Nine suppliers, and what went wrong with each of them.
Every page here says what they make, how long they have supplied this shop, exactly what we sell of theirs, and one thing that went wrong between us. The last of those is the reason the pages are worth reading.
The nine.
Chadlington Bakehouse
Sourdough, cottage loaves and a morning bun that sells out by ten.
Cotswold Curd
Raw-milk hard cheese in 12kg truckles, matured on board.
Windrush Smokery
Cold-smoked trout, dry-cured back bacon and smoked butter.
Sarsden Apiary
Cotswold honey, hive by hive, unblended.
Dean Market Garden
Salad, roots and brassicas on two and a half acres.
Enstone Meat Co
Dry-aged beef, sausage and bacon, cutting for the shop and the pub.
Bruern Mill
Stoneground flour, milled slow enough not to cook the grain.
Wychwood Dairy
Bottled milk, cream and cultured butter from a hundred-cow herd.
Evenlode Wool Mill
Spun yarn, blankets and socks from British fleece.
Why every page carries a failure.
A supplier page that only lists what a producer makes is a catalogue entry. Anybody can write one and nobody learns anything from it.
The interesting part of a supply relationship is where it went wrong, because that is where you find out how both parties behave. Who paid for the eleven sweated truckles. Who ate eight months of bread waste before anybody noticed. Who said no to buying in honey to cover a shortfall.
In four of the nine cases the fault was entirely ours. We have said so on the page rather than in a general paragraph about learning, because a general paragraph about learning is what businesses write when they do not intend to name anything.
Who was at fault, when it went wrong.
| Producer | What went wrong | Whose fault |
|---|---|---|
| Chadlington Bakehouse | Baked to our forecast for eight months | Ours |
| Cotswold Curd | Eleven truckles left on a hot loading bay | Ours |
| Windrush Smokery | A shelf card that overstated where the trout came from | Ours |
| Sarsden Apiary | A forward contract on a crop bees do not read | Ours, jointly agreed |
| Dean Market Garden | Forty beds of purple cauliflower nobody bought | Ours |
| Enstone Meat Co | Batch labels ran ahead of the carcasses | Theirs, and ours for the spec |
| Bruern Mill | A flour name that outlived the grain behind it | Ours |
| Wychwood Dairy | Glass bottles with no working return route | Ours |
| Evenlode Wool Mill | Blankets described as if they came off our sheep | Ours |
What every producer page has in common.
All nine hold the mark
Or held it, in the two cases where it has lapsed.
All nine inside sixteen miles
Two to eleven miles from the farm gate.
Paid in fourteen days
Which is the whole of our leverage-free negotiating position.
Failures published
With the party at fault named, including us.
The questions producers ask before they supply us.
No. There is no fee to be stocked, no charge for shelf position and no payment for appearing on this website. A shop that charges its suppliers to be on the shelf is running an advertising business with a chiller cabinet attached.
Fourteen days from invoice, and we have missed that twice in six years. Both times we paid the late-payment interest without being asked, because a small producer chasing a large customer for money is the oldest and worst dynamic in food.
Not without telling you first. Where we do run an own-label line made by one of our suppliers, the supplier page says so and the supplier agreed to it in writing.
You get a reason, in writing, at least a full order cycle before it happens, and this page keeps your entry until the last of your stock has gone.
Supply the shop.
What we look for, what we pay and what happens after you apply.
Get told before everyone else
One email a fortnight about what is actually happening in the fields, the brewery and the pub — including the bits that went wrong.
