DBM Wines did so well in lockdown they had to move and expand

Real food; virtual setting

It’s not unusual to hear business owners talking about the sustainability of their company and their responsible approach to its workings, but this can come across as a politically correct chant. Not so with Charlie Bigham, whose love of the environment and his community is clear in every decision he makes, discovers Emma Clegg

Charlie Bigham is very modest about his food expertise, surprisingly considering the success of his business, which he set up in 1996 with the aim of creating really delicious, top-quality dishes.

“I’m a cook not a chef,” Charlie tells me. “I would be hopeless in a restaurant, however I have cooked for a long time and I’ve picked up a few skills on the kitchen front over the years.”

His meals are freshly coo ked and packaged ready to prepare in the oven or on the hob. While convenient, these are not ready meals, he is at pains to emphasise: “Why compromise by putting things in the microwave and settling for something that doesn’t taste so nice? We just make nice food – that’s our objective.

“Our consumers write into us all the time,” Charlie explains, “and say, ‘I never buy ready meals, I love cooking, most day s I cook from scratch myself, but every now and again I just want a night off and your food is home-cooked and it’s really tasty.”

It all started with Charlie leaving his job and taking time off in 1995 to travel to India. Captivated by the tastes, colours, textures and aromas of the cuisine, he decided to set up a food business. After perfecting three dishes in his home kitchen – Caribbean lamb,

Cajun chi cken and salmon with a dill sauce –he went knocking on doors and managed to find some upmarket London food shops who were up for stocking him. Then Waitrose were interested. Then Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

Another element that makes Bigham’s meals so distinctive is the wooden packaging. “Long before David Attenborough did the commendable job of bringing plastic packaging to the forefront of everybody’s minds, we knew plastic was not right and wanted to avoid it as much as possible.”

The food parcels certainly stand out on the supermarket shelves as being different. “Most people decide what to buy in a nano-second, and so our packaging sends a signal to consumers that maybe we are a bit different,” says Charlie.

Bigham’s has two kitchens, one in North London and the other near Wells, where Charlie lives. Here th e meals are prepared at Quarry Kitchen, in a former quarry in

Dulcote. Quarry Kitchen was named RIBA’s South West Building of the Year in 2018, for its technological functionality and environmental transformation of a disused landscape, and in June this year, more than 900 solar panels were installed.

“It’s quite a big quarry, about 20 acres of hole in the ground,” says Bigham, and we’re surrounded on most sides by 120-foot cliffs. We have peregrine falcons flying around and badgers foraging and 20 acres of wildflower meadow outside our door. It’s a pretty unusual location. It makes a difference; if you’re making a high-quality product, start with a high-quality environment. We make some of our best-selling dishes here including our fish pie and chicken tikka masala.

Because of their ready supermarket channe ls, the business kept on operating successfully in lockdown: “We are a bit of light relief and we have appealed to consumers who perhaps haven’t heard of us or used us before,” says Charlie. “So there have been positives, but I would far rather it hadn’t happened.”

Charlie talks of the many artisan producers who have had their business taken away since the period of lockdown, but reflects that some food out lets have benefitted: “Some small retailers and producers have had quite a busy time. We don’t have enough diversity in the whole way our food market works so if it’s made this a bit better that’s something to celebrate.”

C harlie is a man of ethics – he cares about the environment and about his close community, and this philosophy and sense of responsiblity runs strongly through the mechanics of the business . “I have always h ad a view that business has an important role to play in society – it’s there to make a profit and provide employment, but businesses should be responsible players in society, so we want to have a positive impact on the world, whether that’s from an

environmental point of view or by engaging with the local community.”

The company’s community involvement is ever-present. Since the Quarry Kitchen opened in 2017, Bigham’s has employed more than 300 people locally and contributes to a number of local initiatives, including the Cheddar Valley Food Bank, Wells SOUP and Wells Carnival. Bigham’s al so hand-delivered 1,500 lasagnes to its n eighbours during the height of lockdown, to spread a little comfort and warmth among those living nearby.

Ticket holders can cook alongside top chefs Mark Hix and Thomasina Miers

Another collaboration saw them working with The Swan in Wells in August, providing free meals for the Eat Out To Help Out scheme – with a donation from sales made to mental health charity Heads Up, which they have started supporting.

Wells Food Festival is now i n its eighth year and has made a name for itself as one of the busiest and most successful food festivals in the UK. Charlie Bigham’s has supported the festival for four years, but this year the company has become the headline sponsor, with the plan of helping the festival reach another level.

While the physical festival has sadly been cancelled, on the calendar instead is a virtual two-day food event. “It was obvious quite a few months ago that holding the festival in its normal physical guise could be a challenge, so we thought, ‘well are we going to let that defeat us or should we have a plan to run a standalone virtual festival?’.

“I haven’t come across another festival quite like ours, so we are sticking our necks out, but early signs have been really encouraging. There are a lot of small artisan produc ers who have had a really, really tough time over the last few months, because they haven’t been able to go to their normal markets to sell their produce.”

The virtual festival is already live and visitors are now able to peruse the wares, with orders being generated online. The website brings all the enthusiasm of the outdoor food market to the screen, with a charming image by illustrator Emily Sutton show casing the different parts of the festival: the artisan food market, liquid refreshments in Brewed, Chilled and Distilled, music on the bandstand, competition corner, the story of Wells, and tent talks. “It’s all an experiment,” says Charlie, “but it’s really exciting – normally it’s a local event, so people come from the region, and not much further afield. But once you go online your potential audience in creases.”

There are around 150 producers involved

The Quarry Kitchen in Wells is sited in Dulcote Quarry and in 2018 was named RIBA’s South West Building of the Year and many of them are new to the festival. They include the Incredible Brewing Company from Bristol and The H’eggs Company, Bath Culture House and the Wild Flour Cake Co. from Bath.

At the heart of the festival’s food programme is the Bigham’s Banquet – a live streamed ‘cook-along’ where ticket holders can cook alongside top chefs Mark Hix, Thomasina Miers, Henry Harris and Merlin Labron-Johnson, as well as Bigham’s head chef Rupert Willday. The event will be hosted by food critic and MasterChef judge William Sitwell and Charlie Bigham himself.

Limited to 1,000 places, tickets for the banquet on 10 October (6-9pm) cost £20, with all proceeds going to Chefs in Schools –a charity working to transform food in primary schools across the country. In advance of th e cook-along, participants will receive a Bigham’s goodie bag containing an apron, a Wells Food Festival tea towel, a banquet recipe booklet, plus a voucher for a free Bigham’s dish of their choice.

At-home festival-goers can also sign-up to further cookery masterclasses and talks by Charlie and his team of master chefs, flower arranging with Georgie Newby, artisan florist and flower farmer at Common Farm Flowers, ‘no dig’ gardening tips by Charles Dowding, as well as music by the Harlem Rhythm Cats and a photography competition.

The site proclaims, “Let’s make 2020 the year we fill our baskets with the very best produce, made by the small, most passionate businesses who make our country the home of fantastic food.”

The baskets are virtual, but the food is real. Go along and soak up the atmosphere without le aving home. n • Wells Food Festival with Charlie Bigham’s, 10 & 11 October, free to attend. To book a place at the Bigham’s Banquet visit wellsfoodfestival.bighams.com