Did you know that for the last 2 years we have been the sponsor of the Environmental Leadership Award through Business in the Community (BiTC) http://www.bitc.org.uk/environment/env_awards.html?

We do a lot of activity with BiTC but for me being on the panel of judges for this award is a real honour. The bar to even enter is very high as companies need to be BiTC members and to have achieved a minimum standard already – a Gold or Platinum level in the CR Index

I am delighted to report that Kingfisher won the award for 2010 and I had the pleasure of presenting their award alongside Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of M&S and Philip Green, CEO of United Utilities – I’m the one on the left!

We will be sponsoring this award again in 2011 so I would encourage all companies who meet the minimum requirements to enter and good luck. To any business who doesn’t want to enter, I would recommend this BiTC guide though.

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Well finally I can share the full story of the winning cheese – this has been in store for two weeks now and is selling well. ‘Summer Stilton’ is based on the idea suggested by one of our customers, Wendy Day from Bristol…and is White Stilton with white chocolate, orange, peach and vanilla pod.

It’s been great being involved with this competition, the shortlisting and final judging and Tricia in my team and I also actually got involved in making the Summer Stilton.

Back in May we did the shortlisting after we had received all of the entries – Eddie the cheesemaker brought all of the ingredients and the cheese bases suggested in the entries so we could mock up the concepts and see if the flavours worked together, considered if they would work in a factory, looked at the thought that had been put into the suggestions from the customers etc.

We then voted on the 6 concepts we felt delivered the best and these were then made up into cheese rounds and went forward for the final judging panel, where we had an independent judge to make the final decision.

Here’s a few photos that show how we got from choosing the winning cheese to the final product. (Click on the first photo below and then click again to browse the gallery).

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So the other day I was having a drink with Jon Wylie, who is on secondment with us but actually works for Veolia Environmental Services, our main waste contractor. Not only have Veolia helped us to make great strides to hit our target of sending no waste to landfill by the end of this year but Jon informs me they have worked on another innovative project with Renault. Interesting stuff…

Veolia and Renault joined forces to build a car production plant that emits the lowest levels of carbon and so environmental impact yet seen from this kind of facility. The factory is in Tangier, Morocco, and from 2012 will produce at least 170,000 cars a year with targets to increase this to nearly half a million cars a year.

The CO2 emissions when compared to a standard plant producing 400,000 new cars are an unbelievable 98% lower – the equivalent of 135,000 tonnes of CO2 every year – and water usage will be cut by 70%. Seriously impressive results which match our own aspirations to ensure that our customers can buy the products they need at a lower environmental impact yet get the same great value.

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As part of working with local suppliers we visited a potato farm who supply the potatoes to Seabrook’s crisps, a local business that has gone national but still aim to source all their potatoes from Britain.

The farmer gave a very insightful explanation about the varieties of spuds, and how the ever-changing British weather causes a constant stream of problems for growing. So much for enjoying the sun! Driving down the road to the Seabrook’s factory, we watched the washing, slicing, flavouring, packaging, and then the final products being driven off, ready to be stocked on the Asda shelves all over the country.

After a very interesting morning with the potato grower, and then seeing the crisps being made we then had a chat with Phil, the commercial director at Seabrooks.

Seabrooks really is a local success story for Asda, beginning it’s relationship with us as a small Bradford company which evolved into a mutually beneficial desire to grow and sell Seabrooks on our shelves across the whole UK.

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What a fantastic day for the Core Chilled team at Asda today – yet again we have won the retailer class at the Great Yorkshire Show in the Cheese and Dairy Class.

This is the 2nd year we have won this much fought after title – beating the likes of Waitrose and M&S into 2nd and 3rd place…as you can see we were over the moon to receive this accolade again.

We got First for our Extra Special Somerset Farmhouse Butter, Extra Special Lemon Curd Yoghurt (my all time favourite) and also for Asda Deli Red Leicester. We came Second with our Extra Special Chantilly Cream, Extra Special Creamy Lancashire, Extra Special Gouda and Extra Special Roquefort and Third for our Extra Special Reserve Swiss Gruyere.

It’s Nantwich International Cheese Show at the end of July so watch this space for more success.

I am really proud of my team who have worked really hard to develop, maintain and manage the products we submitted! Well done Divas!

Award Winning Wishes To You All and keep blogging!

Dairy Dawn

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