Great News for Isle of Man produce

It was great to read recently in the Isle of Man Examiner that the Agriculture Minister Phil Gawne has backed the local producers of the Isle of Man to support marketing and sales with £290k allocated to Pure Produce Isle of Man organisation.

I was privileged enough to go away in November with the Isle of Man Pure Produce group to the BBC Good Food Show at the Birmingham NEC. I was there supporting my mate Tim Croft from Island Seafare who is just one of the producers making up the Isle of Man Pure Produce contingent. It was great fun made even more so by the fact that Tim had arranged for The Hairy Bikers to come along and support the Isle of Man stand even cooking up some great recipes whilst they were there. What was clearly evident from the start of the show was the amount of dedication and passion these producers have for their produce and it was clear that everyone was supporting each other and really believed in what they were doing. Food today is very much a passion for people, we see this with the rise of the ‘Celebrity Chef’, the shear number of TV programmes now focusing on cooking and also more recently The Big Food Fight campaign on Channel 4 undertaken by a number of high profile chefs, bringing to the public’s attention just what is happening in our food industries at the moment, much of which is at the cost of health to not only the livestock being raised but also to our children and much of our western society today with the rise of obesity!

Bringing this back to the Isle of Man. I do hope that this financial backing is just the start of something great for the islands producers, what I think is now needed is business and marketing support to assist with developing new supply networks and promoting the great Isle of Man produce in an effective 21st century way that will appeal to a wider market outside the Isle of Man. And I managed to say something positive about the Isle of Government in this post!