Project Ketchup

I hope one day my generation will be able to live in a world where they can trust their food, and trust the people who make it for them.

Looking back, I would say that the last time I wrote an update in April, I had around 10% of the understanding of how hard this ketchup mission was going to be.

I haven’t been able to update you since April, because every time I noted down an update it would completely change a month later:

We planted the beetroot

It turned out to be the wrong variety

Then we planted the right beets

Then the weather was terrible

So the beets didn’t grow so well

We added carrot to the recipe

We took carrot off the recipe

We swapped the honey for apple syrup

We swapped the apple syrup back to the honey

The sauce consistency was coming out wrong

So we reduced it more

The reducing made it go brown

And on

And on

For 9 months

But we got there in the end! And two weeks ago we soft-launched our first bottles into local shops.

Giacomo and ketchup at Pinsents (our local shop)

The final recipe is; beetroot, onion, raw apple cider vinegar, honey, horseradish, sea salt, thyme and bay leaf.

Our aim is to grow as much of it as we can here on the farm. The main ingredient we will struggle to grow enough of here is honey, because we don’t have enough money at the moment to set up a commercial honey operation. But we have found a great local beekeeper who has hives in the area. And soon he will also put hives on our land as well. Some of it is rape honey and some it is hawthorn honey.

Lots of other plants growing with our beetroot in our agroforestry alleys

What’s amazing about our ketchup is how it’s directly linked to regenerating the land. Literally the more ketchup we can sell, the more trees we can plant - the more we can increase biodiversity, regenerate ecosystems and sequester carbon.

But it’s been a crazy amount of work, and it seems like it will continue to be. I can see why it’s not been done before and why no-one’s doing it. To manage the process from soil to bottle, whilst maintaining rigid values on local and natural, is not easy.

Tasting for the final recipe

Whilst I couldn’t be more against any of it, I can start to see why the standard approach to so many food products is to use industrially farmed and ultra-processed ingredients: good honey is hard to find, expensive, and hard to work with; nature is unpredictable and the customer wants predictable; naturally farmed crops are more likely to change in shape, colour, size and flavour - all things that refined sugar, preservatives, thickeners and colourings fix quickly.

To eliminate all things industrially farmed and ultra processed in a product, we have to work daily in connection with what nature is providing. It’s much harder but I believe it’s worth it - it tastes better and feels much better to eat.

Ketchup hot out the oven - the cloth wrap is a bouqet garni of thyme and bayleaf from our gardens

We’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about how to market our product - our label still needs some work, and thanks to those of you who have given your feedback.

It’s funny; ketchup has become so notoriously bad for you that the main marketing we now see out there is how people are making ketchups that are “not bad for you”. Why can’t it be GOOD FOR YOU?! Our ketchup has highly nutritious beetroot from healthy soils, gut-enhancing apple cider vinegar, living honey from hard working bees and powerfully healing horseradish, not to mention a large dose of love from passionate farmers. And I believe this is how all food should be - healthy, ecological and extremely delicious.

Our first order packaged up for delivery!

I hope one day everyone will be able to walk down to their local chippy, their local pub, corner shop or supermarket and be able to choose a ketchup that isn’t full of preservatives, pesticides and sugar but instead full of life-giving nourishment.

I hope the same for children in school canteens across the country.

I hope one day my generation will be able to live in a world where they can trust their food, and trust the people who make it for them.

Whilst a lot of the hard work getting it ready is somewhat over, it seems we’ve only just started - we’ve now got to start selling it!

If you can help, if you know any restaurants, shops, pubs or in particular schools who might be interested, please put me in touch. And finally if you haven’t already, you can order some of it to your home here; https://www.higher-farm.co.uk/shop

Thank you for all your support, it makes it all worth it.

Matteo

12/11