Home-grown heroes: meet the producers showcasing Britain's bounty

There aren't many nations so committed to getting the most out of the bounty their environment has to offer as Peru – or that happen to have quite the same diversity of produce to work from, for that matter.

We may not have a landscape that goes from the Amazon to the Andes here in Britain but, says Adam Rawson of Marylebone's Peruvian-inspired restaurant Pachamama, that doesn't mean we can't borrow their approach. You can be just as original when it comes to finding and using British ingredients – especially if you've got a dedicated forager on hand to help.

"A good friend of mine is so passionate about what he can find locally," says the chef. "He goes to the New Forest and picks mushrooms – he brings me produce that's available on our doorstep, and I want to showcase that. There's so much to offer in England; he brings it back in a backpack, and when we get [unique British produce] in, we put it on as a special. It's hard to sustain, because the seasons in England are very short, which means we change the menu a lot. One minute you have something and the next you don't, because of the weather.

"I'm so lucky to have a forager working with me, and I'm all about the product as well. As long as I can put it on a plate and mix it with something Peruvian, that's what Pachamama's about. I just love being able to use whatever England can offer, and creating a fusion." – Mike Gibson

"I said it right from the beginning: all the ethics in the world don't mean anything if it tastes like shit. Fortunately, it tastes delicious." James Whetlor is talking about goat – specifically, from young British billy goats that would have been slaughtered shortly after birth had his company, Cabrito, not stepped in.

Cabrito came into being in 2012, when Whetlor – an experienced chef who was working at the River Cottage at the time – spotted an opportunity to solve an unpalatable waste problem in the goat dairy industry. Traditionally, any male (billy) goats born to milk-producing females (nannies) are euthanized within hours of birth. "The billies are a by-product of the process and they're expensive to raise," says Whetlor. "How we ended up with a system like this is beyond me – it's unbelievably inefficient."

His solution was to convince dairies that, instead of slaughtering billies at birth, they should rear them for a few months themselves – or use a contract farmer to do it for them – and Cabrito would buy them and sell the meat to restaurants or butchers throughout the country. As a result, Whetlor estimates that by the end of the year his company will have around 10,000 goats in its system, and there are others performing a similar role. "The more doing what we do the merrier," says Whetlor. "Our motivation was to end the waste in the industry rather than anything else, so I'd rather be 50% of a big pie than 100% of a small one."

Perhaps Whetlor's biggest challenge, however, wasn't convincing the farmers to turn a by-product into an asset – it was convincing a country that hadn't traditionally been interested in eating goat that it should. He's at pains to point out that the kid goat Cabrito deals with is more like lamb, and he's worked with his farmers to bring carcass weights from the usual 12kg to 22kg (lamb is around 25kg). That means it's easier for chefs to work with, and he says the appetite for the meat from top cooks has been strong. "There have been times when you could walk through Soho and find our goat in four different restaurants – Barrafina, Quo Vadis, Ducksoup, Bocca di Lupo – and they're all doing something different with it. That's really rewarding for us as a supplier." – Jon Hawkins

Vodka's a simple thing, in essence: mineral water is combined with ethanol, and that's about it. But this means a sub-standard product has nowhere to hide.

Steve Dustow of Aval Dor knows this. Made at Colwith Farm, where Dustow's family has been producing potatoes for generations, the spirit is one of Cornwall's many recent food and drink success stories. He insists the natural larder he has to work with is due most of the credit: "It's all about provenance for us," he says.

"We've teamed up with a biochemist and we go to see him – I take the spuds and the mineral water – and produce a single-distilled vodka that tastes pretty good, by all accounts. With gin, you can play around with the recipe to mask the fact that the bioethanol – the 96% proof alcohol – isn't great. With vodka, there's no covering it up.

"We specifically grow a King Edward potato to make Aval Dor because there's nowhere to hide – the only things going into it are spuds, mineral water and science, and you have to get those three individual elements right to ensure you've got a cracking product. Our vodka is super-smooth, super-floral and we're delighted with it.

"I think it's vital for the product to instil a sense of place. For me personally, it means an awful lot that my brother and my father are growing the spuds – the fact that everything's linked back to Colwith Farm in Cornwall is so important to me." – Mike Gibson

It's hard to get excited about lettuce, but that's probably because it's not often you eat lettuce that's packed with flavour; that's dark green rather than pale, and is so crisp it squeaks when you bite into it. To get your hands on veg that fresh takes time and effort.

With more chefs, and diners, recognising the value of fresh grub, the food industry is trying new methods of bringing that freshness into their kitchens, cherry-picking suppliers and working with them much more closely. Inspired by restaurants in the US, Skye Gyngell of Spring in Somerset Huse is one of the first London chefs to start a farm-to-table partnership, working with 16-acre Herefordshire farm Fern Verrow. 

"We pick it, and the next day it's on someone's plate," says Jane Scotter, one of Fern Verrow's owners. "No one can compete with our freshness and taste. We're very much about the taste of food. That's how we started, wanting to grow for ourselves and wanting to grow fresh produce." 

"A lot of chefs are trying to find farmers to work with, or some of those who have country houses are turning over a bit of land to a garden where they can grow veg for their restaurants -– it's really the only way to make sure you get the very best. The only way Skye could get anything fresher would be if she planted a garden at the back of Somerset House." 

And this requires an entirely different way of working to what's been done in the past – one that starts with the produce. "We write our menu each week around what they have available," explains Gyngell. "We often have to think on our feet but I find that a very challenging way to cook." - Lydia Winter

It's difficult to talk about English sparkling wine without mentioning the C-word, which – as Ben Walgate, CEO of Kent-based winemaker Gusbourne, admits – is understandable, if limiting. "English sparkling wine is still in its infancy as a category, so there's a tendency to compare and align ourselves with non-vintage champagne because it's a similar price and perceived quality," he explains. "If you keep saying 'we're just as good' and 'our climate's ever so similar', there's a danger you'll only ever be just as good as champagne, never better."

If Walgate sounds ambitious, it's with good reason – though Gusbourne's original vines were planted as recently as 2004, and its first bottles appeared in Selfridges in 2010, this year all six of its wines were awarded gold or silver medals at the International Wine and Spirit Competition.

"To a certain extent we're inspired by champagne and we're emulating that style," he says, "but we shouldn't be imitating, we should be doing our own thing." That means using the relative freedoms of English sparkling wine's Protected Designation of Origin to trial innovative methods of viticulture and create an end product that isn't constrained by convention and stringent rules.

Gusbourne also owns all its own vineyards (many champagnes are produced from grapes bought from contract growers), which Walgate says allows greater control. "That's not to say people who buy in grapes can't make great wine," he explains, "but it's a choice we've made. It's almost a sacrifice given the time and capital it takes, but the end result is worth it." – Jon Hawkins

James Hamill's family has been keeping bees since the 1920s, but the last 20 years have been a bit different. Hamill moved from the US to the UK partially for personal reasons, but also because of the close-knit beekeeping community, and one other important factor – Britain's unique nectars. 

"Honey is always different, country to country, simply because there are going to be different flowers in different countries," he says. "What makes British honey even more special is that our weather conditions aren't the best for nectar production, which means that, even though what we get is beautiful, it is limited. We're extremely lucky because the Victorians travelled the world and brought back different botanical species which are now thriving here, and we can exploit their flavour, such as in our Himalayan balsam honey. Our honeys are rare, and very specific to Britain."

"We do many different kinds of honey: ling heather, bell heather, meadow plants, lime tree and orchard blossom, among others. Our most prized honey is dark summer honey, which is made when we have an Indian summer. The bees stay active quite late in the year, and they milk aphids. The aphids collect a rich sap juice and when the bees touch them, the aphids release this beautiful treat. Weird, but true. 

"Sometimes when I think about it, beekeeping blows me away. Bees produce the tiniest amount of nectar from the juice of a flower, and on the way back to the hive, in the bee's stomach, the enzymes mix together, the magic happens and it becomes honey. Even now, we can't produce it synthetically.

"By the end of the summer, our bees have turned those tiny drops of nectar into five or six tonnes of honey." – Lydia Winter

There's a shorter growing season and we take a bit of a risk," says Robin Williams of Nama Yasai. "One year there was no edamame at all because it was too cold. We grow 99% of our produce outside because, when plants are exposed to the stresses of wind and lack of water, they develop phytoalexins, which enhance the flavour. Crops that are grown in the glasshouse aren't as flavoursome or as nutritious – and chefs can really tell the difference. More and more chefs are coming to visit the farm," he says.

"One chef was visiting us regularly for over a year before he finally opened his restaurant. He wanted to see what we were growing and eat it straight off the plant. He was keen to know what we were growing wild, not just what we were cultivating, because there really is a difference in taste."

"We've found a number of chefs now want to have that contact with the farmer. They like to base their menu on what's available from the farm rather than creating a fantastic menu first, thinking 'Now where can I get this from?' and then discovering that half of it has to be imported from the other side of the world. Food grown in Britain tastes better. They're looking close to home and finding out what the local growers can supply in season and then basing their menu on it. That's excellent, and I think it's what food should be about." – Lydia Winter