Log on to our new site!

From Monday 6th October our website will have changed, we can still be found at the same address, www.jordanscereals.co.uk, but the site is now far more fun, lively and entertaining. Alongside some information about how brothers Bill and David Jordan set the company up in the 1970's there are also delicious recipes, competitions and plenty of news and views from Jordans.

We hope you like it, if you do then please sign up to our e newsletter which will keep you updated with what we are doing, thinking and saying, as well as fun stuff too. From Monday this blog will have moved onto the site, we hope you move with us!

Thanks

Rachel

Come and have breakfast with us

Are you due to be in Fulham around 9am on Tuesday 7th October? Then if you have a few mintues to spare please come and meet me and some of the rest of the Jordans team at the Emma Bridgewater shop on Fulham Road. Emma has kindely invited us to launch our new muesli range at the Fulham shop on Tuesday and at her Marylebone shop on Wednesday 8th October. We would love to see you there, come and try some of the new range and tell us what you think.

Please visit www.emmabridgewater.co.uk for contact details.

Muesli spotted in the South West

Blogged by Carol:

Here's a photo sent by Gill and David with the first sighting of our new muesli down in the South West, spotted in Sainsburys at Pinhoe in Exeter. The eagle eyed will also spot that Sainsburys currently have 1/3rd off our Jordans Country Crisp and it looks to be selling fast in Exeter!

Good Grain

Rob has finally managed to get his harvest home, far later than he would have liked but at least all his tasty oats, wheat and barley are now carefully stored away for the coming year. I went to see the grain store yesterday and was amazed at the sheer size of the grain mountain. Rob is just relieved to have finally finished driving his combine though there is hardly time for a rest as the ploughing and planting for next year's crop as to be planted right away.

I love the fact that the cereal I held in my hand yesterday may end up in my bowl of muesli very soon. And through meeting Rob and some of our other Conservation Grade farmers I know the sheer effort they put in every single day to grow our grain for me, and lots of other people to eat and enjoy.

Merry Cherries

Our new Limited Edition Frusli bar, Cherry & Cocoa nib has been rolling off the production line this week. The combination of flavours was chosen by Emma Paget who entered our My Frusli competition earlier this year. We wanted to make sure we were asking people what they really wanted when they fancied a cereal bar so My Frusli was a competition where people were asked to design their own flavour of bar. The combination of dark morello cherries and roasted cocoa nib clearly caught the eye of many of those who voted for their favourite flavour and came out as the clear winner.

The cereal bar team have been carefully tasting and testing the recipe ever since and now the bar is ready for you to try. We hope Emma is pleased with the final product and tells all her friends to give her winning bar a try.

How much honey can one person eat?

You can't beat a piece of toast with honey as a midnight snack. Though when I went through my cupboard last night I was slightly disturbed to find a plethora of honey varieties. I clearly have a minor obsession with the sticky stuff. My current favourite was bought on honeymoon in Scotland a few weeks ago, it's just the right consistancy and is really yummy.

Jordans Muesli has landed!

Word on the street is that our new muesli range has been spotted somewhere in a Sainsbury's store in South London. The exact location has not been confirmed so please do keep your eyes and ears open and let us know where you first see those pretty little boxes!

Harvest Time

On Friday I went out to visit Rob Law on his farm nearby. Rob has grown Conservation Grade oats, wheat and barley for us for over twenty years and is a real advocate of 'nature friendly farming'. However, he, like many other farmers in the UK has struggled to get his harvest safely in this year. Thanks to recent lashings of rain vast tracks of the UK's farmland have become very wet and therefore getting the crops in has been a real challenge. Rob was looking forward to finishing his harvest by today, but several weeks behind schedule. He is concerned that the delay will have set back his harvest for next year as he can't plant next years crops until this years were out of the ground.

I showed Rob our new packaging and he seemed to like it, Rob is a fan of our Natural Muesli and as he said; "When I pour my bowl of muesli in the morning I like thinking that some of the grain might have come from the land outside my window."

We think inside the box!

Blogged by Carol:
Last week Ben and I went down to London to see the posters that are going to launch our new muesli range. These posters will be appearing in the car parks of Sainsburys, Tesco, Asda, Waitrose & Morrisons supermarkets during October. You probably can't read the text in the photo but they say 'We think inside the box - it's not just the box we've made tastier" to highlight the new packaging and the new recipes. Later in October there will be magazine adverts too which we'll reveal on the blog soon!

All Hands on Deck!

Tomorrow the whole of Jordans will get together to celebrate the re-launch of our mueslis so today the marketing team spent some time 'team building' as we packed up a goodie bag for all the staff. We can't wait to see the new packs on shelf and see what people really think of them. Anyone who spots the new range and uploads a picture onto our blog will get a free hamper of cereal direct from me...

The Film Crew has landed

Today we began filming a series of short videos for our new website, yes by October we will have an all singing, all dancing new website up and running so watch the http://www.jordanscereals.co.uk/ space. Matthew, Susan and Tony came to talk to our 'Man from Jordans' - John O'Neill about his globe trotting adventures in seach of ingredients for Jordans. Believe it or not hunting the world for the best possible fruit, nuts and seeds is a full time job for John who doesn't really like travelling and would prefer to be at home with his kids than trekking through the jungle looking for Brazil nuts. More films in the offing next week!

Here's a fruity idea

Blogged by: Carol

Today we came across a great idea for an alternative to Country Crisp and milk - why not try Country Crisp and fruit juice? The idea came from Brian in the Tamar Valley on his blog:

http://devonandcornwallviewpoint.blogspot.com/2008/09/not-nostalgic-about-everything.html

The funny thing is that although I must have eaten hundreds of bowls of Country Crisp, I've never tried it with fruit juice! Having now thought about it, I bet Country Crisp would taste great with Smoothie as well. I think we'll start a competition here at Jordans to see who can find the best Country Crisp and fruit juice/smoothie combination - I think Innocent's strawberry & banana smoothie with Country Crisp strawberry is probably a good place to start!

More Emma Bridgewater

Blogged by: Carol

Here's a picture of Emma Bridgewater's shop in Fulham with her latest window display featuring Jordans Frusli! Plus, of course, lots of her lovely designs!

Emma Bridgewater bowls

Blogged by: Carol
To celebrate our muesli makeover, Emma Bridgewater's specially designed bowls are now shown on her website : http://www.emmabridgewater.co.uk/productlist.aspx?cid=NEW&language=en-GB. You can't buy them yet - it's like a pre-sale preview! They will go on sale at the end of September when the new muesli packs hit the supermarket shelves. Anyone who orders a bowl will also get a free sample of our new muesli. As the bowls are a limited edition, there are only 1000 on sale plus we've kept another 1000 for competition prizes that you'll see in the press soon. I've been trying to work out how to get my hands on one of the bowls but Rachel has cleverly hidden them somewhere we can't find them!

Plans for our bee-friendly garden

Blogged by Carol:
Andy the engineer (shown below with the new muesli pack) is a man of many projects and I found out yesterday that he's working on re-designing our car park. This seems like a great opportunity for us to start our own bee-friendly garden. I found a list of lots of different plants that are bee friendly on this website:
http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/list.html
Apparently lavendar and rosemary are a good place to start. So, next steps are to have a look at the plans with Andy and then discuss with John our gardener and hopefully by Christmas we'll have taken the first steps to creating our very own bee garden. More to follow...!

Bee friendly

Blogged by Carol:

Ben, Lee and I finished off the week with a trip down to Buzzworks at Hitchin to hear more about their plans to build a bee-friendly garden and education centre. Because bees are so central to our nature-friendly farming system, we thought we were quite well informed about bees and the current crisis that they are experiencing - but then we met Robin the bee-keeper who kept us enthralled for over an hour teaching us all about bee behaviour (or should that be bee-haviour?!) and bee-keeping. Unfortunately Robin only had one spare suit so Ben & Lee can be seen watching rather nervously from a distance!

Happy days!

Blogged by Carol:

Our picture today shows Andy our engineer - the reason for his beeming smile is he's holding the first packet ever produced of our brand new muesli!

Muesli 'makeover'

Blogged by Carol:

After months of hard work on our muesli ‘makeover’ it was great to receive today the first samples of the new packs hot off the printing press. We took the packs over to our local store to have a look at them on the supermarket shelf and were pleased to see that the Biggleswade shoppers were as excited about the new look as we are!

Not long to go now until our tasty new recipes will be out on the shelves for real…

Harvest time

Blogged by Carol:
Driving over to Biggleswade from Bedford this morning I couldn’t help but notice all the grain lorries on the road full of this year’s harvest. It looks like our recent few days of dry weather is coming to an end with rain forecast for Biggleswade every day this week, no doubt making it a last minute rush for all the local farmers. All of the grain we use at Jordans is grown by a special group of Conservation Grade farmers to whom we pay a premium to plant 10% of their land with nature-friendly habitats that encourage bees, butterflies and birds to flourish in our countryside. Rob Law is our closest Conservation Grade farmer – his farm is just 13 miles away in Royston. Official early reports indicate that the total EU harvest for 2008 is up versus 2007 but we’ll have to wait and see how Rob and the other Conservation Grade farmers have faired.

Hi, this is Carol and I work with Rachel at Jordans - Rach is off on holiday now - she gets married next weekend - so I was only too happy to take over the blog! Today I popped down to our local Waitrose store who were celebrating their store relaunch with lots of tastings. We had Neal there giving out free samples of Country Crisp - there was a choice of Strawberry or Raspberry - shame that Denise Lewis wasn't around as that's her favourite! The photo shows the lovely Neal together with our very own Charlie who's the man to speak to if your local Waitrose doesn't stock your favourite Jordans product!

Olympic Breakfast

The whole world has gone Olympics crazy over the past week and its no exception here. Rachel, who normally writes this blog, came in on Monday saying ‘I never believed archery could be so interesting!’ Anyway – we were thrilled to see that British Olympic gold medalist Denise Lewis swears by breakfast and is a fan of our Country Crisp with Raspberries..

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/you/article-1041408/My-body-I--Denise-Lewis.html

Our Mill Shop

At my mum's request I went over to Mrs Jordans (Bill & David's mum) shop to buy some muesli. I am glad to see I have brought my family into the Jordans fold as well. Alas Mrs Jordan (known as Whizzer) was not around but David (my boss) and I had a good chat with a couple of customers and after I had loaded myself up with oats, you can see me clutching them like my life depends on it above, and David had purchased an afternoon snack of gingerbread men we headed back to the office. The poor old ginger bread man didn't even make it out of the car before he had been wolfed down.

Tea and Cake

We have been testing recipes for our website, which means we get to eat lots of cake. Julie is the cookery queen and created this delicious almond and honey cake for us. Keep an eye on the Jordans website for new recipes which will be added shortly, and send us some of your favourites too so we can try them out.

He's behind you! Ben, from the Marketing team at Jordans meets his match at the Village Fete.

My Muesli Moment
Now I know I am biased but I do love a bowl of muesli, which has to be one of the perks of working for Jordans as there is plenty of the stuff lying around to try. I can’t quite decide which I like the best, Nut and Seed or Organic but I am risking sounding like an ad so I’m going to stop. The bowl by the way is a limited edition Emma Bridgewater, she kindly made us a couple of thousand and there will be some for sale shortly through http://www.jordanscereals.co.uk/, watch this space.

Flying Visit

Yesterday we took Tim Lovett, President of the British Bee Keeping Asspciation on a farm visit so he could see the conservation work carried out on our 'nature friendly farms'. Rob Law has farmed for Jordans for over twenty years and is very close to the factory where we make our cereals. There are about fifty British farmers who grow oats, barley, wheat and rye for us. We pay them a premium and in return they manage areas of their farms so that wildlife can thrive. On Rob's farm he has planted large areas of plants to feed wild birds and wide strips of wild flowers and clover so that bees can thrive. This is what we wanted to show the BBKA, and I think they were pleased with what they saw. Bee's are vital for agriculture as they pollinate about a third of the food we eat, eg apples, courgettes etc so everytime you bite into a piece of fruit spare a thought for the bees.

Innocent’s Village Fete
It takes more than a few vile thunderstorms to keep the British inside, or so it seemed on Sunday when I, along with thousands of others braved the elements to visit Innocent’s Village Fete. The forecast was ‘sunshine and showers’ and the Met Office were not wrong. One minute Regent’s park with its tented village complete with ferrets, fair rides and farmers market was bathed in glorious sunshine. And the next, the scene was transformed into a sea of fleeing cagoules as the rain lashed unmercifully down turning hay bales mushy and small children soggy. In true British spirit no one seemed to mind and everyone just got on with making sure they were having a good time, the ferrets raced between snoozing and the fair rides refused to be drenched to a stand still. The Jordans stand courageously stood up to the pummelling of the elements, with small children frantically colouring cut outs of scarecrows in order to win cereal bars. Eventually we decided enough was enough and took shelter in the Pimm's bus which was a treat, but only after we made sure we had got our money’s worth and seen what every stand, stall and tent had to offer, a good day had by all at the village fete.

Busy Buzzing

I confess that I think bees are pretty fantastic so when I was invited to BuzzWorks, Hitchin’s Community Bee Garden on Wednesday night I sadly got quite excited. The garden is the brain child of Robin Dartington, a long time bee lover and he proudly gave me a guided tour of the site. Though everything is brand new, there are big plans for the bee garden and Robin hopes that in the near future he will be able to open the site to the public so he can spread the word about what amazing little creature’s bees are. The garden is bee heaven, with all sorts of plants bees love. On Wednesday they seemed to be favouring the lavender and borage flowers.

I then donned a rather attractive, and surprisingly claustrophobic bee outfit and stepped into the hive enclosure. The cunning use of a bamboo fence helps prevent stings as the bees have to fly up and over rather than along the ground where your feet live. I saw the queen bee busily at work, all she does is lay eggs 24/7 which seems like a labour of love.

Sadly, as seems to be the common problem these days, the hives were showing a distinct lack of honey. No one seems to know why bees seem to be suffering at the moment but it’s vital that we find out. Bees are responsible for pollinating, and therefore fertilizing a third of what we eat. No bees, no almonds, courgettes, beans, apples, the list goes on and on….

We sat and chatted over the plight of the bees over a cup of tea and a slice of honey cake while they buzzed around us and I became even more of a honey fanatic than I am already. Save the bees I say.

Bee lecture

Yes I am in danger of becoming obsessed but I have just ordered a copy of ‘A World Without Bee’s’, a book written by The Guardian’s deputy Society Editor Alison Benjamin and her geography teaching, bee keeping husband Brian McCallum. I decided I should read the book as last week I went along to a publicity lecture to promote it. I didn’t really know what to expect but the news room was filled to bursting, and not just with bee keepers but with ordinary people like me who have heard that bees are having a hard time and no one seems to know why. If I learned one thing about bees that night it was that there are an awful lot of people out there who are bee fans, quite right so, they need all the help they can get.