Hawkshead Relish Company turns a village café into an award-winning preserves maker

Some of the Lake District's best food businesses began almost by accident. The Hawkshead Relish Company is one of them, a family firm that started with a few jars on a café counter and grew into one of Cumbria's best-known producers.

The business is run by Mark and Maria Whitehead. In its early days the couple ran a café in Hawkshead, making their own relishes and chutneys to serve alongside the food. Customers liked them enough to start buying jars to take home.

Everything changed in 2001, when the foot and mouth outbreak devastated the countryside and kept visitors away from the Lakes. As the Whiteheads turned their attention to selling their preserves, demand grew quickly, and they took the decision to close the café and concentrate on making condiments.

It proved to be the right call. By 2005 the company had been named Speciality Producer of the Year at the Great Taste Awards, an early sign of the recognition to come. Country Life profiled the business that year as one of the country's leading small producers.

The awards have kept arriving. Press reports over the years have tracked a rising tally of Great Taste Awards, and the company now counts more than 80. Maria has also served as a judge at the awards, lending her palate to the very competition that helped make the firm's name.

One product in particular has become a favourite. Mark devised the recipe for Black Garlic Ketchup, which won gold in the Best Condiment or Marinade category at the 2018 World Food Innovation Awards and went on to become the company's best-selling product.

Recognition has continued into recent years too. In 2023 the business collected four national awards at the Great British Food Awards, reported by Cumbria24 as another haul for the Hawkshead team.

Hawkshead Relish products are stocked by Booths, the northern supermarket, among other retailers. The full range of chutneys, relishes and condiments can also be ordered directly from the company's website.