A few weeks ago, four members of the Nurtured team ventured 272 miles to Windermere in the Lake District. This was to attend a trade show held by Caterite and we all had a brilliant time!
Caterite Foodservice is a wholesaler that supplies the catering industry throughout Northwest England and Southwest Scotland. They supply a whole range of produce, from Edible Flowers to frozen meat – you name it, they probably supply it. They also have an ever-growing range of over 1000+ fresh lines. They have worked very hard to establish an impeccable reputation for supplying their customers with top quality goods.
Lake Windermere
We were all very excited to set off on our journey and left at around 8am in the morning. After a tiring 6 hours, we arrived at Low Bay Wood Hotel to set up. We had plenty of time to set up our stand and make it look as eye-catching as possible. It took us a while to set up our stand, but we received lots of lovely compliments about it, so we were all super happy!
Kendal, Lake District
There couldn’t have been anywhere more scenic to attend a trade show. The views were absolutely incredible and made the trip even better! Luckily, we had some spare time on the evening before the show and it meant that we had time to explore the Kendal area and have a lovely dinner with an even better view. Some of the Nurtured team had never been to the Lake District before, so it was the perfect opportunity to try some local speciality cuisine and take in the views. As most of you are aware, Norfolk is super flat… there is hardly a hill in site! So, it was rather shocking to see that many hills in site, even more shocking for our legs! It was certainly worth it though.
Athena (Marketing Manager) & Ruby (Marketing Assistant) setting up the Trade Stand
The trade show started at 10am and we were all very excited to get networking with everyone. There were lots of chefs and bakers looking around the show and they were all hoping to find exciting new products that they could incorporate into their dishes and menus. We all enjoyed answering everyone’s queries and displaying our produce. We took lots of our produce with us to display across our stand and it was full of everything that you could think of! From our NEW Herb Infused Oils to our exotic Thai Banana Leaves – we had everything on display.
One of the best things from the day, was getting the opportunity to meet lots of our customers that have been buying from us for years, that we’d never had the chance to meet in person! The amount of people from the show that already used our products in their dishes was incredible, and it was a great opportunity for us to promote some of our new lines and products.
Edible Flowers, Herb Oils and Micro Herbs
One product that proved very popular were our Selection Wheels. A lot of visitors had never seen these before and loved the look of them! These are a pretty selection of a little bit of everything that we do. Our selection wheels offer a convenient way for customers to buy a variety of different products without having to purchase them all individually. We offer many different types of wheels, including Edible Flowers, Sea Vegetables, Edible Leaves and Micro Herbs. What’s even more exciting is that we create Special Edition, Seasonal Edible Flower Wheels, for events like the Queens Jubilee, Pride month, Halloween, Mother’s Day and more. We love creating these wheels as they’re so bright and colourful and fun to make! If you’re looking for a certain product, we also offer a bespoke wheel, where you can choose exactly what you want. How wonderful is that?! Everything you want in a pretty arrangement!
Lemon-Aid (Organic ingredients that support fair trade)
Lots of the food and drink companies that attended the show supply Caterite Foodservice with fresh and frozen produce. Every stall was displaying their products and even cooking them, so everyone could taste test their food (which we couldn’t get enough of!). There was over 100 food and drink stands there, so as you can imagine, the smell in the building was divine! Freshly cooked food was made all day long to ensure that everyone got a chance to try all of the spectacular food.
This event was for wholesale customers only, so it was mainly chefs and bakers that attended. Everyone was super interested in all of our products and some people didn’t even know that flowers could be edible! Our stand presented our Fresh Edible Flowers, Herb Oils, Dried Edible Flowers, Bunched Herbs and many more! It was really nice to see chefs and bakers getting excited over products that they hadn’t seen before and asking us how they could include them in their dishes. The majority of the time, chefs come up with the fantastic ideas and we just supply the products to help that happen.
Lemon Verbena Herb Oil
Our Herb Oils were a great hit with everyone. Everybody loved being able to try all 12 flavours alongside some delectable fresh bread that we’d brought to try alongside our Herb Infused Oils. We all did a sneaky little taste test of the bread ourselves, and we can vouch that it was nearly as tasty as our Herb Oils. Our Herb Oils are becoming more and more popular, not just for their flavour, but also their convenience. We make 12 different flavoured Oils that are available to shop, so you don’t have to go through the time consuming, cost-heavy process of making it yourself. At the show, the Wild Garlic Oil was definitely one of the favourites. It has a very intense flavour and compliments a variety of dishes including salads, pasta and steak.
Nurtured in Norfolk Trade Stand
During the day, we all took the opportunity to walk around the stands and try some of the food that people supply and make. We were in our element here, as there was so much food, and we were overwhelmed with what there was to choose from. We tried so many different products, from Monin Cocktails, Whitby Scampi, Sidoli Desserts Cake, Lemon-Aid fizzy pop, and even toasted sandwiches by Pauls Kitchen. They were all bitesize samples, and everything was so tasty. We all filled up on the sample foods throughout the day. There was even Carlisle Gin and Wine companies letting you try their produce and unsurprisingly, everybody loved trying all of the unique and new flavours. I think that that one of the most exciting things for chefs at the show, was trying new food and drink that someone else had created. Chefs are so busy nowadays, and it’s so difficult to prepare everything yourself. So, finding convenient little things that are easy to buy and that taste amazing, like our Herb Oils for example, can make such a difference. Making our Herb Infused Oils is quite a time-consuming process and if you can buy one that has a long shelf like and impeccable flavour, why waste time making it yourself?
Herb & Edible Flower Dusting Powders
Another product that gained a lot of attention was our Herb Dusting Powders. These are fairly new and something that not many people have seen or heard about. At the show, we received lots of questions like ‘what can they be used for’ and ‘what do they taste like?’ Dusting Powders are a fairly new product, and something that we are still experimenting with. However, lots of mixologists use them around the rim of a cocktail glass as decoration and also for flavouring.
Our range of Herb & Edible Flower Powders can also be sprinkled on cakes, brownies and used to flavour food, like ice-cream and marinades. We have a variety of different flavours available, including Lemon Verbena, Rose, Calendula, Peppermint, Apple Marigold and many more. Our Powders can also be used as colouring, in things like curries and soups. They are quite vibrant sand would add vibrancy to any dish. We gave people lots of samples of our Powdered Dust to allow them to experiment with new recipes including and see what they can come up with. We always love to receive images back from chefs with dishes that they’ve created so that we can share their work and inspire others.
It was really interesting to hear from chefs, first hand, how they actually use our products. There are so many innovative ways that we’d never even thought of! People were very keen to interact and chat about our products and taste them all! The deceiving Buzz Button (Sichuan Bud) was something that lots of people were keen to experience the flavour of. Buzz Buttons are normally quite shocking due their intensity and we definitely saw some shocked faces! Buzz Buttons, however, can be really effective in things like cocktails and ice-creams, if used sparingly. Everyone was amazed that such a small flower could contain such a powerful flavour.
We also had the opportunity to interact with some college students, they were on a catering course and were really interested in our Edible Flowers. There were people of all ages attending the trade show and it was nice to speak to some younger up and coming chefs and bakers about what our products can be used for. They were making lots of notes on everything that we told them and it was really lovely to see!
Overall, we’d like to say a massive Thankyou to Caterite Foodservice for inviting us to the event, we had a brilliant time.
