Press Release April 5th 2019. Embargoed until 3pm.

For further information please contact Kate Dent on [email protected]

We are launching today so will respond to queries as soon as possible after 5pm, thank you.

Notes to Editors

1. Food & Drink images link here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3mcjdrcbdx1hek5/AACb4bZ1qkJ5b2vM8KNZI_J6a?dl=0 Password: foryoureyesonly

2. Food & Drink film link here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wds8ache2mdame4/AAB4lL_a2XyOP0vjVc2kj0P_a?dl=0 Password: foryoureyesonly

The COMPRESSED version is better for social media (Insta/Facebook) as it will load more quickly. The HD version is a 4K version better for YouTube and offline viewing etc.

3. Easy to reach one hour north of London, Northamptonshire welcomes 20 million visitors each year.

4. These visitors spend around £1 billion in the local economy and support almost 14,000 jobs.

5. Since launching the Northamptonshire Surprise campaign, Northamptonshire has seen an increase in the numbers of visitors to its historic houses and churches; this is against a backdrop of declining numbers elsewhere in the country. Northamptonshire is back on the map.

6. New for 2019: The Northamptonshire Surprise site www.northamptonshiresurprise.com/food now enables visitors to quickly discover the county’s most excellent food & drink; award winning chefs, cafes, pubs, producers, restaurants and food festivals, all putting Northamptonshire on the map.

MASTERCHEF STAR CLAIMS NORTHAMPTONSHIRE IS ‘BRITAIN’S MOST FOODIE COUNTY’

Restaurant critic and MasterChef judge William Sitwell today lays down the gauntlet for what he calls the ‘Food Battle of Britain’. In a challenge to regions across the country Sitwell argues that his home county of Northamptonshire has a greater combination of ingredients, producers and food businesses. The sum total, he says, is that ‘Northamptonshire is Britain’s most foodie county.’

‘Cornwall has great pasties, Lincolnshire has sausages and Yorkshire has rhubarb,’ he explains adding: ‘Derbyshire boasts its Bakewell Tart, Leicestershire its Melton Mowbray and counties like Kent and Hampshire produce wonderful wines. Across Britain we are becoming a fabulous nation of food and drink. But when you analyse the output of Northamptonshire’s food and drink sector – from the 3.5 billion biscuits made each year by Weetabix to the fact that 95% of British householders own a product containing a herb or spice from British Pepper & Spice – not to mention hundreds of great pubs, restaurants, small producers and drinks firms in between - you can see that Northamptonshire wins the Food Battle of Britain.’

Sitwell makes his comments today at the launch of ‘Northamptonshire Year of Food and Drink’ at Rockingham Castle attended by some of the county’s leading producers including Tom Warner, founder of Warner’s – now a leading global gin brand.

At the launch Sitwell delivers some definitive facts to back up his claims of Northamptonshire food dominance, revealing that:

• Northamptonshire has twice the national average of producers and manufacturers, whose food output was worth over £600m in 2016 (Source ONS)
• Weetabix makes 70 million biscuits a week at its Burton Latimer factory – that’s more than 3.5 billion every year – with one box sold every second
• Warner’s, the internationally award-winning craft gin distillers in Harrington, produced the world’s first Rhubarb Gin which kick-started the pink gin craze
• 95% of British householders owns a product containing a herb or spice from Northampton’s British Pepper & Spice
• Wellingborough’s Whitworth Bros Ltd process 1.65 million tonnes of wheat annually, making them the third largest flour miller in Europe
• Northamptonshire farming produces over 687 million loaves of bread, 32 million litres of vegetable oil, 300 million eggs and employs over 4,000 people (Source NFU)
• Between 1997 and 2016, output from food and drink manufactures rose on average by 57% across Northamptonshire (Source ONS)

The ‘Northamptonshire Year of Food and Drink’ is part of the Northamptonshire, Britain’s Best Surprise campaign and is staged today at Rockingham Castle by the Lord Lieutenant for Northamptonshire, David Laing, and hosted by the High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, James Saunders Watson.

It is proudly sponsored by British Pepper & Spice and Howes Percival LLP.

For more details on the ‘Northamptonshire Year of Food and Drink’, visit www.northamptonshiresurprise.com/food

To support the campaign please contact [email protected]

Meanwhile you can also follow the campaign on Facebook at @NNBestSurprise and on Twitter at @NN_BestSurprise