A big week for people who make food for a living — awards results, a national spotlight on farming, and one salad crop in a very unusual postcode.
Great Taste 2026 results land tomorrow
The Guild of Fine Food announces this year's Great Taste stars on Tuesday 28 July — entrants find out at 10am, everyone else at 2pm. It's the biggest food and drink accreditation scheme in the world, and for a small producer a single star can genuinely change a year. Worth searching the directory for your own area once it goes live; the Golden Forks and Supreme Champion follow on 15 September.
Source: gff.co.uk
Matt Tebbutt: "Farmers work hard for such little gain"
The Saturday Kitchen host is an ambassador for this year's #farm24, the 24-hour digital celebration of British farming, which runs on Thursday 30 July. He told Farmers Guardian he'd rather eat top-quality British meat less often than cheap meat every week, and that he doesn't want strawberries at Christmas — a sentiment we'd happily have printed on a tea towel. Farms up and down the country open their gates online for the day, and it's well worth a scroll.
Source: farmersguardian.com
Britain's oldest sugar factory set to close
British Sugar has proposed ending production at Cantley in Norfolk, which has been processing beet on the banks of the Yare since 1912. Around 104 jobs are at risk and the site could shut as early as February 2027, with the NFU "extremely disappointed" and local growers facing the loss of their nearest buyer. Not an independent producer story exactly — but it's the same squeeze of energy costs and cheap imports that everyone smaller is feeling too.
Source: fwi.co.uk
Welsh Caerphilly is off to Switzerland
The upgraded UK–Switzerland trade deal cuts tariffs across British food and drink, with English sparkling wine getting a 34% reduction and UK lamb going tariff-free for the first time ever. Tucked into the small print is protection for 28 more UK geographical indications in the Swiss market, including Traditional Welsh Caerphilly and Ayrshire New Potatoes. A small win, but a good one for the producers who've built those names.
Source: gov.uk
Salad, grown a kilometre underground
Researchers from the University of Sheffield and food producer Farm Urban have begun growing crops 1.1km down in a working salt mine near Whitby — officially the world's deepest vertical farm. The Boulby Underground Laboratory normally spends its time hunting dark matter, but its naturally stable temperature turns out to suit lettuce rather well. The 12-month study is testing whether Britain's disused mines could become food hubs.
Source: sheffield.ac.uk