THE Pembrokeshire Beach Food Company has scooped best street food/takeaway at the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards 2014.

Owner Jonathan Williams, of Pembroke, was presented with the award during a ceremony at Bristol last Thursday (May 1).

The company saw off competition from London’s Tongue ‘n’ Cheek and Bristol’s Chilli Daddy to win the category.

Combining foraged ingredients from the Pembrokeshire coastline – including different seaweeds from Freshwater West – with fresh local produce, the company is well-known for its unique seashore wraps, sea-inspired cakes and sea-foraged deli products.

Jonathan started the business on a part-time basis in 2010 while working full-time, but the venture soon took off and Jonathan hung up his office suit to run the company full time.

And now the award-winning producers has five mobile beach shacks. Its Cafe Mor trailer at Freshwater West featured on BBC2’s James Martin’s Food Map of Britain last September and in January the company began supplying its Ship’s Biscuits to her majesty’s grocery store of choice, Fortnum & Mason, in January.

“It’s great,” said Jonathan. “We won a British Street Food award three years ago, but this is a new award for us. It’s a shock really.

“I think the big thing for the judges was that our food is so local. They came down to Freshwater West and asked, ‘Where is the seaweed from, where is the lobster from?’, and I could just point to the sea. All our food is local.

“It’s great for us after all the hard work we have put in. It takes time to build up something like this but we’re going from strength-to-strength – we had close to our best ever day here over Easter weekend.

“The food is good quality but it’s expensive because we’re not selling rubbish. People know exactly where it comes from – its 100 % local and it’s a win win for everyone. That’s what we’re trying to do here.

“There are so many chains these days, people come here and they can have something local, something different.”