First published in Pure Taste magazine, May 2007

NW Fine Food is a membership organisation. All its members are producers from the North West who each own a £5 share in the company. They don’t make a profit and any money they make is ploughed back into developing their businesses - promoting them, helping them grow and generally trying to sell more of their local produce.

I have had the wonderful pleasure of meeting these producers and hearing their very personal stories. And believe me, all of them have a great story to tell. Take Michelle, who used to work in the smoothie bar at Harvey Nicks in Manchester. Obsessed by pickles, chutneys and apples, (trust me they’re all like this!), she left her beloved job, researched the market for a year and started Clippy’s Apple Preserves.

She is determined to protect our native North West apple orchards, and works with a range of local orchards and suppliers. The passion for her work shines through in everything she does, and her delicious preserves include the magnificent Apple and Rhubarb Jam. All her products are handmade in small batches with a big dollop of Clippy love. Just a typical NW Fine Food member really.

There are also producers who are true family businesses: Edge & Son have been butchers, producing rare breed and organic meats in the Wirral since the 1800s. So too have Gordon and Gillian Clark’s family in Penrith and Frank Taylor’s family in Sale. Richard Woodall Ltd in Millom, Cumbria, has a royal warrant to supply H.M. Queen Elizabeth II with Cumberland sausages. The company is still in family hands and they were established in 1828.

Bartons Pickles in St Helens, make the definitive piccalilli (in my opinion) and have done so for over a hundred years. Eddisbury Fruit Farm have been growing fruit and vegetables from their rich Cheshire soils since 1936. Amanda Dowson’s family have farmed in the Ribble Valley since 1954, producing milk and the most delicious ice cream from their Holstein herd. Freda Neale’s ancestors have been farming in the heart of rural Lancashire for so long they can’t tell you when it all started, but they now sell their farm produce from a rather good farm shop. I could go on and on.

Not one of the members is boring or dispassionate, because to make, rear or grow your own products is not for the faint hearted when you consider the power of the competition. What they make is often the result of generations of work - recipes handed down, animals looked after, fruit and veg lovingly cared for. If you talk to them they’re open and honest about the way they create the end product.

The big boys may have hijacked all the marketing phrases but if you rely on your senses, you can smell, see and (ha ha) taste the difference. I’m very proud to be living and working in the North West, and I challenge you to buy something local and see what all the fuss is about.