About Orkney Rose
So what's the deal with Orkney and food? What makes the produce so good?
Firstly, the sea. No part of Orkney is far from it. And due to the low hills, the lack of trees and the abundance of wind, Orkney's fields are constantly lashed with seawater. The sea brings with it high levels of calcium and sea minerals, so the soil is high in micronutrients.
Secondly, Orkney has a latitude of 59° North. During the winter months the sun rises late and sets soon after lunch. But during the summer months, the sun never really sets, dipping sleepily into twilight around midnight before rising again. These long summer hours of low wattage sunlight make for slow-growing plants that develop superb flavour as a result. See below to find out why Nelson Market Gardens grows the best tomatoes in Britain for precisely this reason.
What's Orkney Rose then?
Orkney Rose is a company that brings Orkney produce to London.
Its founder Rose Grimond has visited Orkney all her life. Her father grew up there and also in London because his father, Jo Grimond, was MP for Orkney and Shetland for 33 years.
This is what you should know about it:
- Orkney Rose wants to provide customers with high-quality food that is not mass produced. The idea behind the company is to enable Orcadian producers to access the London market. Because the producers are on the whole small businesses, without the infrastructure provided by Orkney Rose, it would not be a worthwhile venture to ship goods to London individually. Coupled with the limitations of season and supply many businesses have rightfully never sold to London before. By representing a number of companies, Orkney Rose hopes to be able to provide customers in London with plenty of salmon in the week when the weather was too rough to dive for scallops, or rare breed mutton when the lambing season finishes. The products may change with the season but the quality of the food will not.
- Orkney is very far away from London. There's a good reason why only the larger Orcadian companies have penetrated the London market. It is expensive to get the produce from A to B. Despite the food miles, Orkney Rose is convinced that the busy London consumer will appreciate the taste of the wild fecundity of the northern isles.
- Orkney Rose represents Orcadian local producers. Currently there are 16 producers who supply to Orkney Rose depending on seasonality, weather and local demand. It is important to know that the first priority is to the local market and the second to export. Unsurprisingly, producers are wary of shipping all the best produce out of Orkney only to import cheaper food from the continent. It's as crazy as eating New Zealand lamb in Wales. Together they cover a wide range of products including organic pork, sustainably-farmed organic salmon, award-winning cheese, smoked kippers, famously good beef, handmade oatcakes, a 5,000 year-old type of barley, wild rhubarb jam, diver-caught scallops... the list goes on.
- Orkney Rose takes very seriously the responsibility of passing on information from its producers to its customers. We want to answer questions such as: where does this product come from? What breed was this cow? What was it fed on? Where is my custom going? Orkney Rose knows its customers very well and needs to know the businesses it represents intimately. When not spending time talking to customers in the South, we are spending time listening to the producers in the north.