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June 2008: Ladies in Pigs at Lincolnshire Show

Above: Margaret Denness, Mary Ibbotson and Julia Blant at Lincolnshire Show.

The mobile LIPS kitchen headed north last week to attend Lincolnshire Show.

LIPS has recruited some new Lincolnshire members, Lizzy Owers and Paula Joseph, and so with them on board and ladies from Yorkshire and Nottingham, we were able to promote the new season's recipe's.

Over the two days we were met with a great response from the public. They particular liked the Pork-and-Apricot Burgers with the yogurt and mint dressing. Our excellent meat was kindly provided from Uncle Henry's Farm Shop at Grayingham, by Steve and Meryl Ward.

We had a butcher next to us at the show and he helped educate the general public in the various cuts of pork and how to buy and cook it, as well as providing the opportunity for the public to buy British joints, sausages etc.

Above: Paula Joseph offers the sausages around at Lincolnshire Show.

The new cookbook with over 155 pork recipes in it, went on sale for £5 and proved very popular. Anyone wishing to buy one can do so, by getting in touch with Jane Conder at LIPS central office, 01923 262214, or visiting the LIPS stand at the summer shows.

We will be attending Norfolk Show (25-26th June), Royal Show (3rd-6th July), Great Yorkshire Show (8th-10th July), Driffield Show (16th July), CLA Game Fair, Woodstock (25th-27th July), New Forest and Hampshire (29th-31 July), Dorset Show (6th-7th Sept).

May 2008: Ladies in Pigs at Newark Show

By Julia Blant
June 2008

Newark and Nottinghamshire Show this year basked in some of the hottest weather in May, so there was lots of interest from the public in our new 2008 recipe tasters.

In one of the rarer quiet moments, some of the local farmers are seen partaking of samples too (above).

Together with the Yorkshire girls who work the Leyburn Food Festival, the Nottinghamshire girls are always the guinea pigs with the new season's recipes.

I can report that this year's tasters are going really well with sausage and bacon risotto and sausage and leek chowder being the favourites so far.

We always team up with the NFU at this show to make a really good impact for local farming and food, and this year was particularly good for the children in this Year of Food and Farming.

There was a collage of a farm. Children were invited to draw and cut-out the items to make up the full scene with animals, machinery, birds, people etc. It looked brilliant at the end of the Show.

John Deere had lent a big new shiny combine, and there were lots of charts on hand to show how it works, plus the local farmers to help on the practical side.

Buckets of seeds - linseed, oilseed rape, wheat, barley etc. - provided much hands on fun, along with charts to detail the processes with foodstuffs at the end of the chain.

And for the toddlers, there were plenty of interesting rare breed chickens, ducks, goslings, provided by the White Post Farm, which does such a good job in linking farming and food.

Photos by Alison Pratt, East Midlands NFU.

2007: Annual report of LIPS activities

Lips has again had a varied and busy year in spite of the inclement weather at times, and the difficulties caused by foot and mouth and the financial constraints now further stressing the industry.

Breakfast Week

We took the mobile kitchen on the Friday to serve bacon and sausage baps to various companies in aid of RABI. Supermarkets Budgens This year we have promoted in the following stores, Cheddar, Drayton, Aylsham, Harleston (Norfolk). Also two visits to Holloway Hill, North London, as well as two days in the store in Moreton in Marsh. These were all successful days promoting Newetts of Thame products and those of Gill and David Graham.

Tesco

We have also been in-store promoting Powters sausages from Newmarket. So far we have been into stores in Colchester, Ipswich, Martlesham, Huntingdon, Royston, Great Yarmouth, Norwich and two visits to Peterborough. It was a new one for us to be able to work in-store at Tesco and this proved to be very successful both for Powters and the store, as we managed to clear the shelves of all Powters products on nearly every occasion.

Bacon Education Week

We assisted in this new promotion by helping to deliver bacon sandwiches to various radio stations early on the Monday morning. Unfortunately the sandwiches were cold and too innovative to really demonstrate the great taste and quality of British bacon.

Product evaluation

We have again provided judges at all the venues this year and have been participating in this for over ten years. This is a very useful experience for us as it demonstrates the wide range and standard of products being produced, and helps us to promote with a better knowledge of the industry. We have also judged the Foodservice Sausage Competition and one for the Q Guild of butchers, and these too proved to be very interesting with some superb products and some very disappointing.

Sausage Week

Our ladies have again helped to judge the best sausage sandwich at the various venues around the country in the company of Phil Tuffnell the celebrity judge and others.

Shows

This year we attended the Newark and Notts, South of England, East of England, the Royal, the Dorset and the Great Yorkshire. These were all successful for us even though the weather was not always of our choosing. The last day of the Royal was cancelled and it took ten men to push the mobile kitchen off site on the Tuesday evening. We have had butchers next to us at some of the shows which proved successful for them and helped educate the general public in the various cuts of pork and how to buy and cook it, as well as providing the opportunity to purchase joints sausages etc.

Food Festivals etc

This year we again attended Ostend at Anchor with an equally appreciative public wanting to buy British sausages. This we again could not do as the butcher who supplied all the meat and sausages did not arrive, which was very frustrating for us. We are investigating to find a reliable butcher or processor for next year who would be interested in exporting to Belgium. Both an importer and the Embassy came to see us with a view to importing British sausages. We had successful days at the Wolverhampton butchers’ celebration for St. George’s Day and also a day to attend the Wolverhampton Food Fair. The Nantwich Food Festival, which is a three-day event, was also very successful again, as were Melton Mowbray and the Four Shires festivals. We had planned to go to the Game Fair in Yorkshire, the Truck Fest in Oxfordshire and a Food and Praise day at Harbury, but these were all cancelled either because of the poor weather or foot and mouth.

Education/School Days

We have participated in this very important part of our work in various parts of the country. We have been at the days in Norfolk, Suffolk, Oxfordshire, Brooksby College in Nottinghamshire and four in Yorkshire, which were two in June, the launch of the Food and Farming Year, and a careers day on November 14.

Other Activities

As well as the above, several of our ladies have given talks and cookery demonstrations to various organisations. These are a valuable way of promoting pork as the audience is seated, and hopefully captive for about an hour so giving us the opportunity to educate, inform and stimulate their taste buds, and hopefully persuade them that British is best.

Next year..

For 2008 we have another full timetable and a sincere thank you must be said to our sponsors large and small who make all this possible. Every penny and pound helps us to promote the pig industry and we are very grateful to you all.

 

 

 

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