Suppliers
The ingredients on our menu don’t begin in our kitchen. They begin with people who devote their lives to doing one thing extraordinarily well. They’re people of integrity and conviction, willing to do things differently because they believe there’s a better way. These are long-standing partnerships that have helped define Proloco.
They’re people who were born to do what they do.
Lovingly
Artisan
Our relationship with Aidan Monks and Catherine Connor goes back to the early days of Altrincham Market, when Rich first started using their bread at Little Window. Since then, there have been countless conversations about bread, flour and food.
One lunch has stayed with Dan and Rich ever since. Sitting beside the Lovingly Artisan stall, they watched Aidan serve nothing more than baked fish, tomatoes and beautiful bread. It wasn’t the dish that made the impression, it was the confidence behind it. The lesson has stayed with them ever since: choose simplicity, and let exceptional ingredients do the work.
The relationship soon became part of Dan’s story too. When he opened Firebird Hope in 2017, he built the business around a sandwich served on Lovingly Artisan ciabatta rolls.
Over the past few years, Aidan and Catherine have built something remarkable. Rather than relying on the global commodity market for flour, they’ve created a grain supply chain they know, understand and help shape from beginning to end.
Working alongside the team at Eden Yard in Cumbria, heritage grains are grown in healthy, living soil before travelling a few miles to Lovingly Artisan’s own stone mill near Kendal, where their son, Niall, mills them into flour before it returns to the bakery to be transformed using the patient, slow fermentation that has defined Lovingly Artisan for decades.
The opportunity to build our dough around this flour has been fundamental to shaping what Proloco is, and just as importantly, what it isn’t. Long fermentation can only reveal what’s already there. For us, everything begins with the grain.
Strickley
Farm
Rich first visited Strickley Farm in 2021, and it was one of those rare visits that changes the way you think about food. What struck him wasn’t just the quality of the milk, but the integrity, commitment and forward thinking behind everything James Robinson was building. He’s returned many times since, each visit reinforcing the same belief.
Strickley Farm has been in the Robinson family since 1875. Today, James farms alongside his father, his son and the rest of his family, continuing a tradition that stretches back six generations. Their herd of pedigree Dairy Shorthorns has been bred on the farm for more than a century, and every animal is born and raised there. It’s a genuinely closed herd, something that has taken decades of careful stewardship to achieve.
For James, farming has never been about producing the most milk. It’s about leaving the land healthier than he found it. Ancient hedgerows are laid in the traditional way rather than flailed. Wetlands have been created, streams re-naturalised, woodland planted and wildflower meadows protected. The cows graze diverse herbal pastures rich in clover, chicory and plantain, proving that outstanding food and thriving wildlife can exist side by side.
One idea has stayed with Rich ever since that first visit: great input creates great output. The goal isn’t volume, it’s quality.
That philosophy is why Rich has wanted to work with Strickley’s milk for years. Proloco finally gave him that opportunity.
Every scoop of our gelato begins there.
Cinderwood Market Garden
Rich has cooked with Cinderwood’s produce since their very first growing season in 2020 and has been one of their earliest and biggest customers ever since. From the beginning, Joe, Richard and Daniel were growing vegetables with a simple ambition: to produce food for flavour, not for yield or convenience.
Those ideas became Cinderwood Market Garden, a 1.5-acre market garden in Cheshire where produce is harvested to order and delivered to the kitchens it supplies at its absolute best. Every crop is chosen because it’s worth eating, not because it’s easy to grow or simple to transport.
What makes the relationship different isn’t just the vegetables, it’s the conversations. When you can speak directly to the person growing your food, you understand the produce, the process and the people behind it on a completely different level. You respect every ingredient that little bit more.
The opportunity to build a restaurant around that way of growing food was one of the ideas that helped shape Proloco from the beginning. It means we can’t write menus months in advance or promise the same dishes all year round. Instead, we cook with what’s growing, what’s tasting its best and what’s ready to harvest that week.
Even something as familiar as gem lettuce becomes a different ingredient when it’s grown in nutrient-rich soil for flavour rather than convenience. Proloco allows us to celebrate more of what Cinderwood grows than we’ve ever been able to before, building menus around the harvest rather than selecting just a handful of crops.
Our menus begin in the market garden.