​My name is Nick King and I run the family business “Goats of the Gorge Ltd” with
both my sons. We manufacture goat’s milk skin care products, offering a range of
cruelty-free cosmetics particularly helping those with eczema and psoriasis to maintain healthy skin.

​We work out of the old dairy at Fairseat Workshops near Chew Valley Lake in
Somerset.

​You could say it all began in 2014 when, as a serving police officer, I
suffered a black out whilst on duty, resulting in various hospital tests where my diagnosis showed I had osteoporosis. A consultant advised me to start drinking goat’s milk. At the time, I had no idea of the benefits – particularly of the high levels of
calcium it offers – also vitamin A which is beneficial in skin care routines.

​After 6 months, I was taken off the calcium tablets and told to continue drinking the goat’s milk. During this time, I carried out some online research where I
discovered the benefits of using goat’s milk in skin care products.

​I decided to attend a soap school in the Cotswolds where I learnt the basics of
cold process soap making. From there, I went on to create my own palm-free recipe and started making goat’s milk soap. After numerous hours of experimenting, I
developed the extensive range of goat’s milk skin care products we now sell.

​Seeing our products available on shop shelves and receiving customer feedback. I love hearing how it has helped with various skin complaints.

​We arrive at our unit about 7am and first turn on the melting pots containing coconut
oil and shea butter. We start to remove about 500 soaps from their moulds from
the previous day, place the soaps on curing baskets, where they sit for a minimum
of 4 weeks, before they are ready for sale. Once all soaps are removed, the oils will be ready to pour, and we can begin our soap-making process.

​We wear eye protection and gauntlet rubber gloves to remove the frozen blocks of milk from the freezer and place them in a large bowl then slowly add alkaline causing the milk to dissolve into liquid form.
​
We then heat olive oil and add this to the natural solid oils, blend this with the milk and pour into the moulds.

​We source milk for our soap-making just half a mile from our soapery and we do not
use palm oil. We avoid plastic containers, where possible, and our packaging is eco-friendly. We are registered cruelty-free, and we do not use any commercial machinery as all our manufacturing is by hand.

​I enjoy watching Bristol City play their home matches. On a Sunday, I always like
to travel to visit a National Trust location or a coastal visit with dinner out. If I stay at
home, I get drawn into working on the laptop!

​We have invested so much money into our re-branding and feel our products would look amazing in a national chain, like Holland & Barrett or Boots Pharmacy. This would allow our business to expand and offer further local employment.

​The most fun is loading up courier vans with our stockists’ orders and taking
sacks of online orders to the post office.

​A family run business producing hand-made, goat’s milk, cruelty-free, skin care products using natural oils.

​The fabulous feedback that we get from our customers prompts us to keep making and to keep increasing our range

We popped on our hairnets, rolled up our sleeves and got up close and personal with Kathryn from The Yorkshire Pasta Company to hear her inspiring story of how she  introduced delicious, proper  pasta to the UK.

I am Kathryn. I founded “The Yorkshire Pasta Company” in 2019 after realising that there was a huge gap in the market for a British pasta – pasta made to a high standard, with British ingredients and not imported and packaged in plastic!We launched in May 2020 and our pasta can now be found in over 450 farm shops, delis and independents. You can even find it in Harvey Nichols and Selfridges.

Ultimately we are a small family business comprising three – myself, my sister-in-law, Beth, and our fellow pasta ninja, Gemma. We have a huge passion for artisan pasta, showing the UK the difference between mass manufactured supermarket ‘pasta’ and beautiful, sustainable, superior pasta!

​We are very lucky to be born and bred in God’s own county, Yorkshire, and are based in Yorkshire’s foodie capital, Malton.

Half-way up a mountain in the Lake District! In March 2019, during a walking holiday, I asked my husband “why do you think no one makes pasta in the UK?”That was the moment that it all began. That thought seeded itself in my mind and it began to keep me up at night. I began spending evenings and weekend driving around the UK and searching the internet to see if it was true – there was no British pasta.

I found myself making notes and plans whilst I should have been focussing on work projects. I was much more motivated and inspired by pasta than I had been about anything else for some time!

The next step was to travel to Italy to understand how pasta was created and it was at this point that I realised that the pasta available in the UK wasn’t a patch on that in Italy – what a difference! And that mass manufactured supermarket stuff was not real pasta!
​
I left my job and knew that I needed to give my all to follow this passion. I was going to set up The Yorkshire Pasta Company.

​As a farmer’s daughter, I have always had a keen interest in food. We were brought up with an understanding of the provenance of food, the importance of quality and respecting ingredients. We prepared meals together and sat around the kitchen table at every mealtime. For this I am truly grateful. I see now that this is where my love of food has come from.The thought that there are now families up and down the UK, sitting around their kitchen table, enjoying a meal with Yorkshire pasta gives me an indescribable feeling!

My husband and I went over to Italy in 2019 to learn from the artisan producers. We travelled down the length of the country, eating lots of pasta (and drinking lots of wine!).The families over there were so supportive (which, to be honest, I was not expecting) but I guess they liked our passion and wanted to help “a little English girl make proper pasta”! I still have some of them on speed dial now!

Mass-manufactured supermarket pasta is made in two hours. Our authentic methods take two full days. We dry our pasta on wooden racks at low temperatures overnight – for 14 hours. This allows flavour to develop as the dough matures.

Each piece is then “bronze drawn” to give it a rough surface. This is where the magic happens – the rough surface allows sauce to cling to each piece, hugging it and creating a beautiful dish of food.

​We then package in striking paper bags, 100{650a267a6dfc0c56292df9f4411de9160c0ac02671db1e1ee03f984da437e88e} recyclable, and completely plastic free –
a sustainable approach to a classic product. We run Yorkshire Pasta HQ on solar energy, are plastic free and all our products are vegan and vegetarian friendly.

I love all five – they are like my babies! Shells make a cracking pasta bake and tortiglioni is amazing with a bolognese. Fusilli makes a great light salad and penne is my go-to for creamy dishes. And then there is mezze – James Martin’s favourite and the one he used when he had us on the show in January 2021 – he made an amazing ragu dish.

Durum wheat (semolina flour) is typically used for pasta but we didn’t want to import anything so we have created our own bespoke blend of wheat flours (now kept as a family secret) all of which milled just down the road. We go and collect it weekly.We can always guarantee that 70-80{650a267a6dfc0c56292df9f4411de9160c0ac02671db1e1ee03f984da437e88e} is directly from farmers in Yorkshire, the remainder coming from farmers a little further afield in Lincolnshire and Humberside. This protects us if there is ever a terrible yield or disastrous harvest, such as the wet harvest of 2010.

​I am extremely competitive and play field hockey – I adore it and it is great for stress relief!

​Big Challenge Number One:
Durum wheat. In Italy, pasta has always been made using semolina, a product of durum wheat. So it turns out that durum wheat isn’t grown in the UK.  There were a few trial crops over time, but with my father a farmer, he knew very well that our British climate didn’t allow farmers to get a yield from durum wheat to make it a sufficient crop. But I certainly couldn’t import durum wheat from Italy, Germany or the USA and then call my pasta British.My previous job had been working for Nestle Confectionery developing recipes for wafers and biscuits (think Lion Bar, Breakaway, Drifter). So I knew a thing or two about flour and proteins. I was able to research British flours and create a blend of flour to match the important properties of semolina and began trialling pasta dough recipes.

​Big Challenge Number Two:
How to dry the pasta to allow for a shelf life and storage? To lock in flavour and quality?
If pasta is not dried correctly, any ounce of moisture remaining at the centre of the shape, over time (2-5days) will try and even out across the shape. This leads to cracks in your pasta. Within the week you can physically hear the pasta cracking like rice crispies in milk, snap! crackle! pop! – plus the sound of my tears falling onto the floor!
It took months of research and trials, but eventually we mastered the art of drying pasta. Our pasta has a shelf life of 2 years, without the need for preservatives and stabilisers.

​Big Challenge Number Three:
Plastic free… typically pasta is packaged in plastic. I worked with over 40 packaging suppliers before identifying a solution. And then came the question of how to seal them without solvent glues or plastic tabs… I think we came up with a fabulous solution. Our packaging remains 100{650a267a6dfc0c56292df9f4411de9160c0ac02671db1e1ee03f984da437e88e} recyclable and we think it looks pretty special too.

​To continue growing our stockist base across independent farm shops and delis. We are in just over 450 but there are 1,000’s out there! We are also beginning to work with fabulous chefs in food service and looking to supply more and more high end restaurants.