Our Blog Has Moved!

We're very excited to officially announce that our British Corner Shop Blog has now now launched at a new location!

Please head over to British Corner Shop Blog for our new blog where we'll be sharing our favourite recipes inspired by British food, news, entertainment, typically English thoughts... it's our new little British corner for our beloved British Corner Shop.

Many thanks and see you over there!

Merry Christmas from British Corner Shop!

As our busy Christmas period draws to a close we'd like to thank all of our customers for helping us experience the best Christmas we've ever had!

We vastly improved the range of products we had in our Christmas collection this year and we have plans to make 2014 even better.

If you're still looking for some last minute Christmas dinner ideas, then don't forget to check out our recipes section, which includes a quick and easy Christmas starter, main and pud!

As we've been so busy we're taking a well earned rest over Christmas, and so the office will be closed from midday on Christmas Eve until 9am on Thursday 2nd January.

You can still place an order within this time but it will not be processed until we get back.

We hope you all have a fantastic Christmas, wherever you are in the world, and we'll see you all in the New Year when we'll be launching our January sale!

Merry Christmas!

BCS at the I'm Not a Tourist Fair!

Next weekend we are going to be exhibiting at the I'm Not a Tourist fair in Amsterdam. It's the first time we've gone along to an event like this and we're very excited to see what it's going to be like.

The fair is being help in the heart of Amsterdam and has been set up to serve the international community living in the city and surrounding areas.

At the fair there will be a huge number of stands catering for everyone from newly arrived expats, long-standing residents as well as individuals and families.

Information on essential topics such as housing, employment, tax and schooling will all be available, and for those interested in less serious topics there will also be entertaining workshops, networking opportunities, group/clubs and of course good food!

At our stand we'll be offering passers-by a nice hot cup of tea and a biscuit, the chance to win a hamper full of British Christmas products and a go on our lucky dip! We're also there to answer any questions you might have about our service.

So if you're in Amsterdam this weekend please drop by and say hello, we'd love to see you!

Tea Named Most Missed Product by BCS Customers!

Recently we ran the BCS survey, which gave our customers the opportunity to tell us what they think of our service and provide feedback on where we can improve.

We also asked customers to let us know what the one product was they struggled to live without, and from this we established that a good cup of tea was the winner by quite a margin.

Top British brands such as Tetley Tea, PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea were named most frequently in the survey, closely followed by Twinings, Scottish Blend and Typhoo.

As we all know a cup of tea is best served with a biscuit by it's side, so it's no surprise that biscuits like McVities Ginger Nuts, Digestives and Jammie Dodgers also appeared in the top 10.

Chilled food like bacon, sausages and cheese came in at number 2, proving that proper bacon sandwiches and a full English fry up are hard to replace.

Most the of the items in the top 10 were what we expected, with the only surprise being that Heinz Baked Beans were way down the list at number 8. This is one of our most popular items on the website, so we thought the craving for beans on toast would have pushed this product at least into the top 5!

If your top 10 would be different, or if you agree with the list why not leave us a comment and let us know?

Top 10

1. Tea – 20%
2. Chilled (including cheese, bacon, sausages, meats and black pudding) – 12%
3. Chocolate – 8%
4. Marmite – 6%
5. Condiments – (including Heinz salad Cream, HP Sauce,  HeinzTomato Ketchup and Branston Pickle) – 4%
6. Bisto Gravy Granules - 3.5%
7. Crisps (including Walkers, Hula Hoops) – 3.1%
8. Heinz Baked Beans – 2.5%
9. Biscuits – (including McVities, Rich Teas, Ginger Nuts and Jammie Dodgers) – 2.3%
10. Oxo Stock Cubes – 1.4%

British Food Fortnight

From the 21st September to the 6th October it is British Food Fortnight (BFF) here in the UK.

This celebration of British food happens every year, with the focus being on celebrating the harvest and all the amazing food that it produces.

The first British Food Fortnight was held in 2002 as a modern day harvest festival. The aim was to reinvigorate this national celebration which was quickly dying out.

If you live in the UK there are many ways you can get involved and help celebrate; such as making the effort to shop at local grocers, butchers and farm shops (if you don't already), or perhaps getting your local community together to enjoy a feast of all the British food produced in your local area.

If you live outside the UK there are still ways you can support BFF. Why not introduce some of your non British friends to your favourite British meals? You can order all of the ambient ingredients through us, and many of you can also order from our chilled range, including homemade and locally produced cakes, pies, meats and cheeses.

You can also show your support via Twitter by downloading their specially designed 'Twibbon', as well as posters and stickers.

All the details are on the BFF website, so have a read and decide how you want to get involved!

Enter Our New Facebook Competition!

This week we've teamed up with Jet2.com to help us put together a great Facebook competition.

Jet2.com are an airline who offer their customers great value flights across Europe, and they have kindly donated the prize for our latest competition.

The prize on offer is  a pair of return flights from one of 47 European destinations to one of 8 UK airports.

So if you regularly fly home to the UK to visit friends or family, enter today and your next trip home could be for free!

To enter all you need to do is visit our Facebook page and click the blue 'WIN' button at the top of the page. This will direct you to the entry form and all the details regarding the available flight locations.

You will then need to send us a photo of why you love your chosen expat destination. This could be an image of your house, the view from your bedroom window,  your family, workplace,  or anything else you love about where you live.

The competition will run for two weeks and the winner will be determined by the photo that has the most votes. So if you enter make sure you get your friends to vote for your photo!

We realise that not all of our customers are British expats, and so this prize might not be relevant to you, but over the next few months we will be running plenty more competitions with a variety of prizes that will be suitable for all!

For all the details please visit our latest news or Facebook pages.

Good luck to all those who enter!

Celebrate the Arrival of the Royal baby!

This week saw yet another momentous event in British history - the birth of the royal baby.

Since 2011 there have been plenty of royal events to get excited about; The Diamond Jubilee, the royal wedding, the Queens Coronation Festival and now a new Prince. So it's safe to say that this is a perfect time to celebrate!

Britons are well know for hosting great parties, and events like this are the perfect excuse to pull out the union jack flags and royal memorabilia we all have stashed away at the back of the cupboard, and enjoy a quintessentially British barbeque, picnic or tea party.

If you live abroad having these kind of events can be a great way to spend time with friends and family, as well as letting the world know that you're British and proud of it.

So whether you prefer to celebrate with a cup of PG Tips and a buttered crumpet, or with a glass of Pimms and a cheddar cheese sandwich, make sure you pull out all the stops at your celebration like only we Brits can!