OXFORDSHIRE'S award-winning mustard-maker Bruce Young has a busy summer ahead and he couldn’t be happier.

Next weekend he kicks off his food festival ‘tour’ at the Witney Food Festival (May 18). Bruce is delighted. As he sees it, festivals such as Witney are crucial, as marketing local products is not an easy task.

He began Shaken Oak mustards in 1985 as a sideline. Bruce was a drama teacher and took mustard-making up as a hobby, making it during the weekends for family and friends. Enthusiasm for his products gradually spread until it was a proper cottage industry.

Speaking from his herb garden at Shaken Oak Farm, Hailey, 33 years later, he says that making the public aware of the diverse range of products available locally often depends on finding the right outlets.

“Farm shops and garden centres have been in the forefront of offering some local produce. These have included Millets and The Burford Garden Company, who have both been very supportive to local producers,” he said.

“It is now more apparent than ever that if the general public want to buy locally when they can. With more than 30 stalls including tastings, displays, talks and cookery demonstrations, the Witney Festival will showcase this.”

However Bruce believes this is not enough. “There’s one area that many local food producers still find very difficult to enter – the tourism and leisure trade.

“Oxfordshire has a large number of prestigious hotels and restaurants, but the numbers of establishments that actually buy and use local produce are significantly small.”

Bruce speaks from experience, because when he is not locked away in the farm’s production kitchen, stirring vats of homemade chutney and mustard, or tending his herb garden, he is often out on the road, visiting chefs and hotel managers in order to introduce them to his prize-winning products.

The Royal Oak, Ramsden, and The Kingham Plough have been loyal customers for years, however, he finds others are more difficult to penetrate.

“I do hope that Witney Festival, and others like it, will not only provide the chance for the public to sample local fare, but act as a wake-up call to all those in the tourism and leisure trade who need to be reminded of the value of the enterprising small producers in this area,” says the mustard-maker.

Bruce also hopes that by offering festival visitors samples of his various products – chutney, pickles, mustards, jams and jellies – they will recognise the quality of his homemade fare.

Bruce explains why his products are superior to factory made: “There are quick ways of making these pickles if you buy the machinery, but if you are making a mix that allows for depths of flavour to come though, you can’t rush the process.

"I call on skills I have developed over the years – every batch I make takes at least four to five hours and is then given at least six months to develop naturally."

Bruce says it was his Aunt Peggy, a farmer’s wife from Ireland, who taught him everything he knows.

“She was a really great cook who never wasted a thing,” remembers Bruce.

“She cooked everything and grew everything. She used to turn round and smile at me while she was cooking and say, ‘If you do it this way you will never go wrong’. So I have done it her way, and her advice has never let me down.”

There are no plans to expand Shaken Oak. As far as Bruce is concerned, small is beautiful.

For more information, see shakenoak.co.uk and for details of the festival, see witneyfoodfestival.co.uk