A day at the Harrogate Speciality food show got me thinking.

I have spent my morning wandering around the Harrogate speciality food show and I must say the more you go to events like this the more I am amazes at the quality of the good on show. And now it is not just things that are imported form France or Italy but home grown quality products. Products that are made by people who are passionate about their product and what they make.

As I was driving to the event I was listening to radio four and the food program was on. And it was talking about the catering at the Olympic Games and what the legacy would be from the games. It told the story of the producers and people in the area who are involved in the food . We all know about the big sponsor such as McDonalds and Coca Cola, but behind them are thousands more. The small cake makers, veg growers and producers of British products that have been selected to supply items for the games.

And then as I wander around the show it began to dawn on me that the big challenge for all the stands was not what they saw as there big challenge but something more. I am sure that all of them wanted to get there product in to farm shops, independent retailer and top end retailers. All looking for the high end market.

If we want to challenge ourselves with anything it must now be to get good well-made home grown products on to the shelves of all the retailers. I want to go to Tesco’s and buy a packet of free range value sausages. And now soon I hope to do so if the program Jimmy takes on the big supermarket has got anything to do with it. But what he had also was the passion and the belief to say that he could make a product that he was as proud of as well as his premium range of sausages.
It is becoming more and more acceptable to use the entire animal, then let us use all of the offal, not just the liver and kidneys. The more people who start to make premium end products means that soon you have too many premium end products on the market. And no matter how good you are there is only so much you can do to secure your share before there is no one left to buy. And it does not matter how good your cold pressed rape seed oil is, there is only so much you can sell. What the next big challenge is to all who want to make great local, organic, rare bread or whatever it is, is to make it for a mass market. That does not mean you have to make it cheap but you have to make it different.

I do not know how you can do this as for most of the time I can only see things going up in price as the actual raw materials you need to make the products get more expensive.  The other thing that might happen is that people give up or just sell the brand to a bigger company who just use the name cheapen the brand and make a bit of money as they now control the competition.

In fact the more I think about it the more I really do not know what the answer is but I know it is out there. The reason why I know it is out there is because less than twenty years ago I do not think there would have been a show like the one I had been to today.  And ten years ago it would have probably all been imported in for Europe. The fact that so much was not locally sourced, good quality and presented so well. That tells me we have come so far, we will find our way so all things will balance out.  Maybe the super markets will look to the local areas more and promote lines, a market in a super market. Or we might all just shop locally once more.
Whatever happens it is a interesting time to be in anything to do with food and hopefully that will remain so for some time.