Bens Blog

14 Oct 2024

A desert of farms with no name

You’re probably aware of Riverford’s (and Guy’s) campaign against, so called, fake farms. P...
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12 Aug 2024

Trouble at organic mill

Industry insiders have been predicting it since last autumn, but it’s finally coming home t...
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02 Aug 2022

August News

Ben debates bacon, shares a polytunnel pesto and his lack of trust in Truss – it̵...
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08 Jun 2022

Fishy tales – saltimbocca fish fingers

Unquestionably, the best thing would be a ten-year moratorium on catching anything but that...
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02 Jun 2022

June News

A Jubilant English fizz, best BBQ cuts and a Sicilian caponata.
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21 Feb 2022

February News

Green Ketchup, A Ham with No Name, and Porridge Traumas. No, this isn’t a Dr. Seuss b...
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19 Aug 2021

Booze, schmooze and Smokehouse news

With wine sales continuing to go uppity up-up and it becoming obvious that what’s good for ...
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08 Jan 2021

Let’s get smoky

By Ben Watson. BBQ & Ice Cream Work has started on ‘Harry’s Smokehouse’ and...
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26 Nov 2020

Good Business

By Greg Morgan. Little steps in the right direction I joined Ben’s in 2013 and never looked...
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17 Nov 2020

The challenges of ‘local’ food

By Guy Singh-Watson Making a living from growing veg even on a medium scale is challenging ...
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08 Jul 2020

Churchtown moves towards wilder farming

Bold changes are coming to Churchtown Farm – for twenty five plus years, principle supplier...
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01 Jul 2019

Bottoms Up! Ben’s Booze News for July.

When it rains it pours. I’d just got back from my wine jolly to Sicily when the phone rings...
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02 May 2019

Ben’s Wine & Tapas Booze News

Our first ‘tell us what you think so you can help us chose which new wines to stock’ tastin...
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01 Feb 2019

Less plastic is fantastic – NEW beeswax food wraps

As a business, we’re always on the lookout for solutions to tackle the single use pla...
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01 Feb 2019

Plastics Update

As a business, we’re always on the lookout for ways to reduce our inclusion of single...
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07 Dec 2018

Christmas 2018: Mince Pies and good palm fats – an update

With our mince pies flying off the shelves at this time of year, we inevitably face questio...
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22 Oct 2018

Stop picking on farmers

Does anyone else feel that since the release a few week’s ago of the UN Intergovernme...
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15 May 2018

Raise a glass of English Fizz

There’s a bit of a do on this weekend – we’ll be open as usual for celebrators ...
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13 Mar 2018

Being realistic about bacon

I’m probably shooting myself in the foot drawing attention to ‘Yes, bacon really is killing...
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15 Feb 2018

Two very different Bakewells

The news is full of links between so called ‘ultra-processed’ food and cancer, with another...
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15 Jan 2018

Ben’s take on Veganuary

Veganuary will be over soon but, let’s not kid ourselves, things aren’t going to return to ...
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15 Jan 2018

The minefield that is food packaging

As a business we are constantly striving to do our bit to cut carbon emissions and reduce w...
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28 Nov 2017

Festive goodies

Without the stress of making thousands of organic mince pies for the Riverford veg boxes, w...
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30 Oct 2017

The grass is greener – or is it?

It seems ‘grass fed’ is becoming more and more of a buzzword – used at every opportun...
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10 Oct 2017

Prices and provenance

Pass the butter please – if you’re lucky enough to have any. Now that we’ve all accep...
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01 Sep 2017

The peril of wellness diets

The other summer food news that won’t go away seems to have been around the perils of so-ca...
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01 Sep 2017

Organic or not, food is more than just a commodity

It might just be me but the summer news season seems to have been particularly weak, with t...
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18 Aug 2017

The real problem behind Southern Salad’s demise

I talked last week on the blog about food security and how the fall in the pound, post Brex...
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11 Aug 2017

Why we need to dig potatoes

One thing all Watsons have in common, despite loving our food, is that we don’t like to spe...
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04 Aug 2017

The chicken or the egg? Either way it’s a scandal

Did you know that the average chicken has more room in the fridge or oven than it ever did ...
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28 Jul 2017

No chlorine chickens here

I’ve spent twelve months not mentioning politics (in general) and BREXIT (in particular) bu...
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19 Jun 2017

Thinking Aloud!

Please excuse the rather self-indulgent nature of the following – it’s me think...
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27 Apr 2017

It’s Happened!

The new signs and website are up. Everything else is the same so I hope you’ll agree that i...
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20 Apr 2017

An ode to Begude

With twelve of the Domaine Begude wines (including magnums of the top Chardonnay and Pinot ...
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24 Mar 2017

Ben’s Wine & Tapas Update

We’re still feeling our way but, judging from the feedback, we’re doing most things right. ...
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24 Mar 2017

More About The Name Change

Things are finally happening on the renaming front. New signs will be going up in the next ...
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24 Mar 2017

Natural Cure Bacon

From the butchery at Staverton, is our ‘Natural Cure’ bacon. Ali seems to have got it down ...
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24 Mar 2017

Wine News

At Ben’s Tapas & Wine Bar, we also want to sell bottles of wine to take home. It’...
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16 Feb 2017

Plastic Dilemma

Thanks to Lucy Siegle for highlighting the plastic dilemma in her Observer column. It’s suc...
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16 Feb 2017

Valencian Citrus

Courgettes and lettuce might have been suffering but the more traditional seasonal harvest ...
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13 Feb 2017

Ben’s Wine & Tapas is Open!

BEN’S WINE & TAPAS opened on 9th February. If this is news to you, we’ve taken over wha...
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17 Jan 2017

Marmalade

It’s marmalade season again. We make thousands of jars and I’d like to think th...
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17 Jan 2017

Taking Over the Tangerine Tree in Totnes

Totnesians with their ear to the ground might already have heard that we’re taking over the...
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16 Jan 2017

Happy New Year and Sanity Sapping Red Tape

Happy New Year and all that. Despite all the gloom, for us 2016 wasn’t that bad so more of ...
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07 Dec 2016

Christmas Goodies

With thirty three (and still counting) Christmas’s under our belt I’d like to think we’ve g...
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07 Dec 2016

The Cornerstones of Any Farm Shop

I think that what we do best is fresh ingredients for you to take home and cook yourselves....
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07 Dec 2016

December’s Booze News

Hopefully, you’ll be coming along to our Christmas wine and general grazing sessions on 9th...
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24 Nov 2016

Keep Warm With Our Hygge Fuel!

Staverton customers might have noticed a better range of firewood, kindling, composite logs...
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24 Nov 2016

Mince Pies, Nuts and More…

You might have seen our mince pies in the shops already and they were voted ‘best luxury mi...
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24 Nov 2016

Vintage Roots Christmas Wine Tasting

Our friend Emmanuel, from Vintage Roots (the organic wine people) will be at Staverton on D...
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22 Nov 2016

Mince Pies and Palm Fat

While our mince pies are ‘going viral’ there is a down side – palm fat. Yes, we do us...
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16 Oct 2016

October’s Booze News

I spent a week in the Languedoc on a sort of busman’s holiday visiting some of our, and Riv...
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19 Sep 2016

A new start and nothing to do with brexit

Last time around I mentioned that we’ve been doing a bit of navel gazing about the future o...
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17 Jul 2016

A deconstructivist, food-ster, peasant…

For reasons I can’t tell you about yet, but soon will, we’ve been spending a certain amount...
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05 Jun 2016

Welcome to the plastic gates

Recycling? Take it into your own hands. Last month I mentioned, I confess in a slightly thr...
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24 May 2016

What’s with the anti-sandwich movement?

What’s wrong with a sandwich? A quick rant. What’s the problem with the sandwich? Eve...
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28 Apr 2016

Mint in May

Marvellously mint in May. April is always a bit touch and go but come May and we really are...
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25 Mar 2016

Easter feasting

Will you be feasting on meat this Easter? Being naturally contrary, I’ve always taken a pec...
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05 Feb 2016

Cowspiracy theory – of course you can be an environmentalist and eat meat

Apologies, Farm Shoppers, if you don’t know what I’m talking about but, brother Guy, via th...
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04 Jan 2016

Paris in the Spring Time

Paris in the spring – it’s warm enough but we’re not there yet Every silver cloud has a dar...
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25 Nov 2015

Riverford Soups

Our ‘2013 Organic Food Award’ winning chunky soups are back on the menu. Four flavoursriver...
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25 Nov 2015

Panorama & Gmo’s

Haven’t things changed? For years it was Frankenstein food and evil multinational biotech c...
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