Tideford Organic Food Company

Tideford Organic Food Company - a Food & Drink feature (May 2009)

David Jones (Manna from Devon Cooking School) on the delights of the award winning produce from Tideford Organic Food Company

Have you found your desert island food yet?  You know – if you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, this would be it. Nothing else would do and you would be perfectly happy just munching away on it (with the occasional vitamin pill to ward off scurvy or other such diseases. I used to think mine would be smoked salmon or maybe raspberry jam on toast or perhaps stem ginger icecream.

However I have now found it and it is - tuddah! – Tideford’s Tomato and Basil Sauce. Those who know me will find this difficult to believe as I can generally live without tomatoes; in fact they are usually rejected out of hand. But this sauce is like a tomato salad in Provence made only with the freshest, ripest tomatoes and the most fragrantly aromatic basil ripped over the top having just been picked out of the sun-soaked garden with cicadas sawing away in the background and a bottle of rosé on the table.

I first came across it when judging the sauce section at the Taste of the West awards a couple of years ago. Having tasted several and rejected those reminding me of wallpaper paste and other general gloop, this little gem was next. Then it was called Pommo Burro – fine in Italian as it means Tomato Butter but sadly in Spanish it means Tomato Donkey so they quickly changed the name.

Names apart, it instantly got a gold award – everything about it was perfect – the look, the colour, the smell and the taste. In fact the taste was so delicious, I could conjure it up for months afterwards to remember its utter lusciousness.  

Tideford was started in the hamlet of Higher Tideford on the back road to Totnes 13 years ago by Diana Cooper when she had a glut of basil in her greenhouse. Cordon Bleu chef Diana turned it into pesto and sold it as Hey Pesto Basil Pesto. She also made soups, (Thai Pumpkin; Crab & Mango; Leek & Potato; and Pear & Stilton), sauces and rice puddings to sell; this fledgling business grew into what is now a major local business.

Currently based in a unit in Totnes, Tideford provide their lovely products to Waitrose, Sainsburys, Harrods and Harvey Nichols as well as delis and health food shops all over the country. Closer to home they supply Darts Farm, Riverford, Harbertonford Post Office and the Dartmouth Spar.

In her first years you may well have seen Diana at fairs and food shows in her converted and highly decorated VW camper van. When not serving soups, she could be found relaxing in her deckchair. Sadly the VW is now in retirement however the exciting branding goes on. One of the latest steps is to re-brand the packaging & artwork from the childlike green to some funky new bright pink.

The inspiration for the products comes from Diana and her travels and the day-to-day running of the business is done by MD Lynette Sinclair.

Everything is certified organic by the Soil Association and in the last 10 years, they have won over thirty major awards around the country for their pestos, soups, sauces and puddings including Organic Product of the Year for the Tomato & Basil Sauce, 3 Gold Awards for the Basil Pesto and the Taste of the West Gold Award and Soil Association Pudding of the Year Award for their Classic Rice Pudding, to name but a few - some achievement.

It must seem a long way from the first glut of basil in the garden.

Tideford Organic Foods,

Unit 5, The Alpha Centre ,Totnes Ind Estate TQ9 5JA

tel: 01803 840555 www.tidefordorganics.com

First published May 2009 By the Dart

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