The Big Interview: Edward Berry (The Flying Fork)

When did your love of food begin?

My parents divorced when I was young, and I was brought up by mother along with my three sisters. My mother always made sure we had good food. More than my sisters I gravitated towards the kitchen. I mean, I was cooking scrambled eggs aged six and putting curry powder in them!

I was lucky enough to be taken on family holidays abroad and always enjoyed the food while we were away, and that has continued to this day. Whenever I go anywhere, take me to the market and I’ll eat and drink what’s there. Thats what I really like. 

Did you always want to work in food?

Yes, I did. I didn’t know in what though. I embarked on a more traditional start in life. After A Levels I went to uni and studied for an arts degree, but I didn’t complete it. It didn’t give me anything other than rather a good time going to see live bands! It wasn’t enough for me, so I packed it in and immediately started a hotel management course.

What was it about hospitality that appealed to you?

It just drew me in. I thought, ‘this is a world that’s going to be interesting’. It’s got the food and drink, of course, but I also liked the idea of hospitality in its truest sense - providing an occasion for people in a nice environment.

I spent five years on a training scheme with The Savoy. In those days the group included The Savoy, Claridge’s, The Connaught and others, plus a hotel in Paris. I worked in myriad departments….meat and vegetable buying, front of house waiting in the restaurants, working in the bars at The Savoy. And I was in The Savoy Grill kitchen as a chef. That was very very hard work.

How did you progress?

I went to the Paris hotel as part of the course. I should have arrived and gone straight to the reception desk, but they didn’t have space for me. I’d gone over there with my Renault 5, found myself a little studio, and turned up in a suit. They said, ‘you’re not going to need that’.

They gave me a rather nasty brown uniform and said, ‘you’re going to be a chasseur’. It basically meant nothing to me. Well, the ‘chasseur’ is the ‘hunter’ and the ‘hunter’ is attached to the concierge desk. In hotels the concierge is a god-like figure who provides all the ancillary stuff not directly related to bookings – so, reservations for airlines and travel, booking people on tours -  the ‘can’t get’ hotels and restaurants, all that good stuff. The chasseur was sent to pick stuff up. 

When I wasn’t busy I was hovering in the lobby emptying ashtrays. But once I got my head around it, I was straight off into Paris, getting out and collecting things.

In the meantime, the head concierge said I was doing really well and would I like to join the desk, so I became the junior concierge for a few months. It was absolute bliss. I earned enough money to eat in every 3 Star Michelin restaurant in Paris, and I’m only 23 at this point. It was amazing.

You diverted into wine. How did that happen?

While I was there, I was invited by a family friend to visit Champagne as a guest of Moet et Chandon. They had a shooting lodge turned into a chateau for guests. I woke up there one day and thought, ‘this Champagne lark is really cool’.

When I was looking to come back from Paris I was a bit disappointed at what was available to me in the group, so I ended up applying for a job that I didn’t know existed in London with Moet and got it!

I moved into wine for the next 20 years of my life, working for them, and doing the more traditional wine trade thing with Harveys and Krug – all marketing jobs at different levels. Then I got a fantastic job looking after Cloudy Bay. The job initially was to run European sales and marketing, and over the next couple of years I opened up into the US and launched there, and became the sales and marketing director for the group.

I spent 12 years on planes, going to Australia two to three times a year. Then we were in Canada, the Far East, all over Europe. Absolutely just an amazing time. We were pioneers in many ways, launching New Zealand wines on the world map. 

And your career path changed again when you met your partner?

It all came to a nice end when I thought it was time to move on. In the meantime, my partner (who I’d met through Cloudy Bay as she was employed by the New Zealand government to develop their wines in the UK) had this dream of having a cafe, so I helped her with that business.

It was based in West London and called The Armadillo. It was very much about bringing country foods to London. The quality of the food was exceptional. First of all, she wanted to source amazing coffee, which was roasted to order. And we would also go to Wiltshire to collect our yoghurt and cheese, hams from the guy who bred the pigs, chicken from an organic farm, literally for making our sandwiches. I really enjoyed that and thought ‘let’s grow’.

We opened our second outlet, a deli, next door, which was also a lot of fun. It was quite innovative at the time. All the cheeses were British and Irish, we got a deli chef in to do ready meals, and I learnt how to make ice cream and set up a little ice cream business.

All of that was really good, and we decided to open up another outlet in Marlborough in Wiltshire. We’d go back and forward, and we built that up over time. Like all good things, the time came to expand or sell and move on, which we did. We sold pretty well but, of course, as an individual, when you sell a business you end up with no job!

I sat down to decide what to do, and took a new role as marketing director of Newby Teas.

How did you end up in a farm shop?

I wanted to get back into food. I went to run what was then The Ludlow Food Centre as director. It had been set up as a 100% genuine farm shop. It was on an estate of around 8,000 acres, and was basically a hub where almost everything you bought was sourced on site. We had our own cheesemakers, made our own ice cream, roasted our own coffee, had nine full-time butchers sourcing all the pork, beef and lamb off the estate, including the largest herd of Gloucester Old Spot pigs in the country, and had a production kitchen and bakery running seven days a week. There was a decent food hall. We had a cafe.

When I arrived it was losing an awful lot of money. It was probably over-ambitious for its time, which was a funny one. Ludlow had huge food credentials then. It had more Michelin Stars per head than anywhere else in the country. Shaun Hill, Claude Bosi, Mr Underhill’s. The foodie thing was huge.

But the cost of running food businesses like Ludlow is just so high, and to deliver the quality the margins have to be generous. Some people thought it was too expensive. It wasn’t for what it was – food is not a level playing field, good food costs money.

However, the people that owned the business knew something had to be done. They set ambitious targets, but they were also prepared to invest. I reconfigured a lot of the building, so we also had a gift shop. The cafe was losing money, so I put in a 100-seater restaurant, which became a money-making machine. All the food was from there – the burgers, the cheese, the bread, the ice cream, the butter. It did a fabulous job, turning over the best part of £1 million. Then we extended, opening a deli in the town, again, looking for more outlets, and I brought the estate’s hotel back in-hand. Now, of course, I’m back as a hotel manager!

It was a fabulous experience. If you want to be totally immersed in food, you spend the day with people making cheese, and chefs, and bakers – people who really really understand their craft. I always said to my bosses, ‘you can replace me tomorrow, but you can’t replace that butcher, he’s like gold dust’.

What was the idea behind The Flying Fork?

I left Ludlow with a heavy heart. It was a great place to work. We moved to Dorset and then, in 2016, I started The Flying Fork. It was one of those moments where I thought, ‘I’ve got all this stuff, what do I do with it?’. The brand I built brings knowledge to people who want to go into food retail or production who have come from another career. They might be someone who wakes up one morning and wants to sell cheese!

But the most active part is farm retail – farm shops and farmers – because they are from a different skill set. They’ve spent their lives tilling the land, and they might be interested in diversification. There are myriad ways you can diversify if farm retail is what you want to go into.

There are a lot of challenges. The cost of setting up. The head count suddenly growing exponentially. Dealing with customers face-to-face. I do a lot of feasibility and business modelling, but probably the bit where I’m most effective is where I get called in if things are not going quite as well as they might do. There’s no shame in getting help. Nine out of 10 times we sit around the table and it’s all members of the same family. Often there are tensions, and they want someone to give them a bit of a steer, even if it’s as simple as confirming their own thoughts. Sometimes I spend days with them at a time, working with the team, looking at the business from the bottom up. I’ll go away, then come back to review. And I might come back when they want to add another bit, like a cafe, to run through the costs and returns. I absolutely love it. It’s very humbling. These are not corporations, they are real people. It’s their money, it’s their livelihood and family.

What do you think has been the biggest change in speciality retail during your career?

I like the fact people are interested in products, and are asking questions about where things are coming from. I think that’s a very healthy question to ask, and I like it. I like that people are putting their stamp on their businesses and saying ‘this is what we do here’, ‘this is where we source from’.

How about the challenges facing the sector?

The biggest challenge is getting people to fill a basket. When I was in the farm shops that was what I wanted people to do. I didn’t want it to be a supermarket, though. We didn’t have cleaning products, and we didn’t floor stack, but we did have a very good offer if you wanted to fill a basket. 

Some of the farm shops I work with are quite surprised when they discover the average basket size is relatively low. But I’ll tell them they need to take the middle ground. To find out more about the number of customers who aren’t spending a certain amount of money, and focus on them…getting them to spend a bit more.

If anything, we do the things the supermarkets can’t do. When they closed down the butchery counters and deli counters it was a joy to me, because their models are completely different. They are based on income per square foot. Dwell time is not for them. I like people to get into a shop and get lost, and to chat to staff. 

How can farm shops retain customers?

Build confidence. Thinking about the butchery as an example, people are incredibly loyal to butchers if they use them. Build that loyalty. Greet customers. Ask them if they want the same thing they had last week, or would they like to try the special this week. It’s about engagement. In speciality retail it’s much more intimate, dealing with people as individuals and giving them good service. I see farm shops as being about food, fun, education, having a good time.

What do farm shops need to do to survive in the future?

They have to be on top of the numbers. The ones I respect know their numbers and are vibrant places. They rely on people (often family members) talking about what they can do better now, what they can do tomorrow or next week or next month, creating new events, positioning new ranges. They are constantly changing face.

A lot of them have become events spaces too. They’ve got a maize maze. They put events on. Many of these activities are absolutely crucial, but often they will say, ‘okay, we’ve got a play barn for the kids and a cafe, but people aren’t actually coming here for shopping’. Don’t beat yourself up. Do the best you can. You might have vouchers and cross-promotions to help boost those numbers. You’ve got to remember often families are on a mission to get through the day with the kids – they aren’t in shopping mode. Create opportunities for impulse shopping.

Why do you think farm shops have enduring appeal?

In my experience the supermarkets only have one drive, which is cost/price. That is their mantra. That’s not our playing field. We can’t compete. But we can come back saying ‘we’re here, we’ve got lovely fruit and veg, come to us for quality, and for our people, because we are local, and we look after our staff’.

The beauty about farm shops as well, is the diversity they can offer. They can be reactive. If supermarkets want to change a listing it can take months and months. At farm shops someone can walk in and say, ‘look guys, I’ve got this great product I’m making’, and buyers can say, ‘sure, we’ll give it a go’. 

There has to be though, a balance between new and innovative, and what’s established and good. If customers go into a shop and see no familiarity it can be quite hard for them. But for me, I’m going in to find something I haven’t seen before.

Are there any must-have brands you think should be on shelves?

I guess one I always cite is Tracklements. They’ve been around for a while, but I’ve always felt if I go into a farm shop and see they’ve got Tracklements I’m happy with that. I also like some of the spice brands coming through doing interesting things. BoTree is one of them. People are asking more about the quality of their spices which is quite interesting.

What are you up to now?

I’m currently dipping in and out of researching a book about chillies. It’s not horticultural, and it’s not a book of recipes. It’s about the culture and world of chillies. Where they originated, from Christopher Colombus bringing them over, to the way they’ve permeated the world of food, and regional styles and sauces. The spirituality of chillies. The fact we’re eating this food which is painful, and the madness around that. Then, the development of hotter and hotter chillies – I’ve found that quite amusing.