WEARDALE SOUP COMPANY FEATURES IN THE DALES DIARY (March 2007)

A former pub manageress who switched to making home-made soup in a County Durham cottage only two years ago, has been so successful she is to feature in the next series of the ITV Tyne Tees award-winning programme, The Dales Diary.

Christine Peart, who set up the Weardale Soup Company at Elm Cottage, Westgate-in-Weardale, near Bishop Auckland, recently received a visit from the TV production team, filming every aspect of the cottage industry which uses traditional artisan methods to produce its rich, gluten-free organic soups.

Christine makes around a dozen varieties which are sold at farmers’ markets, retail outlets and through wholesalers to customers in Birmingham and Manchester.

The film crew covered the whole operation from the preparation of fresh vegetables, which are harvested in Yorkshire, through blending, labelling, cartoning, boxing and finally the loading of the soup on to a van.

Christine, who used to make soup as a hobby for family and friends, did relief pub management for Vaux before going on to manage the White Lion at Houghton-le-Spring for two years. She then left to have a family.

Weardale Soup Company is registered with the Organic Food Federation and licensed with Coeliac UK. It offers many unusual flavours, such as Pumpkin and Coconut and its award-winning Tomato and Red Pepper with Melted Wensleydale Cheese.

“What has made a great difference to the taste of our soup is the water supplied by County Durham’s Seaton Spring Water which brings a lovely clarity to the soup,”says Christine.

Business is booming so much for the soup company, which has joined Northumbria Larder, the regional food group, that Christine’s husband Richard has given up full-time working as an engineer to help out at Elm Cottage.