‘Grave challenge’: Blackpool rock makers fear for seaside staple’s future | Food & drink industry

Blackpool rock, a British seaside institution as traditional as donkey rides on the beach, amusement arcades and fair to middling weather, is facing an existential threat from cheap and inferior Chinese imports, manufacturers have said.

Ten rock makers have come together to sign a letter warning of a “grave and immediate challenge to our industry, jeopardising the lives of our employees and the sustainability of our business”.

Blackpool rock is facing a crisis like never before, they say. They want it to be given a geographic protection similar to stilton cheese or Cornish pasties.

“We have never all agreed on something as much as we have on this,” said David Thorp, who coordinated the letter. “I’ve met directors of other factories I’ve never had contact with before and we are all in agreement – what is happening to us is having a massive effect.”

Rock is still a staple at seaside resorts, whether that’s Whitby or Weston-super-Mare. What most people do not realise is that almost all of it comes from Blackpool.

“Today I’ve made Southend rock,” said Thorp, one of the vanishingly few people skilled in the art of getting letters through each stick. “Yesterday it was Brighton. A couple of days ago it was Llandudno. But it could be Dymchurch or Skegness.”

The Blackpool rock businesses were originally planning to solicit the support of their local MPs but that hit something of “a speed bump”, said Thorp.

One MP was Scott Benton, the Tory who was suspended and resigned from parliament over his role in a lobbying scandal. The other is the Fylde MP Mark Menzies, who is quitting following allegations of misusing campaign funds.

“I know now why he wasn’t emailing me back,” said Thorp. “There is one factory that’s in the constituency of [the former defence secretary] Ben Wallace, but he is also standing down at the next election.”

Thorp said all the Blackpool factories were already having issues with high energy bills and the cost of raw materials, but the big new threat was cheap Chinese imports of rock.

“It has had a massive effect on all of our turnover,” he said. “There are some factories working three-day weeks and all of us have had to downsize our staff. Some factories if they don’t have work on a certain week they have to close until they do get an order in.

“The problem that we’re having is that our customers aren’t always aware that the rock they are buying is a Chinese imitation.”

Thorp said rock was a British institution under threat. There are 10 Blackpool rock manufacturers, which have signed the letter. Fifteen years ago there might have been 30. “Next year it will almost certainly be eight.”

Only about 30 people in the UK are skilled enough to put letters through the rock. “We’ve got three of them,” said Thorp whose company, Stanton & Novelty, was set up by his grandfather in 1970. “It is a massively dying art.

“I’m well aware that there are much bigger, much more important stories in the news … but not to us. This is the future of our factories.”

The letter to parliamentarians asks for support in an application to UK geographical protected food names schemes. “Preserving the heritage and tradition of British confectionary is not only essential for our economy but also for maintaining our cultural identity and pride,” it says.

Seaside rock as we know it stems from the 19th century, with “fair rock” sold at fair grounds when sugar was cheap and abundant.

Putting letters through the rock is said by some to have been the brainchild of Ben Bullock, an ex-miner from Burnley. Others say it was a man called “Dynamite” Dick Taylor, from Morecambe, we have to thank for it.

The recipe is boiled sugar, glucose and water with added colours and flavours which, in recent years, have become increasingly dizzying. A trend for pizza or garlic bread flavour has made way for bubblegum or pick ‘n’ mix.

Buying seaside rock is a tradition passed down through generations. “No one goes on holiday to the seaside and doesn’t come back with a stick of rock,” said Thorp.