National Trust gets in a sticky spot over sugar in its flapjack

NO VISIT to a National Trust property is complete without a pit-stop at the café for a pot of tea and slice of something sweet.

But revolution is afoot in the trust’s tea-rooms, as the organisation has begun changing its recipes to reduce the sugar content, with flapjacks the first to be given a healthy makeover.

What was once a delicious slab of oats, margarine, golden syrup and sugar has been replaced with a “peach and seed” bar as part of a drive to cut refined sugar by 20 per cent across all the trust’s products.

Its former flapjack recipe comprised 720g (25oz) of porridge oats, 300g (10.5oz) of cooking margarine, 250g (9oz) of golden syrup and 200g (7oz) of caster sugar. It is billed as a “tempting” treat that is “equally good on a long ramble or enjoyed with a cup of tea in one of our cafés”.

The new version contains only 165g (3oz) of golden syrup and 135g (5oz) of caster sugar, and features pumpkin, sunflower and poppy seeds, plus chopped apricots and liquidised peaches.

A National Trust spokesman said: “Like the entire food industry, the National Trust has been looking at ways of reducing the refined sugar content in its food. We’ve recently changed our recipe for flapjacks, cutting sugar content by 20 per cent. We’ve done this by incorporating dried fruits into the cake, which provides a natural sweetness. Sugar has also been reduced in many other meals and treats, but not all.”

But trust members pointed out that the organisation could have reduced the sugar content simply by making the generous portion sizes smaller.

Anthony Croke, from Salcombe, Devon, discovered the recipe change on a visit to the café at Montacute House in Somerset, and described the replacement product as “a tasteless cake made principally from a mix of what is best described as bird food”.

Several properties around the country reported that visitors had complained. One staff member said: “They’re not as popular as the original because people are after a sugar rush”.

However, some visitors approved. At Baddesley Clinton near Warwick, Alicia Young said: “I really like the new flapjacks. I even asked for the recipe.”

Susan Baker, a mother-of-three visiting Nostell Priory in Wakefield, West Yorks, said: “It’s a great idea to cut the amount of sugar. I think it caters more to adults – I don’t know if kids would be as keen to try it out.”

The trust said the original flapjacks were no longer on sale but “we are listening to visitor feedback about the new recipe”.

‘A tasteless cake made principally from a mix of what is best described as bird food’

SIR – We were disappointed to read your Leading Article (August 4) criticising the National Trust’s Prejudice and Pride programme, which highlights LGBT stories relating to Trust properties.

Alongside many museums across the country, the National Trust is using some of its exhibitions this year to celebrate 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality and to uncover previously ignored histories of LGBT communities. This has been rightly uncontroversial.

It should also have been uncontroversial that the National Trust was asking its public-facing volunteers to participate fully in its programme, while giving a small number of unwilling volunteers the option to take on other duties instead.

To suggest, as your leader does, that this amounts to “intolerance” of volunteers’ views is to create an upsetting equivalence with the genuine intolerance suffered by LGBT people for many years. Alistair Brown

Policy Officer, Museums Association London EC1

SIR – If Dame Helen Ghosh, the Director-general of the National Trust, were to have her way then presumably not only the volunteers meeting visitors would be required to wear gay pride badges but also the visitors. Crombie Glennie

Hawksworth, Nottinghamshire

SIR – Dame Helen should read Joseph Heller’s account in Catch-22 of the “Great Loyalty Oath Crusade”. It has uncanny parallels to her recent edict that all volunteers publicly show support for all causes at all times.

I’m glad that the National Trust has back-tracked, but it might have been fun to imagine other worthy causes that volunteers could have been forced to pledge allegiance to. Simon Lock

Bath, Somerset

SIR – I join the many dismayed by the National Trust’s ludicrous foray into political correctness. This follows the replacement in its cafés of a delicious (and best-selling) flapjack by a tasteless cake made principally from a mix of what is best described as bird food.

This change, I am assured, was to reduce visitors’ sugar intake. A more logical approach would be to halve the size and, at the same time, remove the likes of fudge from its shops.

Since it forces political correctness and dietary control on its membership, I wonder it should go the whole hog and rebrand itself as the Nanny Trust. Anthony Croke

Salcombe, Devon

SIR – In retrospect how wise I was some years ago, despite being English and living in England, to join the National Trust for Scotland rather than the English version.

It’s cheaper, gets you into the English NT properties and seems not to be run by the same sort of politically minded people as the English one. David Pound

Daventry, Northamptonshire