Online Ordering for 16th November – 20th November (Week 46)
Our Ajay has been busy working away on more supplier videos for us, and we’ve just popped another batch live on the website! This time, it’s the turn of our lovely yoghurt and kefir suppliers, Brown Cow Organics. Click the thumbnail above to give ‘em a watch 🐮
Judith and Clive took over the family farm in the early 1980s, starting out with a small herd of just 35 Guernsey cows. Fast forward to today and the farm has grown to 450 acres, with 180 milking cows, all fed exclusively on a natural diet of 18 different species of grasses and herbs.
That lovely natural approach carries through to the dairy too. Their yoghurts are naturally thick, rich and creamy, without the need for emulsifiers, stabilisers or thickeners. Their kefirs are slowly fermented to develop a whole host of gut-friendly cultures and bacteria. And as if that wasn’t enough, they’ve also picked up a few Great Taste Awards this year alone!
We’ve had a good sample of the range ourselves and can confirm everything is v delish. A few ON favourites though are the natural Greek yoghurt, vanilla yoghurt and strawberry kefir 🥛🐮
Good afternoon beautiful people,
Busy is not the word. It can of course be both a blessing and a curse, I’m sure it’s the same for all of you guys too, but if we’re usually busy, we’re busier still just now 😅! Therefore, rather than try and weave my weekly updates into some flowery paragraphs, here’s a loada news bullets instead…
- Last week we began working with SIX businessesfor the first time. A farm shop, 2 new grocers, a buyers coop, a caterer, and a new market gardener. We’ve some exciting new customers in the pipeline too. Our growth means we’ll be able to provide a market for more UK growers (we support double the amount we did in 2021) and continue to expand our weekly lists. We find this incredibly exciting.
- Our wider outreach into our sector is also growing. We had separate meetings last week at the House of Lords and with the DWP and Defra. The one thing that unites all this work is that we’re looking to win more support for our growers, our retailers and for our nation’s health on every level in the process.
- It seems the youth is starting to rise up and I’m glad. Last week I presented a talk one evening to the northern faction of a group called Emergent Generation who are a youth group looking to help build food systems that nourish people and planet. It was so refreshing to hear so many keen young northern accents in a sector that is certainly dominated from our pals in the south of the country. Give them a look.Home | Emergent Generation I A diverse network of young people working together to build an agroecological food system and regenerative future
- The protests about the condition of schools in France and the protests that have continued on the back of those are a growing worry though, especially in the lead up to Christmas. When unheard, ports/roads are often amongst the first things to be blocked in France when folk unite against the government so should that happen, we’ll have to roll with the punches as best we can.France gears up for strikes and protests as unions promise national mobilisation – BBC News
- Last up, here’s a really informative talk about pulses by our pal, Josiah Meldrum from Hodmedod at the recent Fields Good festival in Northern Ireland. Josiah’s talks are always as inspiring as they are informative so forget the Emmerdale omnibus for one week and get yours eyes around this.Finger on the Pulse: Bringing pulses back into the rotation | Josiah Meldrum
Our Ell’s weekly veg updates:
- Starting in the UK, Royal Oak has 5kgs of chioggia and golden beets as well as their first sprouts and sprout stalks of the season!
- Next up, both New Farm and Roddy’s has celeriac and Pollybell has leeks again.
- Trinity has rainbow chard, erbette, french breakfast radish, red radish and long red radish.
- On the UK fruit front, Oakwood has ribston pippin apples and Saturn apples, Carey has Adam’s pearmain apples and Mole End some Comice pears.
- From Spain, Bioalgarrobo has cucumbers, mini plum tomatoes and plum tomatoes, Campo has green kohl rabi and Ecosur some short cucs, pointy red peps, and a variety of tomatoes.
- Elsewhere, Gospa return to the list with some lemons and oranges – whoop! And Las Hortichuelas has some mixed colour cherry tomatoes.
- From Holland, Zann has Jerusalem artichokes, marmande tomatoes, Granny Smith apples, kaffir limes, passion fruit and yuzu.
- From France, Uni-Vert has spinach, Bio & Bio has broccoli and our top picks from Dynamis are chicory, radicchio, ribbed black tomatoes, coconuts, red sun kiwis, white sweetie grapefruits, morell oranges and aloe Vera.
- To line your pantry’s, we have unsalted butter from Netherend, fruit and nut granola from Pimhill, some new beers direct from Stroud Brewery and some blueberry jam and pear and cinnamon jam from Hembridge.
I’ll finish up this week with some great news about a wee film our warehouse featured in earlier in the year. In short, it’s only gone and won a bloody award! The Soil Association entered the short film that they had commissioned for their 80th Birthday into the Big Syn Film Festival – the world’s largest sustainability film festival no less. Against some fabulous films (one featuring national hero Stephen Fry no less!), they only went and won an award! Huge congratulations to The Soil Association, the filmmakers Transfixus Creative and everyone involved. Here’s a link in case you missed the film first time round…
https://youtu.be/ku4CFt8wXPk?si=Wf2G8ine-S1ZsyQF
To infinity and beyond!
Sean, Mads, Alph, Ell, Cathryn and Team ON x
Alph and Ell donned their glad rags last night and headed over to The Mere (fancy!) in Knutsford for the Hospitality Action Northern Chefs’ Dinner, hosted by Paul Askew 👨🍳
Our pal Mary-Ellen McTague was among the line-up, joining four other acclaimed chefs to put together a rather special four-course feast, all in aid of Hospitality Action.
Mary-Ellen put some of our beets and spuds to good use in a roe deer hotpot, which we’ve papped above. It was extremely tasty as was the rest of the menu, with pork belly, cod and fennel, beef short rib and a chocolatey finish.
Hospitality Action is a brilliant charity providing advice, support and a helping hand to people working in hospitality when they need it most. It’s a cause well worth shouting about, so do have a look at what they do: https://www.hospitalityaction.org.uk ❤️