Scones, jam and the golden goose

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By Dave Harvey Business correspondent, BBC West

There is no doubting the explosion in local, seasonal, artisan food production. But a search for a classic West Country cream tea reveals the new dilemma now facing small food producers.

"It was a case of get big, get niche or get out," farmer Geoff Bowles said.

Rose Farm produces 3,000 jars a week of jams, relishes and chutney In a perfect corner of Somerset surrounded by lush pastures, friendly Jersey cows, and a yard full of farm workers' 4x4s, Ivy House Farm is thriving.

But just six years ago, it was struggling. "It was me and a YTS [Youth Training Scheme] lad and we were staring down the barrel," Mr Bowles said.

His salvation was the Jersey cow and her luscious cream.

Instead of selling into the bulk markets, Mr Bowles started making his own cream and the gloriously yellow substance soon captured the London market.

If you take tea in Fortnums, you will be eating his clotted cream and it is stocked at Selfridges and Harrods as well as at a clutch of delis.

"We've got new customers knocking on our door - good customers - but I tell them no.

"The girls can only produce so much milk."

The dilemma is clear. The only way Mr Bowles can expand is to buy in other people's milk and become, in effect, a dairy.

But London customers pay big prices for milk "from the farm". Would he be killing the goose that gave him his golden cream egg?

Just 20 miles across the Mendips, I find the jam to go with Mr Bowles' cream. Rose Farm was a struggling chicken farm 20 years ago, before they discovered a knack for pickling eggs and making jam.

Polish blueberries and strawberries from Turkey are used in the jam

Today the chickens are long gone, and the farm produces 3,000 jars a week of jams, relishes, chutney and pickled eggs.

But there are no longer enough local strawberries to feed their jamming pans all year round.

"We have to keep our customers happy with jam throughout the year," Charlotte Wright, the small firm's marketing director, said.

"And we need a consistent supply, checked for stones and metals. So we get our fruit from a wholesaler in Herefordshire."

This means Polish blueberries and strawberries from Turkey, but does this matter? Well to be fair, the jam jar says "made in Somerset to a traditional local recipe", which is true.

The firm's growth has also secured jobs for nearly 20 local people.

And for the scones? Make your own of course and use locally-milled flour.

'Radical vision'

Is that a locally-sourced bridge too far? Well there are two in the West Country, one near Wells and one near Tetbury.

At Shipton Mill in Gloucestershire they have been milling corn since Domesday and little has changed.

Stones turn slowly, grain lies waiting in an oak granary above. They mill for Prince Charles and for devoted bakers across the UK. And they too have big customers knocking on the door, but are saying no.

"We don't think growth is always good," John Lister, the mill's founder, explained.

"We could build a bigger barn, buy more lorries, mill more grain. But we'd rather do what we do better... be better to the staff and supply ever more local customers."

It is a radical vision of business for sure.