Ingredients & Suppliers
A great meal starts with great ingredients. Many of our relationships with our suppliers stretch back over decades and we’re proud to be working with some of Britain’s very best farmers. Good food shouldn’t cost the earth, and sourcing responsibly is one of the most important and complicated aspects of what we do, incorporating taste, quality, traceability, sustainability, animal welfare, soil health, air miles and more…
Jump to: Pork / Beef / Chicken / Turkey / Fruit & Veg / Duck / Sausages & Bacon / Lamb / Fish & Seafood / Game / Eggs / Dairy / Oil / Palm Oil / Honey
Pork
All our pork is higher welfare and comes from British pigs reared in the open air. Almost all of it comes from Dingley Dell, a family-owned farm in Suffolk where the pigs are born, reared and grow outdoors all year round. They have won numerous awards for quality, enterprise and conservation and they share our belief that responsible animal welfare and great flavour goes hand in hand. They are also on a mission to protect our ecosystem. By rotating the use of the farm’s land, they’re working towards providing food for a million bees.
Both the pork steaks we cook with and the pork in our sausage rolls also come from higher-welfare farms.
Our commitment to higher-welfare pork was recognised with a Good Pig Award from Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) in 2016.
Beef
All of our beef comes from the UK and Ireland, from cows reared outside on grass. All of our Beef comes from approved farms, which means the farms are all monitored independently to check animal welfare standards, food safety, traceability and environmental protection. In all the recipes that contain diced beef, we use top rump.
Chicken
We only use higher-welfare chicken from British farms in our kitchens. In 2017 our commitment to higher-welfare chicken was recognised with a Good Chicken Award from Compassion in World Farming, an organisation that has been championing and campaigning for improved animal welfare since 1967.
All our chicken is fully traceable, with the birds reared in barns with natural light and significantly more space to roam than is the industry standard. Temperature levels are monitored and controlled, and a stable environment is maintained at all times. Working with farmers committed to animal welfare and sustainability is at the heart of our sourcing policy at COOK, so we visit every chicken supplier to make sure we are happy.
Turkey
Reared in woodlands with freedom to roam 24 hours a day, our turkeys are raised on a 100% natural diet and to the highest welfare standards on small farms in East Anglia. Our turkey sourcing has been recognised with a Good Turkey Award from the animal welfare charity Compassion In World Farming.
Fruit & Veg
We source produce from around the world to ensure the best quality and availability in season, while ensuring, wherever possible, we prioritise the use of British ingredients to reduce food miles and our impact on the environment. All of our produce is traceable back to source.
We’re committed to minimising the use of imported products and love working with British growers. The apples in our savoury kitchen come from a local orchard in Kent, and we’ve been working with the local farming collective Provenance Potatoes since 2018, based in the heart of Kent’s finest potato-growing area.
Duck
We are very proud to work with Silver Hill Farm, one of the world’s most prestigious suppliers of duck. A family- owned company based in the Republic of Ireland, they started 50 years ago with six top-quality ducks, which have been developed into their own breed, which is famed for its taste. They are involved with very step, from breeding to processing, and run with a zero carbon footprint on their farms. The ducks are reared free to roam in barns, to protect them from the harsh weather conditions (duck down is not actually waterproof). They are graded AA by the Global Food Safety Initiative.
Duck is always popular around Christmas. If we need wild duck in our seasonal specials, that currently comes from Ben Rigby Game, which is wild shot.
Sausages & Bacon
Our pork sausages are made exclusively for us by Speldhurst, a company based in Kent that has its roots in a recipe created by Joe Lovett, a village butcher, over 50 years ago. All of the pork sausages, sausage meat, and the ingredients they supply for our Christmas range, are free from preservatives and artificial flavourings, and made from higher-welfare pork from the UK and, occasionally, Ireland.
Our bacon is all higher-welfare and comes from Blackwell & Co, who source the pork from our friends at Dingley Dell. When we use wild boar sausages at Christmas, they also come from Blackwell & Co and, as the name implies, the meat comes from wild pigs that roam freely.
Lamb
We source lamb from the UK (normally Wales) and New Zealand, depending on the season and other issues affecting the supply chain. It is all grass-fed, farm-assured lamb, irrespective of where it’s sourced from, and we can trace all our lamb back to the farms on which the animals were bred.
Fish & Seafood
We use 100% sustainable fish and seafood in our kitchens.
All our white fish comes from approved fishing grounds and is traceable back to source. We only use suppliers that support the activities of the Marine Stewardship Council and are committed to sustainable fishing. The fish is prepared to our exact specifications and delivered daily to our kitchens. Our salmon comes from higher-welfare Scottish and Norwegian farms.
We only use prawns certified to the highest standard (four stars) that is recognised by the Best Aquaculture Practice. BAP is the world’s most trusted, comprehensive and proven third-party aquaculture certification program. It has been improving the environmental, social and economic performance of the aquaculture supply chain and growing the global supply of responsibly farmed seafood since 2002.
Game
We don’t use much game outside of our seasonal specials for Christmas, but almost all of it comes from Ben Rigby Game. Since 1979, this family-run business has built strong relationships with some of the best estates across England and Ireland. For their venison, they work with The Royal Parks and The Forestry Commission to source wild deer from sustainable forests and managed estates. Pheasant, duck and other small game are sourced from sporting estates in England.
Eggs
All of the eggs we use are free range. They come predominantly from the UK, and occasionally from the continent.
We received a Good Egg Award from Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) in 2011.
Dairy
All of our milk and cream come from farms in the UK, predominantly from the south of England.
Cheddar is from A. J. Barber’s, who have been making cheese since 1833 and the oldest surviving Cheddar- makers in the world. Based in the West Country, they work with the local farming community and are the sole guardians of the country’s last remaining traditional cheese starter cultures (the friendly bacteria that begins the cheese-making process).
All of our other cheeses come from approved suppliers in the UK and Europe.
Oil
We mostly use rapeseed oil in our kitchens. The vast majority comes from Kentish Oils, with the rest from the Eckley’s arable farm – both are local to our savoury kitchens in Sittingbourne. We also use cold-pressed sunflower oil in a few recipes (like the beef and salmon Wellingtons), and there is olive oil present in some ingredients we use but don’t make, like pesto.
Palm Oil
We are very aware of the implications of using palm oil, and we want to reassure you that we do not use it directly in any of our recipes. However, some ingredients contain it in small amounts. Where this is the case, 100% of the palm oil is certified to the ‘Segregated’ level by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). This ensures that it’s sourced sustainably. Achieving this required changes to 17 ingredients, ranging from simple substitutions to complete recipe redevelopments. We’ll continue to seek out ingredients that don't use palm oil at all.
Honey
All our honey is raw, unprocessed and comes from Cutis and the team at The Local Honey Man, based in North London. Curtis’ obsession with bees came from his uncle, a master beekeeper who learnt his trade in Jamaica. As well as honey, they sell beekeeping supplies. Curtis works to inspire the next generation of beekeepers - you may have seen him on the BBC kids' series Show Me the Honey.