health foods
Global gatherer He’s sold his Wild Trail cereal bar brand but Gordon Leatherdale remains very much on the hunt for healthy snacks. He tells MICHAEL LANE about his new venture, the dangers of sugar and why butter is actually good for you.
P
erusing a table strewn with all-butter biscuits may sound like an odd way to start an interview with a new health food supplier but the person presenting them to FFD has an explanation. Gordon Leatherdale is, after all, the man behind the only cereal bar in the UK that could legally use the word ‘healthy’ on its wrapper. Having successfully launched and grown sales of his Wild Trail range – both in the UK and abroad – he has sold the brand and started out on a new venture, Healthier Foods Ltd. Leatherdale and his business partners, one of whom is a former snack company chief exec, are seeking out products across the globe that can tap into the growing consumer desire for healthy snacking options. The variety of sweet and savoury biscuits in front of us are from a Dutch bakery called van Strien and this selection is the first range Healthier Foods is importing into the UK. There are 16 lines in the initial offering, with more to follow soon. Four of them are organic and already listed by ethical wholesaler Infinity Foods. But Leatherdale is keen to stress that the full range fits the health brief. “The idea of Healthier Foods was healthier in two respects,” he tells FFD. “Firstly the health of the overall supply chain, so that’s to say ingredients.” He cites the Belgian UTZ-certified chocolate in the cookies, Fairtrade nuts deployed across the range and the PDO North Holland Gouda used in van Strien’s handmade cheese palmiers (“There isn’t another handmade cheese palmier on the market in the UK”). In addition, to the provenance of the biscuits, they’re also made with “proper ingredients”, such as grass-fed butter rather than the hydrogenated fats that have become prevalent in mass market biscuits. The use of butter chimes well with the growing consumer preference for “healthy fats”. Leatherdale says it has the added bonus of filling you up quicker, so you don’t need to eat as many biscuits or cookies to feel satisfied. The lower sugar levels – and it is real sugar rather than the ubiquitous shelf life enhancing glucose syrup – in these biscuits should also add to
Gordon Leatherdale’s Healthier Foods is importing all-natural cookies and biscuits from Dutch bakery van Strien, soon to be joined by low sugar Banana Joe’s crisps from Thailand
products. Raisins can contain as much as 83% sugar. “‘No added sugar’ versus ‘no sugar’. Two very very different marketing messages,” he adds. While health food shops are an obvious target for his wares, Leatherdale says they will sit very well in delis and farm shops. Recent listings for the biscuits with both Holleys Fine Foods and The Cress Co back this up. With consumers becoming more conscious about “clean eating” – that is avoiding processed foods and ingredients – Leatherdale thinks it is time for independents to get in on the act. Farm shops are “perfectly poised” to tap into this, he says, because they have the shelf space to offer a full healthy basket to customers, with both fresh produce and ambient lines. “Perhaps better food is becoming more important than just local,” he adds. “Local doesn’t The van Strien range features sweet mean that it’s and savoury varieties, including cheese better for you.” palmiers, shortbread and sesame straws their ability to fill you up. “Less sugar means less need,” he says. “Sugar is like a drug so you don’t need to cram your face full of them.” He concludes: “As part of a balanced diet, bearing in mind they’re all-natural, they’re not a bad product at all.” While there are several more van Strien items to come, the next products Healthier Foods will be bringing over in summer are banana crisps from Thailand. With just 2.5% sugar, Banana Joe’s was a “no brainer” for Leatherdale, given the amount of tooth-bothering sugar, albeit natural, in most fruit
Where Healthier Foods will go next to source products remains quite open. Although there is a great deal of innovation in Asia, Leatherdale is very enthusiastic about Northern Europe and the untapped potential of oats – low calorie, high in protein and fibre, and, again, you don’t need much to fill you up. “There are some fantastic health food products out there now that I think there weren’t 10 years ago – tasty delicious products that aren’t just bird seed.” Wherever he finds his next product, being able to communicate with his suppliers is crucial. Healthier Foods has already had to abandon one coconut-based prototype from Malaysia because the supplier neglected to mention they had to be packed at a certain temperature or they would go soft. This incident, not to mention a number of bad experiences with contract manufacturers going bust when he ran Wild Trail, have made Leatherdale cautious about going into production again but he doesn’t rule out developing another brand. For now, though, he’s got a table full of Dutch biscuits to sell. gordon.leatherdale@healthierfoodslimited. co.uk Vol.17 Issue 3 | April 2016
39