Famous local café owner Bill Sewell is the latest star name to join our celebrity line-up for this year’s Three Counties Farming Awards.

He runs two Bill’s Kitchens in the region, one in Hereford – formerly known as Café at All Saints – and one recently opened in the Ludlow’s Mascall centre on Lower Galdeford, just a couple of hundred yards from the centre of town.

As a Cambridge history student Bill had a passion was cooking for friends, and he opened an award winning vegetarian restaurant ‘The Place Below’, in London’s St Mary-le-Bow church in 1989.

Two highly-acclaimed cookbooks and national food writing commissions followed.

His ‘Bill’s Kitchen’ cookbook (published in 2017) features recipes from a lifetime of food in his cafés and at home.

Bill opened Café at All Saints in Hereford in 1997 and Michaelhouse Café, Cambridge in 2002. The newest venture at Ludlow has been in the planning for seven years!

Bill’s cafés are supplied by local producers.

Bacon, ham and sausages all come from the Tudge family in north Herefordshire, and free-range chicken is sourced from Springfield Farm outside Leominster. Smoked salmon, apple juice, ciders, beers and more, all come from local artisan producers.

Bill describes it as: ‘Fantastic food made by great people!

The Farming Awards aim to highlight the outstanding work and best practice going on in the region’s agricultural industry, and especially to find it’s heroes in this Covid year.

A shortlist of finalists has been drawn up and the winners will be revealed in a special online awards ceremony broadcast on our Facebook page on November 26.

It is hosted by BBC Countryfile presenter Adam Henson and includes a star-studded line up of celebrities popping in with words of support.

NFU President Minette Batters will also be taking part with a special message for local farmers.

To see the latest news about the awards go to https://www.herefordtimes.com/awards/tcf/