Speciality Bites from Paul Hargreaves of Cotswold Fayre

I was slightly surprised to see the headline article on the Speciality Food Magazine’s weekly newsletter trumpet: “Indies: Stop Mimicking Loyalty Schemes”. It turns out that this was a point of view of one person keen to push his own webinar, rather than an industry opinion as a whole. However as the debate is now “out there”, let’s consider the pros and cons. (more…)

I have been on my travels again the last couple of weeks to the ISM Show in Cologne and a Bord Bia event in Ireland.  Both gave a good indication of how the economy is performing with relation to speciality food on a European level.  Since then the news has broken about the mess that Greece’s economy is in, so we wait to see what impact that will have. (more…)

I have just come back from Farm & More Conference, where there were record numbers of delegates and a thriving trade show alongside it. There was a general feeling of buoyancy about last year, despite the recession, which would have been even more optimistic had many of the retail outlets not been hit hard by the snow at the start of January. There were stories of new farm shops that had reached over £1million turnover in their first year and several more established shops now trading at £3-4million. (more…)