Time Gentlemen, Please: For Foraging!

A Cotswold pub has come up with a winning formula for finding local fruit, vegetables and foraged items for its menu: a voucher scheme that can be redeemed for food or drink.

by Chandos Elletson

Monday 7th November 2011, 9:00 UTC

Dan Ingram, head chef at The Red Lion in Cricklade near Swindown, wanted to put his menu on the map but to do that he had to find ingredients that nobody else in the local area had.

So, together with pub owner Tom Gee, he introduced a scheme where locals and regulars could redeem their foraged or home-grown fruit and veg for a voucher than could be spent at the bar or in the restaurant.

“It’s been a tremendous success,” he told us. “Not only do we now get plenty of kitchen door visits with baskets of fruit or boxes of mushrooms but we’ve also found other suppliers locally.

“I wanted to put The Red Lion on the culinary map but in a way that was unexpected and our ingredients are now ultra-seasonal and as a result we have to write our menus according to what is coming into the kitchen.

“But actually, that’s a bonus, it really is. I can’t think of anything better as a chef than reacting to the ingredients in front of me.”

The scheme has also worked for driving business forward and getting additional input from customers.

“We are now getting customers coming in for a three course lunch on a Wednesday. They love the fact that they can supply us with some ingredient and then come in and actually experience it and taste it.

Dan Ingram: A star in the Making

Since we made this film Dan has left The Red Lion to become a forager and is working for one of the foragers who supplies Noma, in Copenhagen. His whereabouts are unknown but he comes up for air occasionally and is loving his new environment.

“I bought an old camper,” he told us recently. “I move around from place to place learning what to look for and what to avoid. It’s incredible. When I come back to cooking in professional kitchens my whole outlook will be different.”