I so loved my first research chat with Thomas about Regenerative Farming & Carbon Credits that when the opportunity came up to record a podcast I took the chance to travel across the country and meet him face to face.  I adore Thomas’s idea and the knowledge he has gained as a fourth generational farmer in Cambridgeshire . 

In a nutshell Thomas spent a bit of downtime in lockdown pondering how to solve a global problem.  But he did that looking out of his window in a very real, local and achievable way, that could have almost instant and measurable results.  

As is all too often the case it’s the simple ideas that look like they have the greatest opportunity.  If any of you listening have seen the ‘kissing the ground documentary’ on netflix then this is the deep dive podcast equivalent of one way to help with the challenge of what is happening to our soil.  If any of you have listened to my podcast with Guy Singh Watson about organic farming, where we also touch on how many harvests are left in our soil, then this will be a great follow on episode. 

For any of you simply interested in offsetting your carbon in your business, Thomas is now providing a measurable, British solution.  A solution where you can potentially visit the farm that is saving the carbon and see what they are doing, why they are doing it and the difference it is making.  And not only will you be saving carbon, you will be helping that farmer on a transition from intensive to regenerative.  Perhaps helping the farmer fall back in love with ecology, and biology and being custodians of the land for a short, but oh so important period of time.

And if you are a restauranteur or work in hospitality in general, perhaps just asking questions, and caring more and more about where your food is coming from and who is growing it, is a great start point building momentum to support farmers who really want to be part of a positive movement.

I’m utterly confident that Thomas and his Gentle Farming business and carbon credits are going to do well.  I’ll be looking into buying some myself and offering support, and I hope you will too.

Chat with Thomas on Linked in or follow Gentle Farming on Instagram or Twitter.

We are off to the world of events.  Something I’d perhaps inadvertently neglected in my conversations around the world of hospitality.  Certainly a part of the sector that todays guest Adam Phelps feels like the government has forgotten when it comes to recognition of the pandemics impact and financial support.  Adam has been working at the top end of prestigious events for 22 years.  Chatting through some of the choreography and planning required to deliver for clients who expect perfection, and are happy to pay for it was inspiring.  100 meals delivered to the table in perfect synchronisation by 50 model looking FOH members, immaculately presented is just one that creates a vivid picture in my mind.

Adam has looked after famous rock stars, the best jewellery and fashion brands and big festivals, but more recently has had to be exceptionally creative to find a way to navigate the impact of COVID.  Losses have racked up, but Cellar Society are working hard to keep their team employed and ensure their loyal customer base does eventually come back to them when permitted to do so. 

 It feels fitting to be releasing this episode on the day that the government are once again pushing back full opening from the 21st June and the night club sector and large event companies must not be forgotten.  Restaurant and pub garden trade is currently strong, but many in our sector continue to struggle.  But this is not a covid specific episode and I think you’ll enjoy the conversation.  Much of the story is about Adam and his teams adventures and business journey so far.

Chris Davies is founder and CEO of Harvest London, a couple of vertical farms in the city of London.  Chris is going to help us understand how vertical farms could be part of the solution to feeding the planet.  As Chris puts it, this will be part of the solution and not all food will be, or can be grown this way.  But the benefits of growing food where it is to be consumed, rather than potentially 1000’s of miles away, the benefits of harvesting food and getting it to the restaurant door within four hours, rather than perhaps four weeks.  The benefit of a perfect summers day, every day, no matter the time of year or external weather conditions.  The use of tech and automation and the potential for companies to ship their perfect growing recipe to perhaps tweak just a couple of bits of the growing process to grow the perfect leaf.  A little more water, 1/2 an hour less light, more blue light than pink light, a slight nutritional change.  All of this can effect the flavour of what we grow and eat.  And in Chris’s case much of this learning is being done around basil, but can be applied to so much more.  And it is clearly a recipe that is working.  Chris and Harvest London have just raised over a million pounds of investment, including from the UK governments future fund and demand is fast outstripping supply as they have grand plans for the future.

Find Harvest London online or follow them on instagram.

This week you meet a champion of the sea and of preparing seafood simply and sustainably. Whether you’ve got one of his cookery books, visited his award-winning Seahorse and Rockfish restaurants or watched him on TV with world class rugby player Matt Dawson, you’ll know that Mitch Tonks is one of the country’s most fervent ambassadors for fish   

You’ll hear just how fervent, when he talks about the planetary benefits of freezing fish; whether prawns should be on or off the menu and what he’s doing to make sure that the rubbish his trawlerman collects from the sea isn’t dumped straight back into the ocean.  

He’s also great on the difference between real hospitality and the stage set version and why the willingness to chat is a must if you want to become a restaurant owner. 

I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Mitch, and I'm confident you'll enjoy this weeks conversation.

A cheeky little mid week bonus episode this week from the lovely Jane and Dave who left the NHS and the MET Police to show hospitality makes a great choice of career change...

So, have you heard the one about the nurse, the police officer and the award-winning pies? You’re about to. 

Dave and Jane’s journey to what they now call ‘Pie Land’ was not conventional. It began when they bought a convenience store in Worcester, thinking it would be a nice retirement project after busy careers in the Met and NHS.  But with 600 customers a day, and a hungry demand for Dave’s pork rolls and Jane’s chocolate Tiffin, retirement was put on hold.  And a good thing too, because without that foundation, Hampshire would not be enjoying what is a growing selection of delicious pies – from steak and kidney to gluten-free  egg, bacon and chorizo, which earned the couple the accolade of  ‘Supreme Champion’ in the 2019 Great Hampshire Sausage and Pie Competition. 

Not bad for an operation that began, and has stayed, in the cellar of their home in South Sea.   And that’s where I join them, at the end of a busy week producing 1000 pies….   

I think it’s fair to say that over the last decade, we’re all trying to do our bit to help the planet. Whether it’s getting rid of single-use plastic or recycling, we know what we should be doing.

But actually, there’s one area of our lives that trumps all that effort:  what we eat. As you’ll hear in this week’s conversation with Andrew Stephen, the CEO of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, the power of your appetite is phenomenal. As an individual, what you choose to eat, and where and when you choose to eat it, represent your biggest impact on the natural world.

As you’ll also hear, nothing is straightforward about the choices you make. For instance, soy is praised by many for replacing dairy products, but criticised by others for its part in the deforestation of the Amazon.

That is why the SRA is such a brilliant organisation. It helps restaurants and diners to find their way through the maze and understand how they can become more sustainable in a range of practical, achievable ways.

This week we’re learning about how to move food around planet earth via just the power of the wind.  Awesome produce, better for the environment, direct from the producer to the consumer, delivered by the wind.  I'm going to take you back in time, when beautiful tall ships criss-crossed the sea to deliver foods we couldn't grow ourselves. 

You might think I'm describing the 18th or 19th century. Actually, I'm only turning the clock back by a few months, when a former herring logger called The Gallant sailed serenely into Newhaven, with a cargo of olive oil, almonds and sea salt.

This programme is about the amazing groups that have an impressive vision:  to transport food and drink across oceans(and to our plates) in a way that is not only kinder to the planet, but - in the case of Sail Cargo South East  - also supports community groups who benefit from being out on the sea.... Plus they give hospitality businesses like The Herb Kitchen brilliant stories to share about their wind-powered ingredients.  

You’ll hear from Dan Cuss, co-founder of The Herb Kitchen later in the programme.  But first we meet Dhara Thompson, co-founder of Sail Cargo Southeast and the Sail Boat Project based in Sussex...

Getting to chat to Michael was awesome, like meeting my brother from another mother.  But he has a way cooler accent!  I share Michael's views on a great deal of issues around hospitality...not least his thoughts around reviews, tripadvisor and the like.  This really was an utterly delightful conversation.

You may already know Michael from the BBC's Great British Menu programme.  In 2016 he did pretty well, getting to the finals. A year later, he went one better, winning the entire competition and the chance to prepare a banquet for Wimbledon Tennis Club. 

Actually, Michael Bremner wasn't a stranger to preparing great food under the watchful gaze of the people just about to eat it. When he opened his first restaurant, 64 Degrees, in Brighton in 2013, he designed the restaurant so diners were just an arm's stretch away from the chefs. They could see the dishes coming together right in front of them. (The same early design also forgot about a bar: you'll hear how that turned out later!) 

In the next hour you'll also discover how avoiding food envy has shaped Michael's award-winning menu...and how he and his partner Carla (who gets legendary status in this edition) had the wherewithal to open a second, very different restaurant only months after his marathon at Great British Menu. 

In this episode we're going to learn alot about dairy farming, milk and happy cows.  Grab a notebook, there is a lot to learn!

Tom Foot and Neil Grigg are too humble to say this, but in building up their Open Air Dairy, they've become true pioneers in their industry. What they do is awesome.  Cows that live 13 years instead of 3 in intensive farming, less antibiotics, happier cows, happier humans, happier fields, awesome milk and cheese...what they've achieved is exciting for the future of farming.

Like many tenant farmers, they didn't have hundreds of thousands of pounds to build conventional sheds and indoor milking systems.  So when a fantastic farm came their way, they had to think outside the box. Or as one observer put it, they took the box, ripped it up completely and threw it away! 

Inspired by a farmer in the 1920s, they've transformed second-hand trailers and bails into mobile milking parlours. Instead of herding their cattle to a shed every day, they take the sheds direct to the cows. Everything really is done in the open air, all year round! 

What started as a cost-saving exercise - and the figures will astound you - has thrown up so many more benefits: great tasting milk; family-friendly working hours and super-relaxed cattle. I should know. A few of them enjoyed rubbing themselves against me as I recorded this conversation with Tom.   

Enjoy my nervousness as I work out whether they are bulls or heffers.

Love Drinks, has two clear strands to it: first, to share the amazing stories behind the spirits portfolio Kirsty has built up since 2007. Whether it’s an organic cachaca or a cold-brew coffee cut with wheat vodka, all the independent brands distributed by Love Drinks are created with dedication and craftsmanship – and they all feed into Kirsty’s philosophy of drinking less and better. 

The second – Love Well - goes back to when Kirsty was in her early 20s. The late nights and long hours triggered a series of panic attacks and a realisation that she had to look after herself. As you’ll hear, she’s applied the look-after-your-wellbeing principle to the whole of her team and to bartenders in general. 

No wonder Kirsty’s been given a British Empire Medal for services to the drinks industry. 

In this episode we're going to learn about farmed fish. When Hugo Hardman and Arthur Voelcker launched ChalkStream® in 2015, people tended to dismiss farmed trout as small, bony and muddy; salmon's much poorer cousin.   

That's why, in the early days, they had to get right in front of chefs, and show them what farmed trout could really become - if it was grown in fast-flowing clear waters that mimic the conditions of the fish's natural habitat: the Test and Itchen chalk stream rivers in Hampshire.   

As you'll hear, their so-called 'power point presentation' of a framed photograph and a large glistening trout on ice, worked wonders.  Now ChalkStream clients include big names such as P&O Ferries, British Airways and Wimbledon, as well as top restaurants all over the UK... and the trout farmers Hugo and Arthur work with face a much more secure future. 

Discover how, in the space of a few years, this partnership has managed to shake up trout farming in an impressively sustainable way.   

https://www.chalkstreamfoods.co.uk

James Golding’s impressive chef career has come full circle. Yes, he’s worked with some very big names in London and New York. He learned his craft under Anton Edelmann at The Savoy and then moved to Le Caprice, working for Mark Hix. And as Head Chef at Soho House in New York, his team cooked for A list actors, music stars and royalty.  

But he began his culinary journey in and around the New Forest, foraging for mushrooms with his dad, and getting ‘bored out of his mind’ at Mr Bartlett’s, the butchers, when his parents were having nice chats about cuts of meat.  Fast forward around 20 years and James is back in his childhood stomping ground of Hampshire and Dorset.  

And as Group Chef Director of THE PIG, he makes sure that all the restaurants source their ingredients either from their own kitchen gardens or from producers within a 25 mile radius.  That includes beautiful cuts of meat, which James turns into British charcuterie with – wait for it – Mr Bartlett’s son!   

Passion has definitely replaced boyhood boredom, as you’ll hear…

Simon Tolson has had his fair share of highs and lows to get to where he is now in hospitality.  

An early high point was his first paid day as a fisherman. Since the age of 3 he’d wanted to fish and he felt like an astronaut when he stepped onto the deck…. But several years later, now married and with a mortgage, he had to switch careers.  He left the sea for a surprisingly different job - selling printers and photocopiers for Pitney Bowes. 

That led to a new high, because the sales skills Simon developed not only worked for office equipment.  They came in handy when he turned his attention to holiday homes. It was the early noughties, and there were generous tax breaks if you were renovating a property as a holiday let. Simon and a colleague began to build a new business, offering holiday homes as  promising investments. 

So far, so good.  But then in 2007, everything changed…. 

In this programme you’ll hear how Simon worked his way out of the prolonged low that followed… And how, despite challenging odds, he’s now the proud owner of Rumsey Holiday Homes, with beautiful views of the sea and the occasional chance to fish... 

It was quite a few months ago when the opportunity crossed my desk to interview Tim Hall, who is the executive chef at Burgh Island.  It caught my eye because Burgh Island is such a unique location, as a tidal island just off the south coast of Devon. 

I was intrigued to understand a bit more around the complexity of running not one, but three restaurants, on an island that for many hours of the day cannot be accessed at all, or certainly not without its challenges.  Add to that Tim’s reputation for excellent food and access to some beautiful foraged ingredients, a new owner of the hotel and a new fish restaurant on the island, and I thought it would make a lovely day out and place to visit.  Alas lockdown got rid of the visit element, but it was still nice to catch up with Tim and and learn all things Tim and Burgh.

Visit the hotel website, or find them on twitter and instagram

If you decided to open a restaurant that focussed on oysters and meat- on-the bone, you probably wouldn’t have done it in 2008.  First there was the financial crisis and credit crunch. Then there was a lingering memory of the meat-on-the-bone ban, triggered by BSE several decades before.  

Mark Hix’s decision was perhaps all the more surprising because the job he was leaving – Executive Head Chef of Le Caprice restaurant group, which included famous venues like The Ivy and J Sheekey – was the sort of plum role other chefs would give their eye teeth for.    

But it turned out very well in the end: his ‘HIX Oyster and Chop House’ marked the start of an award-winning family of HIX restaurants, in London and in Dorset…and put Mark in the forefront of the modern British food movement, celebrating farmers, food producers and fisherman in his menus and in his annual Food Rocks Festival in Lyme Regis.  

Discover how it all happened for a boy who was more interested in golf than food…and then discovered he was rather good at cooking after all… 

For someone who had no business plan, but thought he’d be alright because there was a Waitrose round the corner, Pete Joy, at Bakehouse 24 is doing pretty well.

Pete’s love of mixing and kneading emerged out of the blue, one night, when his housemates were at band practice. Having the place to himself, he decided not to do a normal thing like ordering Chinese, but to make a cake instead. This wasn’t a one-off: Pete soon developed a serious baking habit, which led to a 3am-to-midday job at a pioneering sourdough bakery under a Hackney railway arch.

In this episode you’ll hear how the man with no plan is successfully building a team of sourdough bakers (one of whom is also a potter) across two sites in Dorset...and why he gets a bit ranty on the topics of gluten intolerance and interpretations of the word ‘sourdough’.... You’ll probably sympathise by the end of the conversation. Enjoy.

My guest this week, Jason Barber, puts it like this: if you’ve been sitting behind a cow for 15 to 20 years, your mind has time to wonder about the best way to use the milk you’re producing.  

The Barbers are the world’s oldest surviving family of cheddar makers. They’ve been making cheese and producing milk for over 200 years – and up until recently, conventional dairy products had done them proud.  But then, in 2012, Jason launched something very different: the world’s first and only vodka to be made entirely out of milk.   

In the last 7 years since it arrived on the scene, Jason’s farm has had to ramp up production of its unique Black Cow Vodka from a couple of thousand bottles a year to between 120 and 130 thousand.   Its fans include local delis, farm shops and bars, as well as major supermarkets and – as you’ll hear – a clutch of A-list Hollywood stars. 

Discover how a piece of yeast, the size of a flea, was the start of this incredible story…and how Jason and his talented business partner Archie turned Black Cow into a global brand.  

There has never, ever, been anything quite like The Ned in the UK before. Created from the former headquarters of the Midland Bank, in the heart of the City Of London, the Grade I listed building is now home to 10 restaurants, 250 bedrooms, 6 private event spaces, a spa, a gym and a club with over 3000 members…  

In any given week, 30,000 meals are served on the ground floor alone.  As its managing director, Gareth Banner, says modestly, ‘for a single address there are a lot of moving parts….’  

Just three years ago, when he was looking through the dust and the scaffolding at what was the final phase of five years of renovation, he knew it would be special.  As you’ll hear, his career – which takes in stints with global brand The Marriott as well as iconic boutique hotel, The Hempel – is also impressive. It went some way to prepare him for this amazing project.  But actually, as you’ll hear, the biggest learning has happened since The Ned opened its doors to the public two years ago. 

‘Unique’ is often misused as a word, but this week you’ll hear about a delicious food product that really is one of a kind.  In the early 1980s, dairy farmer Michael Davies resurrected a 300 year-old recipe for Dorset Blue Vinny – a subtly veined cheese which is much more delicate than Stilton, its nearest relative.   

Nowadays, Michael’s daughter Emily is in charge of production – overseeing the only farm in the world that has the legal right to produce this type of blue cheese. 

Today you’ll hear how the patient Davies family had to put up with blue mould on their cornflakes, in the early days of Michael’s cheese experiments…and why Emily describes beta versions as ‘nuclear’! 

You’ll also discover how a disappointing trip to a farmers’ market led to a whole new branch of the Blue Vinny business…and why wonky cucumbers and misshapen cheese off-cuts have a special place in Emily’s heart… 

Enjoy the conversation… 

The world’s disused car parks, markets and office blocks need Jonathan Downey. In Street Feast he’s taken the idea of street food to a whole new level. At night, what were neglected sites come alive with tantalising smells of pizza, steamed buns, tacos and chicken wings ...along with the buzz of conversation and glowing light boxes of all shapes and sizes.

JD's hospitality journey over 20 YEARS is exceptional. Match Bar, Sosho, Milk and Honey, Street Feasts, 2 million visitors a year, Dinerama, Giant Robot, Hawker House...hold on tight...it's quite the adventure!

The four very different Street Feasts bring together speciality bars and food traders who each do just one thing, and do it really, really well... And it was because London in the 1990s wasn’t doing nightlife well, that Jonathan decided to combine his corporate lawyer role with a new career as a bar and club operator. It was a crazy thing to do – suited and booted by day, scrubbing walls by night – but it worked for a while.... until the inevitable ‘ouch’ moment arrived. But when that came, Jonathan freed himself up to work on more amazing hospitality ideas.

Imagine. You’re about to open your first restaurant to the public. Your wife, who’s front of house, is 8 ½ months pregnant. You’re the chef –and you’ve never cooked professionally before. But you buy a couple of recipe books and some chef whites, and off you go. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Yet this is what Alex Aitken did in 1983.

It was the start of a Michelin-starred career which has evolved in incredible ways and is still going strong. Today, Alex is spreading his love of locally sourced food – whether foraged, fished or farmed –through a growing number of award-winning restaurants, carrying ‘The Jetty’ name.  

As you will hear, his passion for sourcing food sustainably harks back to his teenage years as a deck hand on North Sea trawlers. He’s got hair-raising tales of mistaking World War II mines for bumper catches... and a mischievous tale about why he likes fiddling with the music volume while you’re eating your meal in his hotel restaurants. It’s only a bit of fun... Enjoy

Michael and Joy Michaud at Sea Spring Seeds are chilli growing experts who took the world by surprise one April 1st, when they revealed they’d developed the world’s hottest chilli plant, the Dorset Naga. It wasn’t an April fool, even though it seemed absurd that this world record-breaking chilli had been reared in a lush, damp corner of Dorset, far removed from its original Bangladeshi home.

The patience and dedication it takes to develop a unique and world first type of chilli was a real eye opener.  The Dorset Naga is just one of many wonderful chillis  grown by the couple – along with a wide range of vegetable seeds, carefully selected for their productivity and flavour, like the tender sweet roots of the Primo carrot!

In this programme I get some great chilli-culinary tips  from Joy… as well as an insight into the huge dedication and patience that goes into creating those tiny miracles: seeds….

When it comes to chocolatier-patissiers, William Curley is a world-class player. He’s one of only 7 chefs in the UK to have achieved ‘Master of Culinary Arts’.  The chance to earn this accolade – which is the culinary equivalent of a Nobel Prize – only comes round every 4 years…and it took William three attempts.  Gruelling, as you’ll hear…

Perhaps it’s not surprising that William has done so brilliantly. As well as having natural talent, he’s fostered that talent by working with the best, from the moment he became an apprentice at Gleneagles, followed by stints with acclaimed chefs such as Pierre  Koffmann, Anton Edelmann, Raymond Blanc and Marco Pierre White.

You might think that working with big personalities and big brands (Harrods, Claridges, The Savoy …I could go on) would have gone to his head.  Not a bit of it.  As you’ll hear, William is delightful, down-to-earth and humbled by the fact he was able to crowd-fund his latest venture: his own shop in the heart of Soho. This means he can continue to be hands-on, creating amazing chocolates and chocolate patisserie.  Be warned, your mouth will water during the course of this conversation…  Enjoy.

British wine use to have a reputation, but not one we wanted. Now it's taking on the French at their own game with some of the best sparkling in the world. As chair of Wine GB Simon is the perfect guest to chat to to find out why and how.

If you’d said to Simon Robinson in 2008 that his Hattingley Valley vineyards would have the capacity – in a really good year – to produce 580,000 bottles of wine…or that his sparkling rose would be crowned a world champion, he would have said you were crackers.

And yet, in just over a decade, Hattingley  and other GB newcomers have done brilliantly in what is a very old industry…even though in the early days our efforts were written off as being poor copies of German varieties like Riesling and  Muller-Thergau.   

In this conversation you’ll discover why our sparkling wines are now doing so well and why Simon calls his sector ‘agriculture on steroids’:  it will make your eyes water when you do and you’ll wonder why on earth he gave up his partner position at a city law firm to go on such a rollercoaster...

Lee Cash was always driven to become self employed in the hospitality sector.  He learnt his craft with some of the best, from Robin Sheppard at Bespoke Hotels and chef Raymond Blanc.  But all the time driven and motivated to test himself, to learn all he could and get ready to put into practise the art of perfecting 1000 little details to make his own venues successful.  I always enjoy chatting to people who really have proper hospitality in their soul.  Who understand how spaces feel.  How the lighting, the candles, the music, the team, the furniture, the layout, the space itself and so much more comes together to create somewhere special that people enjoy.  

I loved Lee’s perspectives about pubs being a great leveller.  More so perhaps than restaurants, you are likely to have every type and age of person hanging out at a bar, ordering a decent pint of beer.  You’ll get to hear about how Lee and his business partner Hamish bought different skills to the business, and how over the years, at different stages in their growth, these different skills have helped Peach grow into such a fantastic business. 

You’ll also laugh at the story of Lee going from being so skint one morning that he had to use his passport as a deposit in an Aussie backpackers, to a few hours later saying yes to his first chef job cooking alone on boat full of divers on the great barrier reef.  That say yes now, work out how later, kind of attitude that so many driven entrepreneurs have.

You can read more about Peach Pubs on the website, or find them on twitter and instagram

When David Richards was made redundant from his sales director role, finding a new one at 50 was very hard. Luckily, he had always loved cooking and smoking cuts of meat in the garden, so when his wife Karen suggested that there might be a business in curing, they gave it a shot.

10 years later their company, Capreolus, has won countless awards for its ever-increasing range of mouth-watering charcuterie and smoked foods, from pancetta and air-dried pork loin to the magnificently named Rampisham Tingler Salami.

In this edition you’ll discover why it’s so important to get the right sort of business funding – if you can; why the fat of rare breed animals is the star of good charcuterie… and what it’s like dealing with restaurant food crazes, where smoked venison might suddenly replace air-dried beef, and you realise, with a sinking heart, that you have no venison on the premises and a six month lead time…

In terms of career variety, I doubt if many  can match Nick Leach’s 4 decades in hospitality. One of his first jobs was working as the King of Saudi Arabia’s personal chef on a £9 million motor yacht. After that he found himself ‘catering to excess’, for merchant bankers in London, where £25,000 a week was set aside for caviar alone – served in huge swan ice carvings.

This was in stark contrast to his next role as General Manager at Kings College Hospital, where his daily budget per patient was £1.76 – and that had to cover 7 hot drinks a day, in addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For the last 18 years he’s been drawing on this wealth experience to manage the catering at the University of Portsmouth.  In any one week he has a potential 29,000 hungry students and staff to feed…and he still makes time to take his chefs to see local food producers – from the organic dairy and flour mill to the free-range chicken farm.

Amazing man, amazing stories.  Enjoy!

In 1910 Ceri Cryer’s great-grandfather established the country’s first ever pedigree Friesian herd of cows, in a beautiful corner of Wiltshire.

A hundred years later, Ceri is doing her family’s farming history proud: the Friesian descendants produce the milk which Ceri turns into award-winning cheeses – from the traditional Wiltshire Loaf to newcomers, such as the oozilyunctiuous  Royal Bassett Blue.

In this conversation we discover where Wiltshire cheeses feature in Jane Austin’s novels…and how each batch of Ceri’s cheese is influenced by a mind-blowing number of factors, starting from the herbs her cows nibble in the fields…

That’s in addition to exploring the real cost of milk and yoghurt, and why Ceri is unlikely to give you a discount, but her husband Chad might …

Plus you’ll get Ceri’s top tips on how not to waste a crumb of food.  This includes feeding leftover home-made mead to the pigs, with some interesting results….

Enjoy the conversation

Travel is what makes Barefaced Brewing tick:  Nick Horne and Tom Cooper have been friends since they were 3. But in their 20s they were working in bars and breweries at opposite sides of the world – Tom in Edinburgh, Nick in Sydney. When Tom sent a Facebook message saying he was really keen to set up an indie  brewery, Nick flew across the globe a few days later, rocked up in the bar where Tom was working and said, ‘Let’s do it’.

And they have. They choose their hops not only for their distinctive taste but because they conjure up the atmosphere of a particular place, from resinous and refreshing Canada to super-bold, tropical Australia.  And trust me, they know their hops: they reckon they’ve each tasted 6,000 different beers over the last decade or so. Tough research, but someone has to do it…

In this programme you’ll discover that the lads owe a lot to Tom’s super-patient mum and sussed grandfather… but (in the nicest possible way) slightly less to his dad…how they crowd-funded a mad dash to Italy and back… and how they have set up their partnership very neatly  so, should they ever fall-out (hopefully not as childhood friends) their business will survive…

Cabrito’s mission is to put all billy goats born in to the dairy industry into the meat industry. Ex-chef James Whetlor knew he could something about the plight of the male billy goats, who are historically euthanised at birth in the dairy industry.

James realised that goat meat had potential when his roast goat leg with lentils, salsa verde and chive flowers flew off the menu at the River Cottage Canteen around 8 years ago. Soon after, James sold his first kids to one of the Great British Chefs, Jeremy Lee at Quo Vadis. Since then his customer base has grown to include more award-winning restaurants... and with Goatober, he wants hundreds of other venues to include goat on the menu.

In fact, Cabrito has a global vision: to inspire every meat-eater – from Europe to India and Australia to America – to put goat meat on their shopping list at least once a month. Why don’t we do that now? As you’ll hear it’s down to a very strange quirk of history, which has led to millions of billies needlessly disappearing.

James is International Director of Goatober working with partners in America, Europe and Australia and is consultant for the European ‘Food Heroes’ project, which aims to end food waste in farming across the EU. James’ first book GOAT: Cooking and Eatinghas been widely acclaimed as genre-defining and is nominated for a James Beard award 2019.

This episode is a must listen.  Enjoy.

For Emma Goss-Custard, baking without flour came naturally to her as a student in the 90s.  She much preferred the luxurious texture and taste of cakes made from ground almonds and polenta.  And she kept going – even  when well-meaning  friends said her approach of replacing wheat with premium ingredients would never work.  People wanted cheap cakes with a long shelf-life, didn’t they?

Luckily, her friends were wrong. In this conversation you’ll hear how Emma managed to win over customers like John Lewis and Harvey Nichols early on in her business career… and how, 20 years on, her gluten-free bakery Honeybuns, is still thriving, even though the cake world has become amazingly competitive.  

You’ll also learn how challenging it is to create dairy-free bakes that survive being jostled around in delivery vans…. And how Emma has turned old farm buildings into, arguably, the prettiest office-spaces in the UK.  It’s like walking into a fairy land, with bunting and twinkly lights. That’s where you join us now…

Oli Perron, founder of Lunch’d, which delivers beautifully put-together salads, stroganoffs, stir-fries and more to your office…. Zingy, punchy flavours packed into a handy box.  Hear how the early days were, in his words, ‘a bit of a car crash’, preparing 65 lunches in the kitchen which he shared with his long-suffering flatmate, Tom… AND he was having problems paying the rent.  Find out how he survived that car crash: he’s now successfully delivered 24,000 lunches. He is confident that people love his food enough to subscribe to his lunchboxes… and that he can give Uber Eats and Deliveroo a run for their money.

Teenage memories of choosing individual mouth-watering chocolates in Belgium, France and Holland are behind Claire Burnet’s jokey suggestion that she and her husband Andy leave their London jobs and make chocolates in Dorset instead.

Soon after, they’d converted a small hairdressing salon in Swanage into a chocolate kitchen, complete with viewing window… and a tiny shop upstairs.  Yes, that’s right: upstairs!

It was 2002, and Chococo found itself in the vanguard of pioneering chocolate makers: only using fresh ingredients from local producers and sourcing chocolate with a clear provenance from countries like Madagascar, Venezuela and Grenada.

Find out why Claire and Andy use Raisetrade chocolate (it’s different to Fairtrade) … and how the mantra ‘spend a little, learn a lot’ has helped the couple grow their business from that tiny kitchen to four buzzing Chocolate Houses in Hampshire, Devon and Sussex, as well as Dorset…

When Giles and his wife Annie took a late gap year and went on a 38,000 mile motorbike trip round the Mediterranean basin, they had no idea it would be the start of a successful business.

26 years later, Olives Et Al has created 400 products and they still use recipes given to them by the families they met on that original trip: generations of history that span 6000 years, harvesting olives from trees that are two and a half thousand years old.

As we chat you’ll discover why it’s a good idea not to tick off a customer when they dip their fingers into your olive taster bowl, why our attitudes towards food quality would do well to mirror our attitudes to luxury cars and the importance of how you exit your car at the office!

We’re going big this week, and actually I don’t mean a big podcast, but a big business, chatting to Jonathan Neame, the chief executive of Shepherd Neame Brewers.  With 320 pubs and pre pandemic turnover of £150 million they are bigger than the normal business I chat to on this podcast, but they have a really interesting family history.  Having been around for over 300 years, and maintained family ownership I think they qualify as having had a very inspiring independent hospitality adventure.

Topic wise Jonathan is clearly well informed on all that is going on in the pub sector.  We touch on navigating the pandemic and at least seeing some growth in the grocery and off sales side of the business, the responsibility of taking over a multi generational family businesses,  how to navigate out of the pandemic and how different that may be in London compared to a proper community pub.  Changing beer trends, sourcing hops, rents as both a tenant and landlord, future support to enable the sector to bounce back and even Brexit all crops up in our wide ranging chat.

Read more on the Shepherd Neame website, or follow Jonathan Neame on twitter, or find the brewery on instagram. 

Find out why looking at a builder’s backside was the catalyst that led to Jimmy's version of iced coffee, now stocked in pretty much every UK supermarket… and with its sights set much further afield, including Ireland, Sweden and Dubai.  Hear the crazy things Jimmy does to spread the word about his drink, including talking to audiences of 300, dressed as a carton… and orchestrating what’s known as a ‘massive activation’ at a mainline railway station. (Sounds like a security alert, but actually it’s a neat way to promote your products). Find out how he felt about stepping away from the role of MD, and handing it over to someone who hadn’t seen his company grow up…

This week I talk to Helen Browning, OBE: Chief Executive of the Soil
Association, visionary organic farmer and, with her partner Tim, owner of The Royal Oak and Chop House.  An uplifting, thought-provoking conversation exploring Helen’s journey. As you’ll learn, being ahead of the curve is not always an easy place to be. We also try to put the world to rights, so we can solve the problem of feeding 10 billion humans and keeping the planet intact. I LOVED this conversation.  Enjoy x

Andy Lennox started his career as a ‘KP’, a kitchen porter, peeling potatoes.  When he was  21, he teamed up with two friends to create Koh Thai, a restaurant in Dorset, offering authentic Thai cooking with a South of France style of service.  As Andy put it, they ‘knew nothing and learned on the trot’ –  only realising  6 months in that they needed tills, rather than paper to relay orders to the kitchen and the bar.

Soon the pace picked up to a gallop, as the Koh Thai concept took off and 11 more Kohs opened in Dorset, Hampshire and Somerset… It was great, but there were growing pains, as you’ll discover - like the fact that a deal is never sealed until the signature’s on the dotted line…

10 years on, Andy is onto his next concept, ‘Zim Braai’: the earthy, smokey slow cooked oxtail and wild boar potjies…bunny chows, curries in a bun…and ‘braais’ – barbeques that bring people together.

Rupert Holloway, founder of Conker Gin was a successful (and miserable) chartered surveyor who wanted to change direction, dramatically. Luckily he had Emily, his understanding girlfriend, now wife. Find out how a series of weird texts helped to create an enticing brand for their gin, which is now served at Marco Pierre White’s establishments, among many other places!

In this episode we chat to Joe Lovett from Bad Hand coffee roasters in Bournemouth, Dorset.  The conversation is very much in two halves, initially regaling Joe's journey and story and how an abandoned stable, brothel and crack den became his perfect home.  We touch on plant powered diets, low commitment dining and confusing roasts with Sunday lunch!  The 2nd half is more industry specific as Joe nails the reason for this podcasts existence and emphasises the financial challenges of hospitality and going in with your eyes wide open!  Enjoy the conversation. 

In this trailer Mark Cribb, your host, introduces the concept of Humans of Hospitality, why he's set it up, a few sample clips from guests, what he's hoping to achieve from these conversations and even why a pineapple is in the logo.  It's a great place to start before diving into an episode.

David Sax left his safe career in finance to invest in his first venture, The Cow. It was an overnight success, later winning the highest pub accolade (think Oscar/Olympic Gold Medal rolled into one), National Pub of the Year.  Then he had the likes of Guy Ritchie, Madonna and Jeremy Clarkson as his customers, when he took over another amazing pub, The Museum Inn.

Eventually David had to sell both, because up-to-18-hour days were taking their toll on his bank balance and his family.  So why, oh why, is he coming back after a six-year break? Creating a café-bar-bistro hybrid, open from early morning to late at night? (More 18 hour days??) David says he might have a screw loose. You decide when you hear the rollercoaster story behind his latest venture Maison Sax…

In this episode we chat to Steve Farrell from Eight arch brewery in Wimborne, Dorset.  We talk a little about the beer making process but more about about big brands, small brands and how Steve went from terrible home-brew all the way to his award winning beers available across the County and Country.  Enjoy the conversation.

From honing his skills in hotels on an employed basis, to learning the art of the restauranteur with his own venues, to taking all of that knowledge and finally getting to apply it in his very own hotel with his partner Rob, Tim has been on a great hospitality journey.

And the captains club is a special kind of place.  Wether simply attracting the locals for a light lunch, or a few cocktails as the sun sets on the river, or mingling with famous guests such as Hugh Grant or the Gallagher brothers, they’ve really found a way of becoming the heart of their local community.  Tim is very humble and easy to chat to about his journey.  He makes it all sound too easy, with a detail here, and the right team member there.  But Tim and Robert have an attention for detail and a genuine love for their crazy hospitality adventure, no matter how challenging it gets.  And they’ve had their challenges, from planning permission impacting the business model leaving them just £1 million pounds short in enough money to open up.  And then having finally got the doors open wondering if they’d run out of cashflow before they could turn their dream into a success.

But 14 years later they are still going strong, or at least they were until the pandemic struck.  But in typical Tim style he’s taking it in his stride and whilst nervous about the future, he and Rob are investing in the property and more than hoping, they are planning on re-opening for a busy summer.  I hope you enjoy this chat about perseverance and the meandering journey life can take sometimes, but how, if you simply take the first step, then the adventure can be pretty rewarding and exciting.

Michel Roux Jr is a true 'Human of Hospitality' who was practically born in a kitchen when his Mum went into labour whilst working in his Dad 'Albert Roux's' restaurant.  Michel is well known, partly simply through the recognition of his Dad and Uncle opening Le Gavroche in 1967 and becoming the first British restaurant to be awarded 3 Michelin stars, but also via his extensive work on television through shows such as Masterchef the professionals, and most recently 'remarkable places to eat'.  

Michel has also been on his own impressive culinary adventure working throughout Europe and even Hong Kong before taking over the helm at Le Gavroche in 1991.

In this conversation we get to touch on Michel’s family connections and following in the family legacy, we’ll chat about the business side of being a chef and the importance of knowing your numbers and that successful restaurants are rarely only about the quality of the food.  We explore what else it takes and how you need to make a customer 'feel' to really enjoy their visit and want to return regularly.  And we explore some of the cultural differences between France and the UK, as well as the differences in the casual dining sector, and even the street food scene, and wether we’ll ever see Michel in his own street food truck.  And of course we cover the pandemic and Michel’s hopes for the future, both in business, but perhaps more importantly with his daughter and grandson.

You can follow Michel Roux Jr on twitter, or visit his online shop and read more about Le Gavroche on the website or via instagram. 

Richard is a great example of a 'Human of Hospitality' having worked in the sector almost all of his working life.  Richard started the business with his Dad and his family, and recognises all that his family risked, even selling grandmas house to purchase a run down manor, covered in vines and a somewhat dilapidated air.  They started small with only 7 bedrooms, but had a vision and a yearning to create something special and to look after people.  That journey was tough in those earlier years and he very nearly lost it all before the adventure had really even properly started.  But the stars aligned and through working hard and never losing site of the vision, and in many ways fulfilling his destiny through partnership, investment, continual improvement and not being in a hurry to expand, Richard and his team have created something beautiful.

Regular listeners will know that I have a love of the independent side of the sector.  What Richard has created would not be of interest to the global brands of the world.  It’s too small and eclectic and complicated and challenging to run.  A number of properties, arguably with not enough rooms to make operations easier in the traditional sense of operating hotels and restaurants.  But the properties look stunning and it takes people like Richard to create and operate such miniature beauties.  I hope his story, along with the those of the likes of Robin Hutson and Gerrard Basset sleeping on the sofa in the bar because they could not afford to employ people overnight, will inspire others to know that you don’t have to start a business with unlimited resources to invest.

We touch on re-wilding land, the early benefits of naivety, 18% mortgage rates, the dangers of michelin stars, running venues as satellites, wider challenges and opportunities for the sector in 2021 and our mutual hope that people will strive for a more simple, perhaps less luxurious life, where time with other humans is the greatest priority over and above material items.

See more on the Calcot website, or on instagram or twitter and find the Sally Beck podcast we mention here. 

Emma has had a fascinating career working in the heart of government in the EU,  in part negotiating trade deals.  Great timing for a chat that starts with Emma’s thoughts on the EU and our opportunities and risks as we hurtle towards departure. You’ll be pleased to hear Emmas is pretty optimistic on post EU trade, particularly where the export of exceptional British beer is concerned of course.  

We also chat about Emma’s experience liaising directly with the government on the behalf of the BBPA’s members, representing over half of the pubs in the UK (that’s 20k) and 90% of the brewing industry.  They are an important voice, and we discuss how it felt like as the relationship between government and the sector was very strong in spring, but really broke down over the summer recess period.

We also touch on wether a minister for hospitality would make the ear of government better or worse, why on earth the government is being so slow in extending support into next year as is happening in Europe, and some of the longer term issues such as Beer Duty and business rates that have been negatively skewing the sector long before COVID appeared on the scene.

You can read more about the BBPA here, follow Emma on twitter or join her community here with LinkedIn.

A very different style of episode this week.  Rather than a detailed conversation with one awesome human of hospitality we have 9 great humans, most of whom have been previous guests.  And we have just one topic of conversation.  Why they are supporting the campaign for a Minister for Hospitality.

This campaign was launched by Claire Bosi but had been sat languishing at around 38k signatures on the government petition website.  To be debated in parliament 100k signatures are required.  Robin Hutson, CEO of Home Grown Hotels organised a call last week with over 100 very well connected hospitality professionals, and working with some of his graduate trainees as well as some well known faces of the hospitality sector such as Tom Kerridge and Angela Hartnett,  launched the ‘seat at the table’ campaign.  

These nine people, who between them employ tens of thousands of people, but represent an industry of millions, will give you their perspectives on why they want a better seat at the table.  Whilst recognising the great work that Kate Nichols and UK Hospitality have achieved, we’d like someone on the inside, as well as the outside of government.  I hope you’ll enjoy hearing their perspectives and I hope you will be motivated to visit www.seatatthetable.org.uk where you can find a link to the petition and support the other social media accounts around this campaign.

Whilst the petition has now exceeded 100k we want to significantly exceed this target to give every chance of this being successful and a senior minister, rather than token gesture being appointed. 

4 min 50 sec - Robin Hutson - CEO The Pig Hotel & Limewood Hotel Visit

12 min 20 sec - Simon Potts - CEO The Alchemist Visit

23 min 20 sec - Danny Pecorelli - MD Exclusive Collection Visit 

30 min 20 sec - Juliane Caillouette-Noble - Acting MD of Sustainable Restaurant Association Visit

38 min 50 sec - Sally Beck - GM Royal Lancaster London Visit

47 min 10 sec - Andrew Stembridge - Executive Director Iconic Luxury Hotels Visit 

56 min 20 sec - Robin Sheppard - President Bespoke Hotels Visit 

1hr 5 min 20 sec - Peter Ducker - Chief Executive Institute of Hospitality Visit 

1hr 5 min 25 sec - Gary Jones - Executive Head Chef - Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons Visit 

Surely schools are the place to improve knowledge on food, on what we should eat, to inspire a life long love for whole food and to understand the difference between real food and processed food.  To understand that food is essential for life, and that in the modern world nobody should be going hungry.  To try and fathom how on earth it is possible for the same areas struck be food poverty and lack of access to food to at the same time be suffering from diabetes and obesity due to the shocking quality of the food that may be available.  It’s just so bloody obvious.  How on earth have we allowed ourselves to have an education system that spends so little time on the one thing we put in our bodies every single day that nourishes us.  That gives us energy, that fuels our bodies and our minds.  We cannot achieve our potential either individually or as a collective unless we fuel ourselves efficiently.

Naomi Duncan and the charity Chefs in Schools are right at the beating heart of this debate and trailblazing some of the improvements that can be made.  They will soon be working with over 70 schools, predominantly in London, but with grand plans to work with, or inspire a transformation across thousands, if not tens of thousands of schools.

In this chat we dive into understanding what the problem with school food is, how have we ended up here, what should be done, what can be done and what is being done.  The impact that Naomi and the Chefs in Schools team are having is exceptional and very exciting.  Wether helping get fully trained restaurant style chefs into schools, or working with existing teams, they are focused not only on providing better food in canteens, but working with the curriculum in educating children and inspiring them around what good food can look like.  But whatever you do, don’t call the food healthy, since they have learnt the hard hard way, that can turn the average teenager off. 

I hope many of you listening will be inspired to speak to your local schools.  If you are a parent perhaps you can ask better questions of your kids school.  But if you work in the sector, why not reach out to your local school and see if you can help.  I’ve personally found working with my local primary school in inspiring and teaching children about real food and seasonality and presentation and the ethics of food has been hugely entertaining and exceptionally rewarding.  

Read about the School Food Plan and visit Chefs In Schools online or follow them on instagram or twitter