Fife farmer and black pudding maker Pete Mitchell will be offering his merchandise in the Far East after profitable a deal to offer a higher-close supermarket in Hong Kong.
The Farmer’s Son, which is centered in Auchtertool, around Kirkcaldy, will be giving his black pudding, haggis and white pudding to the Metropolis Tremendous chain in the previous British colony.
Founded four years in the past by Pete Mitchell, artisanal business enterprise The Farmer’s Son creates a assortment of Scottish meat puddings from domestically sourced all-all-natural Scottish components.
Making use of the best local ingredients is important to founder Pete, who only adds the greatest PGI Scotch Beef, neighborhood high welfare pork and Scottish manufactured oats to his items.
The introduction with the luxurious Hong Kong shop was designed when The Farmer’s Son showcased their products at a Scotland Food stuff and Drink export occasion.
Partnering with City Super, which run 21 stores in Hong Kong, gives The Farmer’s Son an chance to share their delightful merchandise in prime location merchants in the city, in time for Scottish expats to celebrate Burns Night on January 25.
Having said that, the route to one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious merchants has not been without the need of its troubles as The Farmer’s Son has had to contend with a world pandemic and regional political unrest.
“Great achievement”
© The Farmer’s Son
Pete, who farms at Clentrie Farm, reported: “It’s a fantastic accomplishment for us. It’s taken quite a prolonged time and we in the beginning experienced the discussion a lot more than a calendar year back at a ‘Meet the Buyer’ event that was set on by Scotland Food items and Consume.
“The buyer from Town Tremendous quickly recognized what we did and what we had been making an attempt to obtain in telling our tale, they recognized the excellent part and the traceability provenance and our heritage. We sent them some samples and had many conversations.
“As you are conscious it has been a tricky 12 months and especially in Hong Kong there has been a great deal of political unrest. Even in a calendar year when items are ‘normal’ making an attempt to take a enterprise abroad, specifically with some thing maybe the place there is not as much awareness close to it like black pudding or haggis and what to take in it with it. There is an component that people are unsure what the goods are.
“The fellas at Town Super experimented with seriously hard to make it materialize and all the work, via consistent conversation, and it arrived off.
“We are delighted that all our difficult function has paid off and our 1st get to Town Super is on its way.”
There is definitely the draw close to British and Scottish culinary delights, but Scotland and Scottish solutions are recognized across the globe for excellence and making foodstuff to a significant standard.
Pete Mitchell, The Farmer’s Son
Quality status
With a large variety of ex-pats residing in Hong Kong, you might expect that would be the current market to goal for, but Pete defined the track record for high quality that Scottish delicacies has globally indicates the desire is much extra prevalent.
“There is obviously the draw about British and Scottish culinary delights, but Scotland and Scottish products are recognised across the globe for excellence and manufacturing food stuff to a high normal,” he continued.
“For the ex-pat market it is a flavor of house, but for these overseas it’s like whisky or shortbread, it is associated with a little something of curiosity and excellent. I imagine it caters to each marketplaces there.
“The merchandise are so adaptable. They are not just breakfast merchandise as they can be extra into scrumptious seafood dishes, pastries and casseroles or utilized as canapes. It has come to be a food stuff item that can be utilised to incorporate flavour and texture to things that could possibly be bland or straightforward.”
© The Farmer’s Son
Very long tradition
Owning launched The Farmer’s Son four decades in the past, the Hong Kong agreement is a deserved reward for the 11th generation farmer who travelled the length and breadth of Britain to get his haggis and black and white puddings to issue of sale.
“We have generally been in meals and farming and it comes from a prolonged tradition. I grew up likely to farmers’ markets and understood it takes time and obtaining great good quality ingredients to make fantastic good quality goods,” Pete additional.
“Everything we use is purely natural off the farm or is sourced domestically. I understood that the products and solutions were extremely very good but outdoors of regional we hadn’t truly instructed the tale driving the solutions.
“I was talking to a person in London who was a chef who was complaining about the high quality of black pudding and haggis and claimed sad to say that a whole lot of these products and solutions have been mass manufactured, no a person genuinely understands what’s in it, in which the components are from and they never really style how they used to taste.
We love listening to from our satisfied prospects 😀#happycustomers #blackpudding #thefarmersson #scottishproduce
Posted by The Farmer’s Son Black Pudding & Haggis on Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Hard work
“That variety of set the wheels in movement and I started gong spherical restaurants, butchers and farm stores. I must have frequented all over 1,500 butchers and farm retailers from Cornwall to Aberdeen, from Wales out to Kent.
“Literally every city in the Uk I have been to and taken them samples and now we have about 400 clients, family members-owned specialist retailers up and down the country. We supply some marvellous cooks and butchers and we have our on line store as effectively.
“It’s been 4 yrs of extremely tricky perform, but it’s actually satisfying and we get letters from clients all the time telling us how fantastic they they feel the solution is. That is something really specific when a person will take a moment out of their working day to put pen to paper.
“People are now actively wanting for goods that have that provenance and the heritage driving it and we are functioning with the proper associates. We have also experienced some accomplishment with some supermarkets, like Booths in the north of England and we are fortunate in what we have completed.
“We do our very own sausages as nicely and I was once instructed do a single point and do it quite well. I do imagine that, though we do four matters, I believe we do 4 points pretty nicely.”
© The Farmer’s Son
Hong Kong bound?
With products and solutions currently being supplied to Denmark, France, Estonia and now Hong Kong, a vacation to the Considerably East to retain an eye on progress has certainly now been ruled out and could be the get started of one thing genuinely exciting for The Farmer’s Son as an artisanal producer.
Pete included: “I have not built any immediate options to hop on a plane, but I truly feel you need to see your customers, see exactly where your item is currently being sold and hold seeking to boost our products, see how it’s displayed and packed. You have to get out there and get feed-back, it is not constantly quick sitting down at home and phoning folks.
“I consider this is just the get started of how considerably we can consider our items. There is a large reputation globally on the lookout for these merchandise and we are incredibly bold. You have to continue to keep expanding. We are continue to reasonably tiny as a get started-up, but we consider like a medium sized or much larger firm about what we want to attain and what our vision is.”
© The Farmer’s Son