I’ve been working in food and drink most of my life – from my first Saturday job in a butcher's shop to cooking in five-star hotels and later working in the wine trade.

Since then I’ve written for all sorts of food & drink businesses, from large retailers to artisan food producers and innovators.

If you'd like to know more, dig in for the full six courses below…

A potted history

1. THE HUNGER

I'm a glutton. 'Gourmand' is a nicer word, but glutton is more apt. I like to eat. Always have, always will.

It helped that my mum was a great cook. Not your fancy-pants, two-weeks-in-Provence, Julia Child type, but a creative, versatile, loving home cook who could turn her hand to anything and make it special. Crumble notwithstanding.

So as a schoolboy, I decided I wanted to be a chef.

2. A BAG OF KNIVES

I studied catering at Slough College and worked evenings in a French bistro. Then came Cliveden – work experience first, then proper kitchen work after graduating.

The Cliveden kitchen was a revelation. Nets of still-twitching pike turned into delicate mousses. Shelling langoustines and tending the dizzyingly vast cheeseboard. Drooling over petits fours and hazelnut biscuits, snaffling dauphinoise trimmings — and mostly, hunting down the odds and ends for the saucier's stockpots, which he'd reduce into wondrous, lustrous sauces.

But 12-hour split shifts in stiflingly hot kitchens take their toll. There was a whole world out there I wasn't going to see if I stayed.

3. PINT-SIZED DETOUR

So I took a job at a big pub in Burnham Beeches — a proto-gastropub before the term existed. Six real ales on at any one time, plus as many on keg. I learned to manage a cellar: the cleaning, the back-busting barrel-shifting, the tapping, the art of dodging those foamy, hop-riddled jets that hit you in the face if you're not careful. We even served beer writer Melissa Cole.

Still, something was missing. I went back to college, did the A-levels I'd never taken, and ended up at the University of North London reading English and Film. The plan was journalism.

The first writing job that came along wasn't quite that – a business-to-business magazine about digital printing. Not the dream. But I learned about publishing, writing concisely, and how to spot the difference between what works and what's just words.

4. BREAKING THROUGH

I had a talent for writing. I loved food. Couldn't I combine the two?

This was the early noughties, before food supplements were in every newspaper and Jamie Oliver was a household name. I ditched the day job and went freelance. After a couple of years' slogging, I landed my break: sole copywriter on the first rebrand of Sainsbury's Taste The Difference range. Working with creative agency BR&Me, I wrote copy for hundreds of products. From posh crisps to Christmas cakes, donut peaches to duck pâté, beers to breads. A huge amount of work – but I loved every minute.

Then I took a sidestep into wine. Eighteen months at Oddbins in Crouch End, getting a proper education on the shop floor in time for the Christmas madness.

It paid off in an unexpected way. I got chatting to a customer one day. Mentioned what I actually did. Turned out his wife was Head of Packaging at Marks & Spencer. A few emails later, I was working on M&S's Cook's Essentials launch – their first proper assault on the home-cooking market, 300+ products of cider vinegar, smoked paprika, coconut milk, chickpeas, all of it.

That chance encounter changed everything.

5. HOME & AWAY

What followed was the work I'm now known for. Three years on the M&S in-house team. Roger Harris Wines and the southern Burgundy education. Peyton & Byrne with Oliver Peyton and Mark Farrow. Belgian chocolatier Mary Deluc – tasting kilos of pralines, bonbons and truffles. ("And they pay you for that?!")

A move to Frome in 2011 put me in the thick of West Country food production just as the craft boom was breaking. I started a blog to document the producers I was meeting. It grew. Through it I met Tom Calver of Westcombe Dairy – two ex-chefs finding common ground over their ricotta – and Duncan Glendinning of Thoughtful Bread Company. Both relationships have lasted years.

In 2013, M&S came back. The Wines, Beers & Spirits team needed help rewriting every back label. A mammoth job – but it landed me a regular spot on their wine team, writing labels, the Wine Club tasting notes, and the design strategy work on label psychology.

OKAY, OKAY!

OK, that's probably enough about me. I could go on, but you get the picture.

What I'm saying is: I know my stuff. I've seen food and drink from most angles – production, preparation, serving, selling. Michelin kitchens and Kentucky Fried Chickens (a school weekend job – don't judge me. It was fun!). Off-license wines and en primeur Bordeaux launches. Pints in pubs and negronis for MPs.

I love the art and artifice of it all. The chef's tricks that turn ingredients into explosions of flavour. The winemaker's craft. The baker's graft. The slow, mysterious work of bacteria turning cheese, charcuterie and chocolate into preserved delicacies.

And I love the language that drives it all – the conversations that whet appetites where there was none, the romantic imagery that transports you, the choice phrase that makes your mouth water before the food even arrives.

If you think any of that might help your brand, get in touch. I'd love to hear from you.