The BBC Food and Farming Awards 2026: The Food Producers

The Food Programme

The episode profiles the finalists for the BBC Food and Farming Awards in the Food Producer category. Judges visit three diverse UK enterpri

Key takeaways

• Andrew Gillespie of Fresh Flower Company uses heritage wheat varieties to avoid agrochemicals and support the South West Grain Network.
• The Fresh Flour Company operates as a not-for-profit to ensure farmers are paid fairly for diverse crops.

Main topics

• BBC Food and Farming Awards
• Sustainable agriculture

Notable quotes

We're trying to make the system of wheat work.

Conclusion

The episode highlights a growing movement of producers prioritizing en

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads Speaker 3 (0:02) outside the UK. Speaker 7 (0:09) Welcome to the Haunted Library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:41) Welcome to the Food Programme. This week, we're on the road. The we, being me and chef, broadcaster, TV star and chief executive of Slow Food Northern Ireland, Paula McIntyre, who is also, this year, chair of the BBC's Food and Farming Awards judges. Together, Paula and I have been judging the food producer category, and today we announced the shortlist. Ours, that we've whittled down from a long list of 12, and all the others in every category. And you can now find all the shortlists at bbc.co.uk slash food awards. Our three food producers are scattered widely all over the UK. Broiter Gold Rapeseed Oil in Limavady, up near the northwest coast of Northern Ireland. Dunn Flashadder Cottage Croft on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides. And the Fresh Flower Company in Devon. That's been a lot of time on the road. Though in fact, I got ill and didn't make that first visit to Devon. But producer Sam Grist was there with Paula holding the microphone and holding everything else together. Speaker 6 (1:54) What you want is Speaker 4 (1:56) a Speaker 1 (1:57) slight singing from the Stones. Speaker 4 (2:00) Andrew Gillespie founded and runs the Fresh Flower Company. Speaker 1 (2:05) Hear that every now and again, the Stones touch. Speaker 4 (2:08) And his wheat comes almost entirely from four farms run on organic principles, all of them growing several varieties of wheat. The biggest selection of wheats is grown by Fred Price at Gothelney Farm near Bridgewater in Somerset, which is where Paula and Sam went first, near the end of the summer's record-breaking heat and drought. Both farmer Fred and Miller baker pasta maker Andrew are part of the Southwest Grain Network, a chain of farmers, millers, chefs and producers working outside the global commodity market. Speaker 4 (2:48) You've had the harvest here relatively Speaker 8 (2:50) early? Yeah, Speaker 6 (2:52) I mean, yeah, it's crazy to think that we stood here on, what is it, the 4th of August or something. We wouldn't be thinking of starting usually until now. We're completely done. The combine's wrapped up for next year in the shed already. I think right now, if you're in any way connected with the land, there's a lot of changes happening and you can't escape them and we're having to... think very differently about our cropping, about our rotation, about when we do things, how we do things. And it's super helpful actually having a supply chain behind us. that actually appreciates those challenges and can work with the impacts on the product. It gives us, you know, what I would call as a kind of, people like Andrew are the enablers, you know, the South West Grain Network is creating the enabling conditions for a much healthier, resilient relationship with a farmer. It enables us to buffer these seasons where yield is impacted, quality is impacted by the weather conditions. Speaker 6 (4:06) So we grow wheat and we grow it for lots of bakeries in the South West Grain Network. And we grow it without agrochemicals. So we don't have herbicides to control weeds, we don't have fungicides to control disease, we don't have insecticides to control pests. And in that context, modern varieties aren't really appropriate. And so for two reasons, we're growing populations which are basically incredibly genetically diverse crops which contrast with a modern variety which is genetically uniform. And under these circumstances, these different populations will outperform modern varieties on our farm. And they also embody a kind of decision for us to advocate for a different kind of seed system, one that doesn't result in a kind of concentration of power and control in fewer and fewer hands. Speaker 8 (4:55) So how did you come to work with Andrew at the Fresh Flower Company? Speaker 6 (4:59) What's different about how we're selling grain now to how we were selling grain before? Before it was a very reductive negative process about penalising us for whenever we were outside a specific window. And now we know exactly where the grain's going. We know the person. I've known Andrew for probably nearly ten years now. We share similar values. We're both motivated by the same things, albeit in a different kind of sector. And that's incredibly fulfilling. And the willingness and the intention to make something work is there. and that broadens what's possible and it also means that we're really adaptable really resilient and we meet each other's needs and meet the needs of fresh flower with the product i'm delivering and i'm receptive to his feedback and he meets my needs and that might be around price it might be about quality it's certainly around quantity but most of all it's just the shared set of values Speaker 4 (5:53) Then it was on to the Fresh Flour Company, the milling and the making of pasta, biscuits and crackers. Speaker 6 (6:01) I'm Andrew Gillespie from the Fresh Flour Company. We're a not-for-profit organisation down in Devon trying to make the system of wheat work. What we're trying to say is to the farmer, what can you grow? Speaker 8 (6:15) And Speaker 6 (6:15) then we'll make the stuff from it, which you'll try, you know, the pasta, the shorter, the... fusilli and the regionetti that has its own structure can have softer and lighter grains and then we've got crackers which you can pretty much make with anything with a little bit of strength and then biscuits where you don't need strength at all. Speaker 8 (6:35) It's a lower risk because you're growing all these different grains and even if they don't do that well you still have a use for them. Of course, of course. Speaker 6 (6:44) So we also, we pay our farmers what they ask. We don't negotiate with them. But that's Speaker 2 (6:51) the Speaker 6 (6:51) point, that we are not putting pressure on that farmer to grow the grain that needs to be grown for our product, but we're also paying them the fair amount for the great work they're doing that hopefully over time they'll be able to then focus on biodiversity increase and soil quality increase. rather than worrying about where the tractor payment's coming from. This is our original cracker. That has two ingredients, wheat and salt. That's it. That's it. And the reason it tastes like that is that ferment. Speaker 6 (7:41) So when you're milling, you mill and you get a certain amount of refined flour and then you get bran and a mix up of other stuff. One of the ways that we use that bran, and I think the most innovative way to use that bran, is to turn it into a ferment. Speaker 8 (7:56) Okay. Oh, smell that. Speaker 6 (8:00) and paste it. Speaker 8 (8:01) It Speaker 6 (8:02) pops in your mouth. It's Speaker 8 (8:03) so tangy isn't it? Speaker 6 (8:04) It's lemonade. Lemonade. It Speaker 8 (8:07) smells beer-y. Speaker 6 (8:10) Absolutely amazing. So in that cracker you tried, this cracker is just that. It's just wheat. Speaker 8 (8:17) Just the wheat that Speaker 6 (8:18) ferments. Speaker 8 (8:20) Fresh Speaker 6 (8:20) flour, fermented with 2 % salt. That's all it is. That's Speaker 8 (8:25) it. Speaker 6 (8:25) That's all it is. Speaker 8 (8:25) Do you know what I love about these crackers? They're so crunchy. Yeah. There's nothing worse than a soggy cracker. And I don't think they'll ever go soggy, will they? They're just brilliant. I love them. Speaker 6 (8:36) Yeah, they're lovely. Speaker 8 (8:41) So, Andrew, what are you cooking for me today? Speaker 6 (8:44) So, we're going to make some courgette strips. Strip the courgette with a potato peeler, fettuccine because they've got a very similar character. And cook the fettuccine up, add the courgette to it, raw, and then lemon juice on the top, a little bit of salt. Speaker 6 (9:06) So what we're also doing with our product is we have to educate people of how to cook it. You're not slather it with sauce. Cook it gently. Cook it in lots of water because the heritage grain doesn't hold the gluten in as tightly as heavily gluten durum wheat. So when we put this in water, you want it in plenty of water so you've got the starch going into the water. Speaker 8 (9:39) You see that I like a long strand. Yeah I do, it's entertaining. Speaker 8 (9:46) But that pasta, as you said, you don't need big thick sauces for that. That's got so much flavour and the texture's amazing, isn't it? Speaker 6 (9:54) The Speaker 8 (9:54) texture's just... Beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. What's that, a couple of ingredients there? Just courgettes, lemon, oil? Salt. I Speaker 6 (10:04) could Speaker 8 (10:04) probably eat that with just the oil. Speaker 6 (10:07) Yeah, you can, a little bit of cheese. Speaker 8 (10:10) How did you get here from advertising to pasta maker? Speaker 6 (10:15) Yeah, a little bit further back than that. We, as a family, lived in a little council house in Lewisham in a thing called the Downham Estate. But out the back of our little garden, the gate opened to five allotments, and my mum and dad had three of them. So they would grow everything from asparagus and herbs and tomatoes and cucumbers and melons and plums and apples and all sorts of stuff. So I had a paradox of a plate of food, which would be... pile of runner beans with a Finder's crispy pancake on the side. So then I went through that, went to uni, went into advertising, selling digital advertising, worked at some of the biggest corporations in the world, and then took all my clients around to some of the best restaurants in London and the southeast. So I got a taste and a flavor for what people were prepared to pay a lot of money for. And then I got disillusioned with that. I found this course at Shoemaker College with an MSc in sustainable food systems. And then during that study, I realised that wheat was the food product or the plant that had bound itself most tightly to humankind. It's the most grown product. It's grown on 221 million hectares. The way for us to make a dent in the climate emergency and make the next generations of our planet able to survive