The sales director of Halton-based Logs Direct, Stephen Talbot, will be taking on an ambassadorial role for the UK’s firewood industry this week, when he heads to Verona as a guest of the trade promotion department of the Italian Embassy in London.
The Embassy has invited the Lancaster businessman to the Progetto Fuoco (Fire Project) trade show, which takes place in the northern Italian city between February 21 and 25.
This trade show is a forum for those involved in the international woodburning heat and energy sector, attracting representatives from 38 different countries and 754 businesses, 332 of which are from outside Italy.
Visitor numbers top the 70,000 mark, with visitors coming from 69 countries to learn more about best practice, innovations and new products within the woodburning market.
Stephen Talbot has been invited on the basis of Logs Direct’s great spirit of innovation, which has seen it launch its own eco-briquette for chefs using wood-burning pizza ovens. Its ‘Piccante’ log is an additive and adhesive-free briquette, made of compressed virgin beech, which is completely food-safe and offers a high calorific value.
In 2017, Logs Direct also started to import olive wood from Italy, to enable those chefs wishing to cook in a truly authentic Mediterranean way, to produce the flavours and aromas that many Italian families grow up with as they enjoy life around the pizza oven.
Additionally, Logs Direct has offered various innovative products a place in its online shop, including harvested bracken eco-briquettes from Brackenburn Briquettes, and Coffee Logs from bio-bean®, which are formed from recycled coffee grounds.
Logs Direct is a fabulous example of a wood fuel specialist with in-depth knowledge of different types of wood and their unique properties and is a supplier that has a green heart. It has long supported communities in the Baltic, from where it has had to source hardwood, due to a lack of availability in Britain, and has become a firm friend to its suppliers.
It also raises money, through its wood sales, for red squirrel protection work carried out by Westmorland Red Squirrels, and supports various woodland projects with wood-clearance support.
It has even invested over £175,000 in a Ariterm BioComp 200, 1.5-tonne boiler, with integral 2-tonne kiln unit, from Sweden, so it can offer customers the option of having kiln-dried softwood sourced from English woodland.
Stephen Talbot said: “I am honoured to receive this invitation from the Italian Embassy, although it was a huge surprise, and look forward to joining its representatives in Verona. I shall have appointments each day and then be attending events during the evening.
“We have done our utmost to supply customers with the products they want, whether that is for heat, flavour, cooking properties, aroma or interior decoration, and have also tried to offer as much information to our customers as we can, to help them make the most of their woodburners, pizza ovens, open fires or home decor. Becoming an industry authority is a bi-product of having made every effort to assist our customers, whilst also supporting our suppliers, wherever they are based.”
