Ben Foster cycles across North Wales with M&S Food

Ben Foster stars in an exciting new campaign with our partners, Marks & Spencer, cycling across North Wales to meet the passionate farmers, bakers, and suppliers behind some of their great quality Welsh products.

[Music] I’m Ben Foster and I’m in North Wales for a special partnership between Rexom AFC and Marks and Spencers. And on my journey, I’m going to be popping into a few places to find the finest products North Wales has to offer. [Music] Meia, how are you, mate? How are you, Ben? I’m lovely, thanks. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Yeah. How beautiful is this? Oh, it’s lovely, isn’t it? Lovely spot. Do you know how lucky you are living here? Seeing this every single day? It’s the green, green glass of home, isn’t it? Oh, it’s beautiful, mate. Is this the secret? Is it Is this the secret to M&S beef? Just green fields and trees as far as the eye can see. Yes, basically is really and there’s a lovely area for them to to graze and thrive really. Do these cows mean an awful lot to you, do they? Oh, there’s no doubt out here. We look after them and they look after us. I love my work every morning. I enjoy it. So So these are all Welsh cows, right? They’ve all got a Welsh passport. Yeah. Yeah. So all all the cows that we’ve bought them from all local oceans. So they’ve all bought locally. How important is traceability then? How important is it that I know exactly where my meat has come from? Well, really it’s paramount because um obviously you know it shows that the animals had a had a good life and all movement and all records is kept all the way through his life. Um and it’s the same you know if we look after them well you know the traceability and everything is important as well and for people to have confidence in purchasing the beef really bring him through just move back this way a little bit and then follow through. Come on. Oh. Oh. [Music] How are you, mate? You okay? Yeah, good. Welcome to Rex, man. Good. Um, what you thinking? Yeah, I think you can pass. From the dough to making it onto my shelf in Marks and Spencers, how long are we talking? Just over 35 hours. So to make bake into onto logistics, ready to go out the door. Tell me about the starter. Okay, so in sour world starter is like it’s big. It’s a big deal, isn’t it? Right, Jack? This is it, isn’t it? This is the famous secret starter. Yeah, correct. Yeah, this is our signature starter for all our sourdough breads that we make for M&S. So it all comes from this bad boy here. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. And and we can have a little taste as well. And apparently it’s a bit funky, right? At this stage, definitely. Yeah. How old have you had this starter for? So this is a starter that was started in the in the bakery with the product. So around just over 3 years old now. It’s got history then. Right. Yeah. So right, let’s dig in. Cheers. Cheers, mate. Let’s put them goalie hands to some good use. get in the bakery and like try folding some bread after this has uh been diluted a little bit. We’re grabbing from the left hand side over and then side. [Music] This is our Oh my gosh. Oh, [Music] right. We’re back on the road. And the sun is still shining. What a day. Come on. [Music] Oh, what a belting day out on the bike. I’ve visited some fantastic places, but now it is time to pick up a bit of food. And I’ve got the perfect place to go and eat it. Oh. Oh, yes. Good start. This is it. This is the seeded sourdough that I was helping to fold earlier today. This is coming with me. [Music] This is not just a steak sandwich. This is a M&S steak sandwich. Oh, and after that day that I’ve just had, I think I deserve this. [Music] Save that penalty over there.