Dianne Nelmes to make Lakeland-funded food documentary for Channel 4

Dianne Nelmes, the former ITV Productions director of daytime and lifestyle turned independent producer, is making a new 20-part series called Lake on a Plate for Channel 4. The series is funded by Lakeland , a mail order household goods company, run from the Lake District. Lake on a Plate features Peter Sidwell, who owns a small cafe in Keswick, Cumbria, and pioneers the use of local food in his recipes, such as cheese made in Carlisle that tastes like parmesan, homemade black pudding, locally caught wild salmon and herbs picked during his frequent hill walks. In each programme he also cooks a dish. These recipes and other information will be posted on Channel 4's website and Lakeland's online site. Nelmes, who left ITV two years ago to join Liberty Bell , the independent that makes Grumpy Old Women, directly approached the Lakeland mail order company to fund the majority of production costs. The agent Peter MacFarlane introduced her to Sidwell. In the mid 1990s he brought the stylists Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine to her attention when she was running the Granada satellite channels in Manchester. The series, which will run before Countdown on Channel 4 from September, is also the first to receive investment, of £70,000, from the North East Creative Content Fund , which is partnered by a venture capital fund. Filming will be done by a crew from Newcastle and the post-production is also in the north east, where Liberty Bell is partly based, and where Nelmes is visiting media professor to Newcastle University. Nelmes made one of the first advertising-funded programmes for ITV, Dog Rescue, backed by Pedigree dog foods. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".