Tuesday, 18 April 2017

WI Open Meeting - The man behind UK QUINOA SUPERFOOD

Message from Corinne Russell, Weston Lullingfields.

Weston Lullingfields WI Open Meeting. 
Monday 7.30pm 24th April at Weston Lullingfields Village Hall. 

We are very pleased to have Stephen Jones who is a local farmer from the Ellesmere area to speak to us about his exciting and innovative production of Quinoa which is being heralded as a superfood. 

This meeting is open to all comers - men included! 

Further details and tickets from - 
07970 585782

From unheard of to must-eat SUPERFOOD: Meet the farmer behind the UK quinoa revolution

QUINOA is currently stocking healthy eater's cupboards all across the UK - but the superfood was unheard of four years ago when Stephen Jones  replaced his traditional crops with the grain.

At the time of the bold decision there were no instruction on how to grow the it in British soil, but Mr Jones decided to take the risk after learning about quinoa.

He said: "I read about the health benefits of quinoa and I wanted to see if we could grow it in this country as there were no varieties in the UK.


"We're the first and biggest producers of quinoa in the United Kingdom and probably the second biggest outside the Americas. 


Our first fully commercial crop was produced in 2013, in which we harvested around 20 tonnes of quinoa. Our first intention was to package the crop ourselves for sale in local wholefood stores, but when we were approached by Pret A Manger to supply our British quinoa for their product range, we jumped at the chance! In 2014, we produced around 80 tonnes of British quinoa, and were spurred on by being featured on Countryfile and winning the Arable Innovator of the Year Award at the British Farming Awards. In 2015, with the help of a few other passionate UK farmers we took a big leap forward and produced close to 700 tonnes to help meet our customer's rapidly growing demand, and we're again aiming to continue expanding our quinoa crops in 2016. Over the past 12 months we've worked hard to develop our own brand retail packs which are now making their way into stores across the country, and this brings us back around to fulfil our initial ambition from when we first started our fledgling quinoa business... at long last!


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