Blog Forman and Field

Months of debate over planning has finally been resolved and resulted in Forman’s being granted planning for a temporary venue next to our existing site where we will create ‘London’s Living Room‘ for the duration of the 2012 Olympic Games.

Our new site will house a giant ‘sofa’ building with space for restaurants, outdoor events, a media centre, hospitality venues and much more. An opportunity for people to come and enjoy the atmosphere of the games even if not lucky enough to have a ticket to enter the park itself. We hope it will also attract investment to Fish Island in the longer term and eventually be redeveloped to provide a new cultural centre for our area.

More information on London’s Living Room here – http://www.formansfishisland.com/new_venue.php

Watch the BBC news report by clicking on the image below…

We’re delighted to announce our sponsorship of British handball team member – 38 caps no less – and 2012 Olympic hopeful Louise Jukes.

As our MD Lance Forman said, “ Here at Forman’s we are very excited about sponsoring Louise. As we are only 100 metres from the Olympic Park and have been involved in the Olympics for eight years this is a highlight for us”. He added, “Our business is about dedication, quality and skill to deliver hand- made artisan products”. Being an athlete needs all these skills and more and Louise is a huge inspiration to all of us here at Forman’s!”

Louise Jukes said “It is a great honour to be sponsored by Forman’s; their help makes the journey to the Olympic Games a million times easier and certainly less stressful. I’m able to focus 100 per cent on my training and preparations for 2012 thanks to their support.  The amazing venue and location of Forman’s means that every-time I visit them I can see in front of me exactly what I’m striving for.”

Arthur Somerset, Director of Events said “We have met a lot of top Olympic athletes here over the past three years. This has inspired our Christmas Party theme, Twenty 12 days of Christmas, Five Gold Rings, that brings the athletes to your Christmas event.  It’s fun, inspirational and brings the excitement of the forthcoming 2012 Olympics to your event as well as raising funds for our wonderful athletes.”

Louise Jukes and Lance Forman on the roof terrace at Forman’s Fish Island, the closest venue to the 2012 Olympic Stadium and closer than any building has been to any Olympic stadium in living memory.

Our connection goes back to when we served our famous London Cure Smoked Salmon at the Handball Arena in the Olympic Park when it was opened earlier this year by Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.

Our yard was turned into an East London recreation of a summer music festival last week for the filming of the video for Coke’s 2012 Olympics anthem. Mark Ronson has sampled the sounds of sport, the groans, grunts, the thunks and slaps of top atheletes competing, to make a track to soundtrack the sponsor’s Olympics campaigns.

Ronson, who said it was a “no-brainer” to try to be involved, travelled to the athletes’ home grounds to record them.

Britain’s Darius Knight, a 21-year-old table tennis player, cringed as Ronson told Coca-Cola’s global London 2012 marketing launch, that his “very unusual grunt” will now be immortalised in the song.

The chart star said: “Darius has this very unusual sound. It is great. Sometimes he uses it to put off his opponents and sometimes it is a sound of victory – to me it sounded like James Brown so I knew I would use that.”

Ronson said he turned Kseniya Vdovina, a 400m sprinter from Russia, into “the bionic woman” by attaching microphones to her body.

The best sounds from Mexican taekwondo star Maria Espinoza were “the screams and the grunts that she made when she was kicking the c*** out of somebody”, according to Ronson.

Here are the Olympic Fast-Track athletes – each aiming to move as fast as a salmon during London 2012.   Guess who is the least athletic.  Yes – third to the right.

In order, left to right:

Lawrence Okoye

Discus: PB 67.63

Lawrence Okoye is set to be a star of British athletics for many years to come. The 19 year-old Londoner holds the British discus record at 67.63 metres, the fourth furthest in the world this year and the longest by any teenager in history. At school, Okoye was nicknamed Jonah Lomu and at the late age of eighteen joined the London Irish rugby academy before switching to athletics. In an decision to explore his throwing talent, the Croydon talent postponed an offer to study law at Oxford University and took. With his full attention now firmly fixed on athletics, he won his first international title at the European Under-23 Championships in Ostrava in July 2011. Okoye, who stands at a formidable 6ft 6in tall, has emerged as a star and one to watch at the London Olympics in 2012.

Perri Shakes-Drayton
400m hurdles
PB: 54.18secs

Perri Shakes-Drayton narrowly missed out on a place in 2008 Beijing Olympic team after beating Tasha Danvers, the British number one at the Aviva National Championships and Olympic trials in Birmingham who went on to claim the bronze medal in China.  In 2009 her talent continued to blossom and with victories at the England U23 Championships and the European U23 Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania. 2010 saw her move up a gear when in Barcelona at the European Championships, she claimed the bronze medal over the one lap hurdles with a life-time best of 54.18 and anchored the relay squad to a creditable bronze medal with a superb 49.60 clocking. A native of East London, Shakes-Drayton is recently completed a degree in Sports Science at Brunel University, and is looking forward to representing her country in her own back yard in 2012.

Tiffany Ofili-Porter
100m hurdles
PB: 12.60secs

Tiffany Ofili-Porter is Britain’s leading 100m hurdler and set a new British record at the Samsung Diamond League meeting in Monaco in 2011 with a time of 12.60secs. It was the second time she has broken the British record. Before turning pro, the 23 year-old former pharmacy student at the University of Michigan enjoyed a successful college career in the US, three times winning the NCAA 100m hurdles twice the NCAA indoor 60m. Despite being born in Michigan, USA, Ofili-Porter qualifies to represent Great Britain through her British mother and she capped her debut in an Aviva GB&NI team vest by winning a silver medal in the 60m hurdles at the European Indoor Championships in Paris earlier this year.

Dan Greaves

Discus Throw

PB: 58.98m

Dan won Gold in Athens Paralympics in 2004, throwing a world record 55.12m in the F44/46 category discus throw. He had previously won silver at the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney. Despite being born with a deformity of the feet, he was selected to join the British able-bodied team in a competition against the US in 2001.He returned to the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008, winning a bronze medal. He most recently took Gold in the World Championships in New Zealand breaking his previous world record by 3.45m in his final major tournament before London 2012, with this victory under his belt he is a very promising podium hopeful with the ability to set a new world record and be the first Paralympian to throw over 60m.

Andy Turner
110m hurdles
PB: 13.22secs

Before switching to athletics, Turner was a promising footballer, playing for Notts County as a youngster, and was offered a trial with England as a rugby player.  On the track, Turner’s breakthrough came in 2006, winning bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and European Championships in Gothenburg. The following season, the Brit was fourth at the European Indoor Championships. Turner’s 2008 campaign was marred by injuries. In 2009 he him finish in fourth place at the European Indoor Championships and second at the European Team Championships. 2010 turned out to be Turner’s best ever and after early season victories at the Great Manchester Run he went on to score victories and gold medals at the European Championships and Commonwealth Games as well as taking first place at the European Team Championships.

How’s your german? The following link is to a thought-provoking film about the build up to the Olympics in East London and how it is affecting residents and local businesses made for german broadcaster ARD. We feature at 3 min 10 sec, including some footage of Mr Forman at work carving smoked salmon.

One year to go – Click here to view

One year to go until the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. Looking good from our Fish Eye View webcam this morning…

Here is a picture of Lance Forman holding the original 1948 Olympic torch.  (Courtesy of Coke, who we were hosting at our premises last week).  It’s against a picture of the 1948 poster.

The torch cannot be touched with bare hands, but used to putting on gloves in a food factory, this was not a problem for us.

What we didn’t tell them was that we would be using the flame to ignite our salmon smokers!

We’ve been back to our old home in the last few weeks, catering events at the rather large new stadium that has been built on the site of our last smokehouse. As you can see from the pictures, there’s a great view of Forman’s Fish Island back across the river from the stadium.

We had some cultural royalty here at Forman’s Fish Island this week as Heston Blumenthal, Tracey Emin and Richard E. Grant chose our roof terrace as the launchpad for British Airways’ BA Great Britons Programme.

The programme gives aspiring chefs, scriptwriters and artists the chance to collaborate with the stars on one of three creative projects that will eventually be featured on British Airways flights in the run-up to 2012.

As Lance Forman put it, “ It is very fitting that BA launch here as our Smokehouse Gallery promotes great local artists and through Forman and Field we promote Great British Food producers” and “Good Luck to all the contestants of BA Great Britons – all three winners are welcome to have a free dinner at our restaurant, Formans Since 1905”!

Read more about the programme here! https://greatbritons.ba.com/

Interest in the new Olympic stadium and the transformation of our little corner of east London has reached French eco TV channel ‘Ushaia’. They dispatched a film crew to take a look at the developing Olympic park, including a visit to our famous Forman’s Fish Island smokery next door.

Give yourself a little French refresher course watching the clip below.  Our smokery and an interview with owner Lance Forman features from around 4 minutes 20