The man behind the Gingerbread !
Alastair Hawken is by rights a Grantham Gingerbread. Aged 38, the business man was born and raised in the town
Grantham and the fine people of the town are without any doubt very proud of their heritage, none less than for the Grantham Gingerbread biscuit. Grantham Gingerbread is without a shadow of a doubt a local speciality. First created within the town in 1740, the popular biscuit was not widely available for some 30 years due to very poor commercial forethought. For a time, the product was only manufactured in Nottinghamshire and to a very poor quality standard. Alastair recognise that the scope for Grantham Gingerbread is broad. It is commonly accepted that places, areas, regions, cities and towns acquire a reputation for particular food products. The British Isles is very akin to this phenomenon. Bakewell Tarts, Kendal Mint Cake, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, Yorkshire Pudding, Clotted cream are just a few examples which immediately illustrate this linking. Grantham has been synonymous with Grantham Gingerbread for nearly 300 and it is a tremendous commercial oversight that no food sector operator has, in recent years, made an attempt to exploit this opportunity. The local population that is familiar with the product thinks very highly of the biscuit and the hard back and on-line history books heap great praise on the recipe. .Today, every single Grantham Gingerbread biscuit is made by loving hands in Grantham. The way that your Gingerbread biscuits are made is important to us. It’s not that we dislike mass production, it’s just not how Grantham Gingerbread should start its life. We only make Grantham Gingerbread in small batches that are weighed and measured by hand just as they were made back in 1740. It sounds old fashioned but it makes each biscuit more individual. We love these biscuits and we hope that you will love eating them just as much as we have enjoyed baking them for you.