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Press Releases
Former restaurant chef's return to school leads to Radio 4 Food & Farming Award
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A former restaurant chef, inspired by Jamie Oliver, has been named best dinner "laddie" at ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4's Food and Farming Awards 2007.
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Hugh MacLennan returned to school after seeing Jamie Oliver's campaign for better school meals. The catering manager at Ruislip High, a secondary school in Hillingdon, introduced an open door policy encouraging pupils to use the school kitchen like their own.
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The scheme has become so popular that he has a team of pupils who come in to cook breakfast for about 70 pupils each morning. Hugh also set up a chefs' club so pupils could get more involved in food preparation and cook meals to take home to their families.
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Jamie Oliver said: "He's got the kids involved, created an atmosphere in a place where they want to come, which is key, and this open door policy of kids being able to treat the school kitchen like a home kitchen, he's touching 300 kids' lives and they will remember when they are 20, 30 and 40.
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"And the fact they will have had a good relationship with food at school is such an incredibly profound thing and I really admire him for that."
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The winners of this year's awards are:
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- Best Food Producer – Peter and Henrietta Greig, Pipers Farm, Cullompton, Devon
- Best Dinner Lady/Laddie – Hugh MacLennan, Ruislip High Secondary School, London
- Best Take-Away – Colmans Fish And Chip Restaurant, South Shields
- Best Local Food Retailer – Latimer's Shellfish Deli, Whitburn, Tyne & Wear
- Best Regional/National Retail Initiative – SIBA Direct Delivery Scheme, Ripon
- The Farming Today Award for Farmer Of The Year – Robert Wilson, through his business Scotherbs in Longforgan, Dundee
- Best Farmers' Market (new category) – Wirral Farmers' Market, New Ferry
- Derek Cooper Special Award for best food campaigner/educator – Compassion In World Farming, Godalming, Surrey
- Judges Special Award – Angela Blair, Sandwell Primary Care Trust, West Bromwich
- ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Food Personality Of The Year – James Martin, decided by listeners' votes.
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A new award at this year's event was for the Best Farmers' Market. The award went to the Wirral Farmers' Market which impressed the judges for its excellent facilities, quality produce at competitive prices and the fact that it is run entirely by volunteers.
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Dairy farmer Robert Wilson took the Farming Today Award for Farmer of the Year. Robert spotted a gap in the market for fresh herbs 20 years ago and now supplies herbs, salad leaves and edible flowers to major supermarkets, wholesalers, food manufacturers and chefs. His business, Scotherbs, now employs more than 100 people.
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The Best Producer Award went to Pipers Farm, in Devon, where Peter and Henrietta Greig, working with 30 neighbouring farmers, produce the highest quality meat using native breeds and traditional farming practices.
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Best Take-Away winner was Colman's Fish And Chip Restaurant in South Shields, recently visited by former Prime Minister Tony Blair with Foreign Secretary David Milliband, MP for South Shields. They only use wild fish and place great emphasis on using sustainable sources.
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Latimer's Shellfish Deli in Tyne and Wear, won the Best Local Food Retailer Award, thanks to Robert Latimer's relationship with local fisherman which gives him access to the best seafood.
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SIBA Direct Delivery Scheme in Ripon took the Best National Retail Initiative Award for enabling small breweries to provide beer to larger retail outlets.
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Compassion In World Farming in Godalming, Surrey, won the Derek Cooper Special Award for their campaigning, and scientific research that has led to improved conditions for farm animals both in the UK and throughout the European Union.
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This year's winners will feature on Radio 4's The Food Programme and Farming Today, as well as on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Local Radio.
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Celebrities that presented awards include Rick Stein, Paul Rankin, Angela Hartnett, Oz Clarke, Jimmy Doherty, Atul Kochhar, Henrietta Green and Sophie Grigson.
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The awards evening was held on Wednesday 28 November at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham.
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The chair of this year's judging panel was cookery writer and celebrity chef, Sophie Grigson, who said of this year's awards:
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"I think the Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards matter because they really are a chance to honour the work that people are doing to try to make our food better in this country – and heaven knows we need it!
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"There's a long way to go but it's very exciting to see producers, shopkeepers, dinner ladies and campaigners all being celebrated."
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The ceremony, hosted by The Food Programme presenter Sheila Dillon, will be broadcast in a special awards edition of The Food Programme on Friday 30 November at noon.
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Note to Editors
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- A special awards edition of The Food Programme will air on Radio 4 on Friday 30 November at noon-1pm, with a shortened repeat on Sunday 2 December at 12.30pm.
- The Food Programme is on Radio 4 every Sunday at 12.30pm and repeated on Mondays at 4pm. Farming Today is on Radio 4 every weekday morning at 5.45am and on Saturdays at 6.35am. Listeners can listen again online at bbc.co.uk/radio4.
- The finalists in the Farmer of the Year category will be featured on Farming Today in the week of the awards ceremony.
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This year's judging panel was:
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- Sophie Grigson (chair);
- Alastair Little, food writer and restaurateur;
- Gillian Carter, Editor of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Good Food Magazine;
- Martin Caraher, reader in Food & Health Policy at City University;
- Robert Clark, Retail Market Consultant;
- Roopa Gulati, food writer and Deputy Editor, UKTV Food;
- Christine Tacon, General Manager of The Co-operative Farms;
- Sheila Dillon, presenter of Radio 4's The Food Programme;
- Steve Peacock, Editor of Radio 4's Farming Today.
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Radio 4 Publicity
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