Nicholas Craig column

Oct 7 2005 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

We are halfway through British Food Fortnight, which encourages us to choose local produce. I need no persuasion.

From Craster kippers to Grasmere gingerbread, I believe the North of England larder is stacked high with delicious food that is the envy of many other countries.

It is good to know that regional restaurants and visitor attractions are opting to increase the choice of local food on the menus.

Northumberland lamb, Durham- reared beef and saddleback pork are all delicious, and by selling locally-reared meat, the restaurants and shops are enabling regional producers to thrive.

We can enjoy freshly-caught fish from North Shields, a superb selection of Northumbrian cheeses, and a great selection of vegetables from all parts of the region.

Local producers are unsurprisingly winning national plaudits. Burtree House Farm, of Darlington, has just beaten 4,500 other UK competitors to win the Great Taste Awards for its sticky toffee pudding baked in the farmhouse kitchen. The New Barns Farm Shop at Warkworth is also being showered with national awards, and is winning contracts to supply our top restaurants, as well as branching out itself by opening a kitchen shop. Farmers' markets, which were virtually unheard of 25 years ago, have done a great deal to make us aware of the range of tasty food on our doorsteps.

By cutting out the middlemen, the markets have become an important outlet for local people who grow and sell their own food. Local food may not sit on the shelves of Asda or Tesco, but that need not mean the slow decline of neighbourhood shops and producers.

Clever marketing and excellent produce means that there are a growing number of buyers of high quality local food.

Apart from the restaurant route, there will always be a niche for the family butchers, the specialist bakers or delicatessens.

Many of our farmers' markets, just like Tesco, are packed out at weekends. The markets are not trying to compete with mass-market supply.

They are providing us with something special - an end-of-week treat, for which we are willing to pay slightly more because of its freshness and quality. So during the food fortnight that says it's putting the `ooo' back into food, very best of British - preferably with a North-East flavour - to you.

Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton LLP