Do You Know Where Your Charcoal Comes From?

Do You Know Where Your Charcoal Comes From?

When you light the barbecue, how much do you know about the charcoal you are cooking over?

For us, the answer is simple — we know exactly where ours comes from.

At Chiddingfold Charcoal, our lumpwood charcoal is made from timber that we harvest ourselves from local woodlands in Surrey and Sussex. Because we are involved from the very start, we can trace every bag back to the woodland the timber came from.

From woodland to bag

Our main charcoal is made from sweet chestnut, a timber that has been coppiced in this part of the country for generations.

We cut the chestnut as part of the normal coppicing cycle, bring the timber back ourselves and turn suitable material into fencing products, while other timber is used for charcoal, logs and kindling.

The charcoal is then produced locally in our retort kiln before being graded and packed by hand.

There is no long supply chain and no mystery about the timber being used.

It is simply:

Local woodland → harvested by us → made into charcoal by us → packed by us.

Why does knowing the source matter?

Buying local charcoal means you can ask where the timber came from, how it was harvested and who actually made it.

For us, charcoal production forms part of a much wider woodland business. We are not buying timber purely to turn it into charcoal. We are managing and harvesting coppice, producing sweet chestnut fencing materials and finding a useful outlet for as much of each harvested tree as possible.

Coppicing also allows the woodland to regenerate naturally from the existing stools. Once an area has been cut, new growth quickly starts appearing and begins the next coppice cycle.

Charcoal made close to home

It seems strange that something as simple as barbecue charcoal can travel such a long way when we have fantastic woodland resources here in the UK.

Our aim has always been to keep things straightforward: harvest local timber, make a good quality lumpwood charcoal and sell it as close to where it was produced as possible.

So next time you pick up a bag of charcoal, have a look at where it was made.

With a bag of Chiddingfold Charcoal, we can tell you exactly where it started.

From local woodland to your barbecue.

Chiddingfold Charcoal
Yewen’s Hanger, Combe Lane
Surrey