TABLEWARE business Goodfellows has launched an online community backed by a team of top chefs, to meet the demand of serious home-based cooks for its previously trade-only range.

The Peterlee business was launched in 2012 by North East-born food and hospitality entrepreneurs Valda and Paul Goodfellow and hit a £2m turnover in its first 18 months of trading. It employs a team of 18 people at its County Durham distribution centre and luxury London showroom on Baker Street, supplying leading restaurants, hotels and sporting venues across the UK.

Its new ‘For Cooks’ website at www.forcooks.co.uk will offer brands from around the world, many of them exclusive to Goodfellows.

A panel of chefs including James Close at the Raby Hunt in County Durham, the North-East’s only Michelin-starred restaurant, Aiden Byrne, Kenny Atkinson and Nigel Haworth are spearheading the community by providing exclusive content, tips and tutorials, plus links to products designed for them.

Valda Goodfellow said: “Cooking is now the new competitive sport among young professional men, with many of them spending thousands on equipping their kitchens. There is nothing like this out there for them, and we have unashamedly designed the For Cooks community as the ultimate resource for that audience.

“It’s not aimed at what we call the casual everyday cook, but at those who want to tap into the secrets of how the top chefs achieve such amazing results with their food, whether that is through techniques or the tools they use.

“When we launched Goodfellows two years ago it was to give five star hotels and restaurants plus great independent operators access to the best brands in kitchenware that they could not buy from anyone else, and customer demand has seen that grow to a point where we are now almost a £3m business.

“Taking our products out to consumers via an online community seemed the next logical step. Market testing plus the number of well respected names in the industry who were keen to be involved has reinforced our instinct that the demand is there."