At Stark Farm Bakery, they bake wood-fired breads and pastries from the ground up, planting and coppicing wood for the oven and growing fruits and vegetables for the bakery kitchen. Using local organic stone-ground flour, they bake a range of sourdough and yeasted breads, seasonal pies and sweet treats.

Dan, the baker and creator of all the delicious products, worked as a pastry chef for many years before setting up his own wood-fired bakery.

His wood-fired masonry oven provides heat that conducts upwards from the hearthstone and radiates down from the arch, giving lift to his loaves, whilst the humidity level is ideal for crust formation. With its burning and cooling cycles, the oven underpins the routines of the bakery. First the focaccia, fougasse, buns and rye loaves go through, to be replaced by the larger loaves and then the sweet pastries as the oven cools slightly. As the oven loses temperature further the grains and nuts are toasted, followed by the tomatoes and apples for drying. Then in goes the wood that he has coppiced the year before and he is firing up again!

Dan is dedicated to taking a whole system approach to what he bakes and sees the breads and pastries as the end result of a process from the ground up. His market garden produce flavours the pies and pastries, and the changing seasons bring different opportunities and tastes.

Proper Tasty is a young dynamic Yorkshire company of caterers formed in Northallerton after establishing a successful gourmet sandwich bar with a reputation for quality tasty sandwiches. Many of their customers commented that was “Proper Tasty” prompting their trading name “Proper Tasty”.

They pride themselves on using the finest produce & ingredients to create wholesome and exciting food freshly prepared. In their own words: “We have also been working on using as many local suppliers as possible for our ingredients. This allows us to keep money in the local economy and help other local independent businesses. The result is a truly local “Quality” Yorkshire product using quality local ingredients.

Here at West Tanfield Shop, we stock their delicious, freshly made wraps, bombs and sliced bread sandwiches. We have been particularly impressed with not only the quality of the ingredients but also their dedication to the environment as their packaging is eco-friendly and they have pledged to support the National Trust to help their mission to preserve the environment.