PASSIONATE ABOUT LOCAL PRODUCE – UNCOVER DEAN’S LOVE ON INTERNATIONAL CHEF’S DAY

On International Chef’s Day today, we salute you Dean Hoddle-Smith. Mentoring your kitchen brigade and whipping up your culinary magic for the last five and a half years. Across the whole of Silverstone International Conference & Exhibition Centre, you bring events alive with your modern and passionate take on food for events of all shapes and sizes. And we couldn’t miss this opportunity to highlight your passion for sourcing local produce.

Dean loves to use local artisan producers such as The little Bakery of Happiness for gluten free bakery and put their ingredients onto the Silverstone menus. He works closely with little independent gems across Northamptonshire to create solutions so that they can supply a big venue like Silverstone in line with their other seasonal commitments. Take for example, pickled onions. Dean works with locals Steve and Rachel, founders of Friar’s Farm in Northamptonshire and chutney specialists to supply all the pickled onions that Silverstone needs – that’s about 200kg annually. To make sure Friar’s Farm can handle the volume, the pickled onions are produced in January and February when it’s quieter for the team. That way, the big order doesn’t interfere with the other large demands in spring.

But the relationship goes much further than this. And over the years, Dean has worked with his suppliers to create bespoke products just for Silverstone that have become staple products for the local suppliers. The Silverstone cheese is sourced from Hamm Tunn deli based in Long Buckby. The cheese was originally made from animal rennet and therefore unsuitable for vegetarians. But in line with changing food trends and after a number conversations, the team collaboratively came up with a new process to use vegetarian rennet which is now used across all Silverstone menus.

Dean comments, “It is so important to support local suppliers when it comes to menu engineering and creating a bespoke taste to your event menus. Food trends change regularly and having the flexibility to work collaboratively with local, independent producers means we can continually evolve and be agile in our choice of menus to events whether it’s a small meeting for 20 up to an exhibition with over 800 attendees”.

ABOUT SILVERSTONE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION AND CONFERENCE CENTRE

Home to the Formula 1 British Grand Prix and the Moto British GP, Silverstone is more than just a racing track. Located along the A43 in Northamptonshire, the dedicated Wing has over 22 spaces ideal for exhibitions, conferences, corporate dinners and small meetings and training events. Five large halls offer a blank

canvas to event organisers and are flexible to be transformed for events of up to 645 delegates. Combine your event with team building from virtual reality simulator experiences to drive days on the track, we can offer it all.