Food festival helps to bake up new partnership

Stone Baked will be supplying the Lewis Partnership’s restaurants with their quality bread from this month – after owner Tina Clare was recommended to the group’s executive chef at last year’s Food and Drink Festival.

The Stone Food & Drink Festival, which takes place over the first weekend in October every year, has been helping to promote the very best of local food & drink – while offering foodies a fun-packed weekend – for the past decade. However, the Taste of Staffordshire supported event is also about helping to give local businesses a boost, something it did to great effect in 2013 when introducing a new, local supplier to one of Staffordshire’s biggest hospitality firms.

Festival Chairman Richard Stevens explains how a request from The Lewis Partnership’s Executive Chef Matt Davies set in motion a chain of events that will see Stone High Street’s Stone Baked become a regular supplier to The Swan, The Moat House, The Bear Grill and The Dog & Doublet from this month.

He said: “When Matt was planning the Pop Up restaurant last year, he phoned me and asked if I could recommend a local baker. Obviously I recommended Tina Clare from Stone Baked and I am delighted that the introduction has been so successful! This is yet another example of how the Food and Drink Festival supports the local economy. Well done Tina!”

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Chef Matt said: “I was really impressed by Tina from Stone Baked’s passion for baking and her creativity. The resulting stunning bespoke breads and baked products are the perfect match for the menus in our multi award-winning restaurants; including The Moat House, The Bear Grill, The Swan, and the Dog and Doublet Sandon, and we’re really looking forward to serving them.”

Tina, who opened Stone Baked in premises occupied by an existing bakery on Stone High Street in January 2013, explains how the introduction marked the beginning of a new chapter for her business.

“It was always part of the master plan for us to supply prestigious local restaurants, so that people eating in our area could taste our bread in the finest establishments around – the introduction to Matt via Richard at the Stone Food & Drink Festival really helped move this forward,” she said. “After supplying bread for the pop up restaurant at the festival I met with Matt and the scene was set for me to show off what we are really about; offering quality, bespoke recipes and working with local chefs to create something different and exciting for their menus.

“In 2014, the restaurant trade will account for around 25% of our business and we have links with a number of other renowned restaurants in the area, including Cullens. However, we never put all our ‘Baker’s Dozen’ in one basket, so we are looking to work with more local eateries – we’re especially keen to learn who will buy the Crown Hotel in town and when it will re-open, as well as what gastro plans are in stall for the recently acquired St John’s Church.”

To find out what Matt saw in Stone Baked products pop into any of The Lewis Partnership’s restaurants, where you will find Tina’s bread on the menu – alternatively pay a visit to Stone Baked next time you visit the High Street. Both Stoke Baked and The Lewis Partnership will attend the Stone Food & Drink Festival in 2014, which will take place on Friday 3rd, Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th October. For more information visit www.stonefooddrink.org.uk

In other Food and Drink Festival news, the festival has a brand new logo for its 10th year. Stoke-based AMI Creative was commissioned to create a new, sleek identity that will pave the way for the festival’s future growth.