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Do the efforts of celebrity producers send you into a frenzy of consumption or is a famous farmer only likely to put you off? Over dinner recently, I complimented my hostess on a rather toothsome chop. "Oh, thanks," she said airily, "It's Elizabeth Hurley's." Now, to the best of knowledge La Hurley hadn't fallen victim to an entrepreneurial serial killer, so I surmised that the pork in question was an example of that strange and increasing trend: celeb-grown food. It's no longer enough, it seems, to know the provenance of one's pancetta or be on first-name terms with the butcher – for many trend-conscious food lovers, dinner is expected to come with A-list credentials.
We aren't talking mere endorsement here, in the manner of Marco Pierre White's toe-curling plugs for Bernard Matthews' "majestically delicious" turkeys – you can, if it's your thing, find food products that have been produced by famous hands. Whether Liz Hurley actually stuffs her own sausages is not known, but she has been seen behind her own stall at Cirencester Farmers' Market, and has also brought out a range of fruit bars and beef jerky. It's actually illegal to write about celebrity food producers without devoting a paragraph to bassist turned cheesemaker Alex James but in this case we'll limit the detail to his recently launched and horrifically received "Alex James Presents" range, which includes oh-so-tempting Cheddar and Salad Cream Cheese Blankets. When he was unable to source spelt locally, Mulberry founder Roger Saul began growing the grain himself on his Somerset estate, Sharpham Park Farm. Gluten-intolerant gourmets can now stock up on organically produced beef at Kilver Court Farmshop, along with a tantalising range of spelt products, including flour, bread, biscuits, breakfast cereals, instant speltottos – and, er, Mulberry bags. After his much-publicised split from Madonna in 2008, Guy Ritchie was left in possession of both their Mayfair pub, The Punchbowl, and Ashcombe House, the couple's £10m Wiltshire estate. It was rumoured that Ritchie had plans to establish a microbrewery on the estate, even going to far as to register the brands Bitta Ritchie and Punchbowl Ales. Real ale fans will have to go thirsty for a little longer, however – there is no sign of the film director's own-brand beer as yet, possibly owing to a dispute with the neighbours over solar panels. For Paul O'Grady, it was the sheep-farming bug that bit. The comedian has 200 acres in Kent, and has even delivered his own lambs. He clearly has a soft spot for the animals, witness his failed attempt to save Marcus the lamb from the chop. He had greater success earlier this year when he adopted a lamb called Winston which had been found dumped in a wheelie bin in Manchester. Given Paul's fondness for his woolly friends, it seems unlikely that many of them end up butterflied with rosemary and plenty of garlic – despite having worked in an abattoir in the past, Paul is now virtually veggie and intends to allow his flock to "grow old gracefully". Janet Street-Porter was filmed for The F Word on her smallholding in North Yorkshire, where she farms Dexter cattle and rare breed pigs, and even picked up a prize for her chillies, purple beans and Italian cabbage in the local agricultural show. Joanna Lumley partnered up with Sharwoods to develop a Kashmiri Chilli Chutney in support of Gurkhas. Reese Witherspoon keeps pigs, goats and chickens on her California ranch, although you'd have to be a member of the actress's inner circle to sample a Witherspoon omelette – when she's not giving surplus eggs to friends, she's putting them in her socks. And of course, those seeking to support the favourite charitable causes of the heir to the throne with a purchase from Prince Charles's Duchy Originals range can now only do so at Waitrose. Not all celebrity food production stories have happy endings. John Humphrys' career as a dairy farmer came to an end in 2010 when he sold his property in Wales, and he is reportedly looking forward to a cow-free life, and Rosie Boycott sunk £200,000 into a failed attempt at farming in the West Country. Would you go out of your way to track down A-list ingredients? Have you found yourself impulsively chucking unnecessary purchases into your supermarket trolley on the basis of a celebrity producer? And, crucially, has anyone tried that salad cream-flavoured cheese? Sophie Mackenzie
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