What have been the main highlights for Tastes of Anglia since you last talked to FPJ?

Tastes of Anglia has been heavily involved with the Local to London project and our time is funded by the East of England Development Agency. The first event was held at New Covent Garden Market (NCGM) on October 1, last year. In addition to that, we recently took part in an open day at the wholesale market on February 1. The event last month was jam-packed with buyers and dignitaries keen to see the project succeed, as well as producers from the East and South East.

The event in October went really well and we learnt a great deal from it. We had a chef there to make dishes with produce from Anglia; it really reached the foodservice sector. We are now looking to work with more chefs, but it is difficult to get them to engage with us.

With fresh produce in supermarkets, the store’s buyers know what their customers want and what price they will pay. But it is the celebrity chefs that highlight the seasons and what is tasty to both fellow chefs and consumers; food from the eastern region is never going to get a real following until we have this sort of backing.

Our produce has pretty much found its place in supermarkets, but it is the hundreds of chefs out there that we have to appeal to. That is why we are concentrating on London’s wholesale markets and trying to get wholesalers and growers to realise what consumers and chefs want.

For example, a lot of chefs are looking for baby vegetables at the moment and will not source leeks over a certain size; growers need to have this kind of information. The wholesalers stock what their customers want and they are currently stocking imported vegetables.

We have now gone further with Local to London and we are working with more of the London wholesale markets through their new business development managers (BDMs), who are funded by the London Development Agency (LDA). This is great, as we now have a person at each market we can link up with.

Two BDMs - one from New Spitalfields Market and one from Western International - came to Anglia recently to meet eight producers to explore opportunities with growers. They know what people on the market sites want and that is really making a difference. One of our growers is now in discussions with a wholesaler to supply them with potatoes from Essex. His neighbour already picks up produce for his farm shop from Spitalfields, so it will not even cause another journey and therefore there will be no extra food miles, as the mileage is already being done.

These new connections we have made have really worked well and if one of the BDMs comes to us with a request or query, we will scout a potential supplier - it may take two to three people to do it, but we will get it done.

Another event with Local to London is planned for the end of March and this time representatives from Spitalfields, Western International and NCGM will come to meet growers in Anglia.

What is happening at Tastes of Anglia’s annual food festival this year and how much fresh produce will be showcased?

A lot of planning has gone into our 13th food festival, called Feast East, which is running now and will finish on Saturday, March 7. The event has two parts; the first day on the Thursday is for trade only and will involve the BDMs, and the following two days are also open to the general public, when it becomes an all-round food festival.

There is not a huge amount of fresh produce as part of the festival, so this represents a great opportunity for growers in Anglia. We probably have only one fresh produce stand among 80 food stalls. Delis, farm shops and small retailers will be there, as well as supermarkets, looking for new products, as we really do want to shorten the supply chain. We find that growers are very good at producing their crop and packaging, but not so good at going out there and promoting themselves. We want to help them.

You recently visited New Spitalfields Market. What have you gained from that experience?

I have been to NCGM several times, but this was the first time I had visited Spitalfields. I was overwhelmed by how big it is, its great positioning in East London and the masses of parking it provides. More than that, everyone who works there talks to each other and there is a real sense of community.

But seeing English product stored in a French box brought our situation home to me - growers need to brand their fresh produce to get recognised. If only growers would realise how much a name on a box could do.

I was told that asparagus with a band of packaging around the bunch demands a premium for the extra information and the image it represents. It is simple things like this that can really push a grower forward.

We are now considering bringing a mini-bus of growers from Anglia to Spitalfields so they can engage with how their product is sold themselves. They could see the quality levels that are needed and traders could tell them what their customers want from the produce. It will be a great learning experience.

Do you think that the ‘buy local’ focus in Anglia has survived the credit crunch? What changes have you noticed since the economic downturn took hold?

I think that provenance is still important to consumers, but people have become less picky about food miles and are more likely to settle with knowing it is British for now.

However, the supermarkets are telling us that we are trading down and consumers are supposed to be eating at home more and leaving the restaurants high and dry, but although it is quiet, I get the feeling that it is nothing like the catastrophe the press says it is.

Products are still selling - not in the volumes they were, but people are still making a living and good quality shines through.

We are noticing that there is not as much shopper loyalty as there used to be with the advent of the discounters, but supermarkets are still pushing forward produce from Anglia and we have a good working relationship with nearly all of the big four. We are also helping to open up many alternative routes to market.

What are Tastes of Anglia’s future plans?

Since the disbanding of Food from Britain, like most regional food groups, we have suffered from the loss of funding from that source.

We are lucky that we have our own distribution company that turns over £1.2 million a year and therefore we are now 90 per cent self-funded.

We are at the start of compiling a feasibility study, which will look into whether we need distribution hubs around London. The study’s findings will be available in June, so we will have to watch this space.

We are really excited that the current environment holds many opportunities for regional produce and we are in a great position to help to realise some of them.

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