Humans of Hospitality

I think you are going to fall in love with Dan Austin, today’s guest, and the Lake District Farmers, for a whole heap of reasons. Firstly the Lake District is just an utterly stunning part of the world, so anything we can do to support it, and the way of life that has been going on there for hundreds of years, I personally think is important. Traditional farming, where animals can roam free on the fells for me is a big part of this. Not only does it protect a way of life, and lead to happy animals a million miles away from modern intensive production techniques, but clearly it creates nicer animals for the food system too. Lake District Farmers supply most of the best chefs and best restaurants in the country, as you are about to discover.

But more than that this is also a tale of perseverance, of business acumen, of learning and making things up as you go, of responding to business catastrophe and adapting fast to keep the business running. Dan and his team's perseverance and commitment comes across in so many of the stories he tells. Wether that’s being found half clothed having slept in the delivery van before meeting an important potential customer, or relocating the entire business over a weekend following a fire or simply realising that if you have a 1 in 100 chance of making something happen, you’ve just got to repeat it 100 times.

We also touch on the ethics of meat consumption, and the carbon impact of our diets so plenty in here for everyone.

Find them via the website and make sure you check out the INCREDIBLE videos. Follow them on instagram

Phil Haughton has had a great food adventure over many decades. He has just written a book ‘Food for Thought’ that brings together this journey, combined with recipes and producers he’s met along the way. Phil’s current business is the Better Food stores and cafes dotted around Bristol. That combination of combining the hospitality of a cafe drawing people into the building and then hopefully inspiring them to leave with some exceptionally ethical and delicious food and drink is the evolution of a lifetimes learning for Phil, and now his wider team.

Despite Phil’s desire for all organic he is pragmatic enough, particularly after previous insolvency, to recognise you do also have to sell what the customer is willing to buy. Perhaps rather than seeking ethical perfection, we must take people on a journey in smaller steps. An upgrade to free range may sometimes be more palatable than fully organic for some products.

Phil has travelled the country finding the best suppliers, has set up and invested in community farms, has lived in a practical commune in Scotland learning how to live off the land, has set up and closed a veg box delivery business, has found the takings from his business in the bottom of a freezer and has defended the ethics to sell meat in a considered and informed way. In essence through a lifetime of learning and business Phil no longer has to think about the provision of food and farming and hospitality in the UK, he really knows how it works. He can see the challenges, but has some great, informed perspectives on what and how we can be better.

See Phil on YouTube, or follow Better Food on instagram or twitter

Hamish is a brave soul who at the age of 41, with his own business and a career working around the wine and whisky trade decided that his number one love in the world was plants. Not only was he brave enough to sell the business, he was crazy enough to have no idea where his next adventure would take him. He pretty much let the plants decide. He went off on a learning journey meeting an inspirational medicine man along the way. A dream and a country walk and soon enough he’d stumbled across a beautiful plot of land not far from the city. Well, dilapidated and covered in weeds may have been a better description for most, but for Hamish, it was a vision of beauty and he convinced his wife, 4 kids and five dogs to live in a mobile home on the land and create something beautiful.

Now he has a distillery, a cafe, a herb garden, an owl, an actual house and an incredible story to tell. Along with products in M&S, Fortnum and Mason and more. Unlike most in hospitality Hamish sees a herb as medicinal rather than culinary. His description of a dandelion will make you see the plant and the universe through new eyes. His willingness to go on a journey with no plan will inspire you to be brave and take risks and follow your heart, perhaps more than your head. He’s also about to convince you to stop feeling guilty about not mowing your lawn enough, and that alone is a great reason to listen.

Whatever you are doing, enjoy the image of Hamish and his owl, in a tree house, overlooking his garden, yet still nailing being yet another wonderful human of hospitality.

Find Hamish on the website or on instagram or twitter.

Unusually we recorded this one, with my golden retriever 'Jasper' whilst giving him a walk around a 130 acre country estate. But more importantly I was joined by Darren Venables, the Estate Manager at the Chewton Glen Hotel down in the New Forest in Hampshire.

Darren has been working at the Chewton Glen for over 30 years so really has seen a huge amount of change, and as far as the grounds are concerned has curated much of that himself. And our wide ranging conversation typifies the reason for setting up this podcast. To shine a spotlight on what happens behind the scenes of hospitality. So much that the public may never get to hear about, or even imagine is fundamentally supported by the hospitality trade.

Developing an orchard of 250 of the rarest trees in the country perhaps, or breeding your own Queen bees, or surveying wildlife on an annual basis, or attracting a wider species of birds into a habit for the first time in decades, to growing food for a cookery school, to planting xmas trees and so so much more. I just hope conversations like these open your mind as to how much awesomeness the independent hospitality sector is responsible for. And remember, where you decide to spend your cash, in supporting these genuinely small and hospitable businesses, really makes a difference to the type of world we are all going to live in. Less dominated by bean counter international chains and more diverse and richer for humanity and the environment.

Find Darren on Instagram, twitter or visit the Chewton Glen website.

Chris Davies is founder and CEO of Harvest London, a couple of vertical farms in the city of London. Chris is going to help us understand how vertical farms could be part of the solution to feeding the planet. As Chris puts it, this will be part of the solution and not all food will be, or can be grown this way. But the benefits of growing food where it is to be consumed, rather than potentially 1000’s of miles away, the benefits of harvesting food and getting it to the restaurant door within four hours, rather than perhaps four weeks. The benefit of a perfect summers day, every day, no matter the time of year or external weather conditions. The use of tech and automation and the potential for companies to ship their perfect growing recipe to perhaps tweak just a couple of bits of the growing process to grow the perfect leaf. A little more water, 1/2 an hour less light, more blue light than pink light, a slight nutritional change. All of this can effect the flavour of what we grow and eat. And in Chris’s case much of this learning is being done around basil, but can be applied to so much more. And it is clearly a recipe that is working. Chris and Harvest London have just raised over a million pounds of investment, including from the UK governments future fund and demand is fast outstripping supply as they have grand plans for the future.

Find Harvest London online or follow them on instagram.