Gary Sharkey on why Hovis is set to launch its first loaf made only with wheat from British farms in the new year


When The Grocer uncovered our plans last week to use only flour milled from 100%-British wheat, we knew it would capture the imagination of both consumers and food industry business leaders.

It wasn't long before the story took on a life of its own, with hundreds of column inches in the national media and plenty of air time devoted to celebrating the repatriation of a national icon.

Of course, we are taking great delight in the fact that, when the 100%-British Hovis hits the shelves in the new year, we will be the first major bread brand to do so, leaving competitors in our wake.

But the fact that our announcement has generated so much ­interest shows that there is something bigger at play here than a mere marketing coup.

If anyone had doubted how far issues such as local-sourcing, provenance, food safety and food miles had crept up shoppers' agendas, they should think again.

And while it shows there was a general astonishment on the part of the British public and media that leading producers such as ourselves had previously been forced to source premium bread-making wheat from as far afield as Canada, if you go back to the 1950s and 1960s you would discover that virtually all of Britain's bread wheat was imported due to the poor quality of home-grown wheat varieties at that time.

Thankfully, British farmers remain among the most enterprising and open-minded practitioners of their trade anywhere in the world.

We set out five years ago to see if British farmers could replicate the quality of Canadian-grown red wheat (the finest available for bread making), and the reaction has been better than we could have hoped.

Not only have British farmers shown their willingness to embrace new opportunities, they have also shown they have the nous to realise this kind of adaptability is key to the survival of their businesses and the British-sourced food chain.

Today, we already have more than 600 British farmers growing red wheat exclusively for Hovis, and taking great pride in producing the crops that will be supplied directly to our mills.

And the scheme has been so successful that more farmers have already joined the waiting list to start supplying us with the higher-quality but lower-yielding red wheat, for which they can expect to receive a premium price.

As you can imagine, we at Hovis are already relishing the next phase of our brand renaissance to reinforce Hovis' heritage as a thoroughly British brand. But the real rewards of our switch are already being felt across our seven mills and 13 bakeries throughout the UK.

Take, for example, our Glasgow operation. Our mill is being supplied with red wheat from Scottish farmers, while the resulting milled wheat has to be transported just three miles to our bakery. How very old fashioned!

But the days of progress having to be bigger, better and more far-reaching than what went before are over. It's now all about taking a little bit more time to think about what's really important.

We at Hovis have shown we know on which side our bread is buttered and we're already making a difference.

Gary Sharkey is head of wheat procurement for Hovis.

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