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Gourmet food and wine store Lewis & Cooper is showing off its largest ever range of products at the UK’s biggest foody fest this month.

Speciality & Fine Food Fair 2010 is being held at London Olympia for three days from Sunday, September 5. Billed as the definitive trade event for local, regional and artisan food and drink, it will showcase more than 580 exhibitors.

The North Yorkshire firm has always found success at the annual event with its award-winning luxury fruit cakes and plum puddings, tens of thousands of which are made at its kitchens in Northallerton.

But this year, the range on offer to wholesale buyers at Olympia will also include Lewis & Cooper’s own brand coffee, tea, jams, biscuits, traditional sweets and chutneys. All except the sweeties are made in Yorkshire. The coffee is blended, roasted and ground in L&C’s flagship Northallerton store.

Sales development manager, Linda Walters, said: “The Speciality & Fine Food Fair is a smorgasbord of the very best in food and drink and an extremely important date in our calendar.”

“We get to meet customers old and new in the critical pre-Christmas buying period. Despite the recession, there’s a really strong appetite among consumers for good quality, British-made food they can trust.”

Lewis & Cooper will attend Olympia alongside fellow members of the Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and the Humber, which champions food firms based in the region.

The fair comes just after an important contract win for the 111-year-old firm, which has a second retail store in Yarm-on-Tees.

An extra order for more than 400 plum puddings has just landed from Selfridges, which recently ordered hundreds of Lewis & Cooper cakes to sell at its stores in Oxford Street, Birmingham and Manchester from October.

Other wholesale customers include Harvey Nichols, English Heritage, The National Trust and Lakeland, as well as scores of delis, farm shops and restaurants across the country.

Last year the North Yorkshire retailer’s nine-strong team made more than 31,000 fruit cakes and 44,000 plum puddings. It works flat out all year round to keep up with demand for the range, which includes a gluten-free fruit cake and a beautiful looking range of fruit-and-nut-topped glazed cakes.

For wholesale inquiries, contact Linda Walters on 07792 497416, or via .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Or find her on stand 534 at the show.