The Primary Sauce!
- austen
- Jul 18
- 3 min read
We pay a visit to the home of Stokes Sauces.
By Austen Dack
It was a beautiful day as myself and NFFF President Andrew Crook headed east to visit the home of Stokes Sauces deep in beautiful rural Suffolk. We were there to go behind the scenes at the brand’s factory and hearing the inspiring story behind the rise of its range of quality sauces, jams and chutneys. We were joined by the management team from both VA Whitely and Friars Pride.
Our visit to Stokes Sauces included not just a fascinating tour around the business’s immaculate factory (a converted stables) but a wonder around the beautiful grounds of Rendlesham Hall, with its menagerie of rescue animals including rabbits, chickens, dogs, sheep, deer, emus, wallabies, Shetland ponies, donkeys and more.
Tours over, we sat down with the Stokes Sauces leadership team including MD Rick Sheepshanks to learn more about the origins of the business and its passion for people, planet, and quality ingredients.
Getting the basics right
Stokes began with the idea of finding the best version of every ingredient going into the jar, which saw Rick travelling to Greece to find the best Koroneiki olive oil, using only British free-range eggs and investing in a particular variety of sweet Mediterranean tomatoes.
“There’s no cheating, there's no skimping, we want the best,” he concludes. “Taste is an emotional reaction. If you like it, you’ll want more, if you don’t, you won’t.”
Putting people at the heart of the business
“People are the centre of our business,” says Rick. “Whether that’s our team (around 80 people), our suppliers or our customers. It’s important to be kind, which is about treating people how we would want to be treated. It doesn’t mean there isn’t tough love, but we want to be kind to our team, our suppliers, our customers, our consumers and our environment.”
Stokes Commercial Director Chris Reeve adds
“We are taste without compromise. One thing that makes it easy not to compromise is that we make everything ourselves.
We’ve converted a stable block into our factory and having that control allows us to choose where we buy our ingredients from, how we mix them, how we pack them, and that end product is therefore uncompromisingly good.”
“Stokes is a brand known for quality, our visit and tour around the factory really highlighted their focus to achieve this running throughout the operation.
They have a great team and their passion to produce the best sauces possible really shone through.” Reflected Andrew Crook.
Stokes Sauces have just been awarded for the 3rd time the coveted Carbon Charter GOLD in recognition of the company’s passionate commitment to the environment. The company is striving to deliver a ‘zero landfill’ policy, part of this was the launch of a 100% recyclable plastic bottle, and now recyclable sachets are on schedule to launch this year too, both developed in response to growing customer demand.
Stokes have developed a great brand, taste and ethos and is now starting to be used by many great fish and chip shops across the UK. One of these is Hennighan's Fish & Chips. Gemma Hennighan said: “We are proud to be part at the beginning of the Stoke’s journey! Well done V.A Whitley done for being one of the first suppliers to introduce such a great product into the industry, our customers love them.”
You can order direct from the Stokes website or through VA Whitley and Friars Pride and Henry Colbeck. The face behind Stokes Sauce for the fish and chip market is Kate Mills. Kate loves our sector and has a passion for getting involved whether it be at trade shows, talking to shops about their range or being at the KFE or Chippy Chat Ball!
Kate said: “It was a real privilege to host our first Fish and Chips Industry site visit.
We are now supplying through all three members of the Q-Partnership and it was a pleasure to welcome members of the team on site along with Andrew and Austen. Next date in the diary is the Isle of Ely Produce open day in September- please introduce yourself and grab a sample.”
It was so good to visit Kate and the team at their Suffolk factory. Stokes are becoming an important cog in the fish and chip industry, combining quality with price for both bottles and sachets I can see why shops are changing brands. Many award-winning shops have now switched to Stokes. Contact them or your Q Partnership Rep for some samples today.
For more information about Stokes contact Kate at sales@stokessauces.co.uk or ask your Q-Partnership rep.
Visit stokessauces.co.uk
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