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If you are a South West food or drink producer looking for more sales, a food retailer looking for an easy way to stock your shelves with more local lines to satisfy customer demand, or a busy chef, pub landlord, hotelier, café owner or canteen manager wanting to fill your menu with delicious regional food and drink options to enhance your offering and delight your guests, then a thriving local food wholesaler has the ideal solution.
Plough to Plate of Cornwall is bucking the credit crunch to expand into new parts of the South West region. Established in 2003, Plough to Plate has rapidly become the local food wholesaler of choice for discerning shop-keepers and chefs in Cornwall and Devon. Whenever a customer needs the best West Country food and drink, Plough to Plate finds it and takes it to them; and whenever local producers need to get what they've made or grown into top notch shops and restaurants, Plough to Plate makes that happen too. They go above and beyond the normal service of a standard wholesaler. They believe that their range of Cornish and West Country food and drink products is - at over 3000, currently - the most extensive to be found anywhere.
Co-owner of Plough to Plate Sherry Boocock says "West Country food and drink isn't just our business, it's our passion, too. To bring top-quality local food to customers who care matters to us: it means money and jobs for small local businesses, shorter journeys for fresh food and drink, and a boost to the area's growing reputation for excellence in food"
Plough to Plate is now planning to take their "Farmer's Market to the Trade" concept to new areas of the region. They have prioritised 3 new routes, namely Bristol & Bath, including Taunton; Secondly Plymouth, Exeter, and the South Hams; and thirdly Bournemouth, Poole and throughout Dorset. This project is part of the South West Food & Drink Developing Sustainable Food Chains initiative - an integrated series of projects across the South West to produce replicable business models and approaches to developing localised food chains that are more sustainable and have a reduced carbon impact. Funding for the project has been made available by the South West of England Regional Development Agency. The main objectives of this recession-busting project are to achieve 3 new product range extensions, sign up at least 20 new producers, gain more than 80 new customers, and to hold 9 marketing events in order to promote this exciting new venture.
During the Autumn Plough to Plate held a presentation day on each of the new routes to outline the project to interested producers. There were talks from food businesses already in the Plough to Plate portfolio, as well as best practice seminars, terms and conditions of supply, question and answer sessions and so on.
In Spring 2011, Plough to Plate will attend various "Meet the Buyer Trade Fairs", in Bristol, Exeter and Bournemouth. The trade fairs will be an opportunity for Plough to Plate to outline their new service to retailers and food service providers, how the Farmers market to the trade concept works, the benefits to customers and so on. There will be product range displays and talks from producers to sell their goods to the potential new customers. The three new delivery routes will be launched after March 2011.
Says Sherry "the work being undertaken by us in order to get these new routes off the ground is part of a wider programme that will provide a lasting legacy of learning and knowledge for other businesses operating in the food and drink supply chain in the South West. We hope that this knowledge, together with the expertise we have already developed during our 8 years in business, will help all local food businesses achieve a stronger future."
For more information, please contact either Project Manager: Sherry Boocock, Company Director on 07779337964;sherry@ploughtoplate.co.uk or Project Administrator: Corinne McDonnell on 01579 363451; Corinne@ploughtoplate.co.ukThis project is part of the South West Food & Drink Developing Sustainable Food Chains initiative - an integrated series of projects across the South West to produce replicable business models and approaches to developing localised food chains that are more sustainable and have a reduced carbon impact. Funding for the project has been made available by the South West of England Regional Development Agency
For information on the South West Food and Drink Developing Sustainable Food Chains project, please contact Nick Cork on 01392 878333, email nick.cork@southwestfoodanddrink.com