the quality is excellent.

Lance had the pleasure of talking to Robert Elms live on BBC Radio London as part of his ‘Made in London’ feature this week. They discussed the history of Formans and salmon smoking in the East End, as well as our relocation to our new home on Fish Island.

Until the 22nd of June you can hear the interview in full via the BBC iPlayer, click on the link below and scroll through the programe to around 2 hours 7 minutes to listen.

Click here: Robert_Elms_15_06_2009

Forman & Field supplier Carroll’s Heritage Potatoes will feature on the climax of the fiercely contested series between the nations finest chefs at 8pm tonight. Ross Kemp hosts a home coming banquet for the British troops returning from Afghanistan. The theme of the meal is “A Taste of Home”, and it will be a memorable feast!

The gathering is held at Halton House, Buckinghamshire where chef Kenny Atkinson will be representing the North East and cooking a starter of beef and carrot salad with horseradish and Shetland Black crisps made with potatoes from Forman & Field supplier Carroll’s Heritage.

Watch the show at 8pm on BBC2 tonight.

We were really pleased to host a session of the Drawing London Group at our smokery restaurant Formans last week. There’s a great review of it and some cracking sketches of the view from our from our balcony on Katherine Tyrrell’s blog, have a read by clicking HERE.

We had a sizzling review of our bacon in the Observer Food Monthly recently. 5 stars and beating competition from M&S, Waitrose and Tesco’s.

Forman & Field Bacon

“Pretty damned good. I haven’t had bacon like this for a while. Hickory-smoked, sweet and porky. And a nice thick cut. Lovely.” Tom Conran

Read the review in full by CLICKING HERE

The best bacon in the country could be yours too CLICK HERE!

There have been some interesting stories relating to organic food of late.

On the 20th of April The Telegraph broke the story that the supermarket yoghurt brand ‘Rachel’s Organic’ was dropping the ‘O’ word from its name. Apparently sales of organic produce have been dropping off since the second half of 2008.

The Telegraph 20th April 2009

Then The Times followed up the same story with more of a general hunch that the 4 x 4 brigade were abandoning organic flagships like Daylesford and joining the bargain hunter queues at their local Aldi instead.

The Times May 10th 2009

We’ve never been particularly big on organic, although we’re rather partial to Neal’s Yard’s organic creme fraiche and we’d never say no to one of Popina’s glorious organic tarts. The movement was originally about eating high quality, natural food with minimal additives. Our problem with it is that it has become a rulebook the supermarkets could bend to charge more for food that was no better. What’s more, the small producers who make the best, most natural food often can’t afford the investment in systems and production techniques necessary to meet the criteria.

Organic Creme Fraiche

I’ll give you two examples. At the Denham Estate they rear rare breed White Park cattle in an ancient apple orchard, surely the most idyllic farming environment imaginable. They were unable to gain organic status for the herd because in order to keep the cattle in the orchard they need to use some harmless herbicide to stop the thistles taking over and rendering it useless for livestock. It’s the same sort of ridiculous logic that means the only organic fish are farmed and not wild. I ask you, which of the two is more in keeping with what consumers want when they spend extra on the organic label?

Shoppers who want to put better food on their plates may well be turning away from organic but our experience is not that those people are heading down market but that they are instead buying food from small producers who embody everything the organic movement was originally meant to be, whether or not it says so on the label.