Rudding Park announces Food Heroes Campaign
Rudding Park’s restaurant staff are to be sent out into the Yorkshire countryside
to meet local farmers as part of an innovative new campaign - Clocktower Food Heroes - to be launched in March 2008.
An evolution of the Clocktower restaurant’s existing Yorkshire Selection dishes, the Food Heroes concept brings the issue of food provenance to the fore, highlighting Rudding
Park’s ongoing commitment to using the freshest seasonal produce from local suppliers.
Drawing inspiration from a dozen local producers or Food Heroes, the year-long campaign will include a new, daily menu offering a choice of
four starters, main courses and puddings, each featuring a principle ingredient
sourced in Yorkshire within a 100 mile radius of Rudding Park and annotated with
the food miles travelled respectively.
However this unique concept stretches beyond the menu with the introduction of
an innovative staff familiarisation programme. Comprising a series of monthly
Food Hero ‘field trips’ for small groups of kitchen and waiting staff, the campaign will
ensure the entire restaurant team visits local suppliers in situ thus developing
an in-depth knowledge of the ingredients and farming processes, which can subsequently
be passed on to Clocktower diners.
The 12 Clocktower Food Heroes have been hand-picked according to a selection of criteria including locality,
quality and seasonality. From Sheppard’s Purse Yorkshire Blue cheese and Plumpton
Rocks asparagus to West Moor Farm free-range pork and Ampleforth Abbey cider,
the Food Heroes collectively demonstrate the wealth of exceptional produce available across
Yorkshire.
The new menu will focus on a different Food Hero each month with an emphasis on simply prepared dishes that showcase the ingredients
to best effect. It will complement a revised version of Clocktower’s existing
a la carte menu. A selection of Clocktower Food Heroes recipes will also be available for download from www.ruddingpark.com
