Kit Bamford is winning celebrity fans with his fine pickle recipes including an unusual runner bean chutney, writes Richard McComb.

Stella McCartney can’t be faulted for her taste in fashion and her palate for pickles is equally infallible.

The British designer is one of the many fans of Kit Bamford’s traditional chutneys and preserves, which are made in a small farm unit near Pershore.

As well as running a burgeoning pickles and preserves empire, Kit is a skilled outside caterer and has been called upon to cater for McCartney when she is in residence at her Worcestershire pile.

“I left behind a few jars of pickles,” says Kit. “She liked them.”

Kit’s Kitchen was set up in 2000 in Upper Wolverton Farm, Egdon, and like all good businesses its future was hatched over a pint.

Kit, who lives nearby, got chatting to farm owners Tim and Colin Caldicott in the nearby Berkeley Arms. “They said they had a family recipe for apple and onion chutney that they thought could sell. It was a great grandfather’s recipe from his time in the Indian Army,” recalls Kit.

He already had his catering business, cooking for weddings, private parties and major events at stately homes, and gave the recipe a go in his professional kitchen at The Birche at Shelsley Beauchamp. When he started, there would be 20 saucepans on the go to fill 300 jars.

Today, Kit’s Kitchen does 1,000-jar batches.

Although making the chutney started as a “hobby business” the popularity of the product meant bigger premises were soon required to cater for the demand. A rural diversification grant was forthcoming and Kit’s Kitchen re-located to Upper Wolverton Farm, while K B Catering remained at The Birches.

The apples still come from the farm’s Bramley trees but the product range has grown gradually to include 11 chutneys, pickles, dressings, sauces and preserves, nine of them award-winners.

Stand-outs for me include the pickled red cabbage and the divine, and multi-award winning, pickled shallots. The runner bean chutney has been known to win over sceptics of the veg, which is sourced in the county.