St Austell reward for local pub grub

Cornish pubs struggling to source ingredients have been given a boost by local brewer St Austell.

The West Country brewer has launched a major initiative to invest in food, encourage its tenants to use local produce and give licensees a helping hand with marketing their pub grub.

Earlier this year the company devised a signature dish competition for its 110 tenanted pubs.

Licensees were asked to come up with one dish, sourced locally and imaginatively marketed, for which their pub could become famous.

Because many West Country pubs, particularly those in Cornwall, rely on their food operation to survive St Austell realised improving the offer would benefit everyone involved.

Tenanted estate director Adam Luck said: "The standard of catering in many of our tenanted means they often use a selection of fabulous, locally-sourced Cornish ingredients. However, the object of the competition was to reward those tenants who not only used great food but also those who communicated their dish best through menu descriptions and their use of blackboards, posters and other promotional ideas."

Andy Banks from the Falcon Inn, St Mawgan and John Milan from the Pandora Inn, Restronguet won the competition, which was divided into dishes priced above £10 and those priced below £10.

Mr Banks won the under £10 dish with fresh haddock caught off Land's End, topped with Trevallas cheese sauce on a bed of crispy noodles. He said he knows where every ingredient comes from and can even pinpoint the area where the fish was caught.

The over £10 category was won by Mr Milan with a Restronguet medley of locally-landed fish - sauteed monkfish tossed with mussels, ginger, sweet peppers and Thai spices topped with Cornish yarg strips.

Each tenant won £500 of food vouchers to be spent on purchasing local produce.

Pub food comment:​ By Kerry Rogan, thePublican.com's Pub Food editor.​

Last month I went to Yorkshire to visit a fabulous food-led pub in a village not far from York.

The licensee is passionate about sourcing local produce and told me wonderful stories about the people who supply his pub with top-quality ingredients. He spoke of a woman in the village who has a small herd of goats and makes fabulous goat's cheese. He talked about the retired man who grows vegetables just for the pub. Then he took me into the bar and pointed out several local farmers, who provide the pub's meat and who drink there when they're off duty.

Obviously not all pubs can source everything locally. Often licensees are put off buying local ingredients because prices are higher, deliveries not as regular or suppliers hard to find.

That's where publicans can do with a helping hand and that is why this initiative from St Austell should be commended.

Encouraging its tenants to source food locally is one thing but giving them an extra helping hand with finding suppliers and marketing their is also a great idea.

The idea of provenance - knowing the origin of food - has disappeared over the years and pubs are in an ideal position to bring it back.

Sourcing local produce brings customers into a pub, helps other local businesses and can put British food back on the map. There are some fantastic suppliers out there and as many pubs as possible should be encouraged to find them and use them.

So congratulations St Austell. Hopefully many more pub companies will follow its great example.