On the front page of a national newspaper...

At the beginning of this month (August 2013) I was thrilled to pick up a copy of the Tesco internal newspaper – The One. This paper is distributed to all of the Tesco stores throughout the UK and to all its thousands of employees worldwide at every level. And, low and behold, I am on the front page this month as part of celebrating my achievements re: the Love Every Mouthful [steaks] advert and my passion for food. I also have a cookery advice section on page five where I explain a method of slow cooking brisket with whole spices such as cinnamon, star anise and cloves. My television advert is due to be shown from Monday 19^th August for two weeks on ITV and Channel Four and Youtube.

The front page article in The One talks about the knowledgeable Tesco employees being encouraged to share their passion for food with the customers and this is happening countrywide with special taster and demonstration events in stores. Exciting times.

Phil takes the brisket

To collect and relate my thoughts on my passions for food in this article I had a telephone interview with the newspaper and a male photographer came to the store in Beeston and took lots of pictures of me in and around my beautifully laid out butcher's counter. This was a slightly surreal but a very enjoyable experience especially fun when my colleagues all dived out of the way so they wouldn't be in shot. Hope you like the smile – I did it a lot.

I love the part of the article which says: “Ask Phil Lowe for advice on preparing the perfect mouth watering meal and you'll struggle to stop him talking. The Beeston Extra butcher apologies for gesticulating enthusiastically as he explains his favourite dishes … and it's only a phone interview!”

Chatterbox moi?

The rest of the article concentrates on my expertise, earned over many years as a traditional butcher and my growing love of cooking and interest in learning about food plus my time at Tesco. And probably most important of all, the sharing of those skills and passion directly with the customers and through this blog and other social media.

The Love Every Mouthful promotion seems to be a big hit with the Tesco staff and customers and we are proud to tell our meat counter customers that everything we sell is now British. On a personal level I get many customers – the regulars – coming up to me and asking when the advert is on and for cooking advice. There are already three TV adverts going the rounds (the general one, strawberries and lately the chicken advert). As far as I have been led to believe my steak advert starts Monday 19^th August. Am I looking forward to it? Of course. I am very proud to be involved in such a dynamic way.

There is also going to be an article about myself and the Love Every Mouthful promotion published in the Nottingham Post newspaper sometime next week – hopeful in the Saturday 17^th August edition.

I am off work for a week now so I will most likely adding some great blogposts over the next couple of days. Must go, I have a lamb shoulder to cook. That's if I can stop myself writing!

Incidentally I recently joined www.twitter.com and you find me at PhilLowe7. I was delighted to find myself tweeted about in a positive way by the production company Wieden and Kennedy that made the adverts for Tesco. See this here link.