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First printed in Checkout Magazine
Q is for quality
What does it take to win a Quality Food Award? Here we find out how
Peter Duncan
from Stapleton Farms created the award-winning Stapleton Low Fat Raspberry Yogurt and in the process redefined his business
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| Peter Duncan with his wife and business partner, Carol, collecting the award |
Peter Duncan, the owner of Stapleton Farms, has won six Q awards in total, though you will never have seen his name in the winners brochure. All the previous wins were under Sainsburys Taste the Difference banner and, as the first under his own brand, the 2005 win was extra special to Duncan.
After producing yogurt (since 1975) for local consumption, Sainsburys approached Duncan in 1988 to develop and supply the supermarket with an own label yogurt its Taste the Difference range. The products were a success and Duncan also produced ice cream for the range. But a year ago the contract to supply yogurt to the supermarket was not renewed.
This was a blow for the business and Duncan knew he had to develop the Stapleton Farm brand if the business was to survive. He relished the challenge of producing his own range of dairy products the first time in years he had the opportunity to make a yogurt exactly the way he wanted to. He saw a gap in the market for a healthy, but luxurious, yogurt and went to work developing just that.
A self-confessed control freak, Duncan ensured all of the production was done at his dairy. With only three ingredients, yogurt, raspberries and unrefined cane sugar, he says his recipe for success is simple clean, natural ingredients. The secret to the yogurts great flavour was the Chilean raspberries, he says, chosen for their exceptional taste. With 25% fruit, Stapleton Low Fat Raspberry Yogurt has the highest concentration of fruit in any low fat yogurt on the market. Because we are not using flavouring to boost the taste, the flavour has to come from the fruit. The advantage of this was that it made the yogurt low in fat, he explains.
The production process is traditional. Fresh milk (delivered daily from local Jersey cows) is pasteurised and cooled. Cultures are added and the mix is pured into churns, not industrial vats, common in modern yogurt production. The following morning raspberries are stirred into the yogurt and the pots filled and labelled.
The Q awards boosted the Stapleton Low Fat Raspberry Yogurt's profile, which was subsequently listed at Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and Spar.
To see more articles associated with the category
Quality Food Awards (QFAs)
click here
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