Visit to The Houses of Parliament

On Thursday September 13th Keith Charlish of The Paddocks Butchery and I joined a group of Norfolk Food Producers that had been invited by Norfolk MPs to The Houses of Parliament. The trip was organised by local buying group Anglia Farmers. Click here for details of other producers attending the event.

We had an early start so Team Simonds were left at HQ in charge of pig feeding - not many of the other kids at Methwold High School feed 500 pigs before they go to school!

Meanwhile Keith and I had loaded our booty consisting of The Bunwell Banger  an amazing sausage made by The Paddocks Butchery to a secret recipe from Scotts Field Pork - and probably the only banger with it's own Twitter account which you can follow @Bunwellbanger. We were also taking along some Scotts Field ham cured by Bramfield Meats.

Upon arriving at The House of Commons we were greeted by enthusiastic interns who raved about everything Norfolk but particularily our pork products - the most common question was where can we buy this in London?

At lunchtime they were joined not only by the Norfolk MP's including our own, Liz Truss, but also John Bercow, The Speaker and newly appointed Minister of Agriculture, David Heath. David (himself a pedigree breeder of Tamworths - well you cant get everything right!) was extolling the virtues of rare breed pork. Although very new to the job he appeared to have a  positive view on local food production and farming in general.

Eric Pickles - the well known twitcher, a great fan of Norfolk and it's produce - is now also a fan of Scotts Field Pork, Charlie's ham and The Bunwell Banger!

We had a fantastic day meeting the great and the good as well as other Norfolk Producers - tasting cheese from both Fielding Cottage & Norton's Dairy as well as  pickles from The Elvedon Estate.