Yorkshire producers target trade sales of real ale cake
By MICHAEL LANE
Yorkshire bakery Lottie Shaw’s has teamed up with a local brewery to create a real ale fruit cake, which it hopes to sell through the speciality trade.
The Elland-based firm’s latest creation – Seriously Good Rich Fruit Cake – is made using fruit soaked in Little Valley Brewery’s Stoodley Stout, which is brewed naturally with chocolate and crystal malts.
At the moment, the cake is being sold direct to consumers online, individually and as part of the Lottie Shaw’s Christmas hamper but the firm plans to sell it through independent retailers.
It said the minimum order is likely to be 15x350g cakes with a trade price of £5.25 each (including postage).
The collaboration came about after company directors Charlotte Shaw and Sue Cooper of Little Valley met through investment bank Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Business Programme.
Shaw (pictured right with Little Valley co-owner and brewer Wim van der Spek) said: “After meeting Sue on the Goldman Sachs programme, I knew her company had the same brewing philosophy as we adopt in our 100-year family baking heritage. We are delighted to be working with Little Valley Brewery, who produce superb fine ales, to create this Seriously Good fruit cake with a bit of Yorkshire class.”
