Unapologetically Indulgent

Our Story

Moored in Leith, Edinburgh, Pea Green Boat is a boutique Scottish bakery, crafting artisan savoury biscuits unlike any other. First opening our oven doors in 2011, today Pea Green Boat Cheese Sablés are sold by fine food retailers including Fortnum & Mason, the most famous of all food emporiums, and savoured by food-lovers across the UK and beyond. This is our story…

Illustrated bird flying towards the camera
An illustrated cheese wheel

A voyage most savoury

It was a meticulous and passionate foodie who developed the Pea Green Boat Cheese Sablé recipe. Having been disappointed time and again by store-bought cheese biscuits, Hugh Corbin set out to make the ultimate cheese biscuit. As you might expect, it was not an overnight process. Many trials, tribulations, and perhaps a few burnt biscuits were to follow. But Hugh never gave up his one-man quest, until finally, he found the perfect recipe!

As a purist foodie, Hugh was content simply enjoying his beautifully baked biscuits at home, sharing them with family and friends. It never occurred to him they would eventually reach so many people around the world. It was not until Hugh’s daughter Maddy, based in Scotland, established a fantastic little food company in 2011, Pea Green Boat. Its star product? Her father’s delicious cheese biscuits of course – made to Hugh’s own original Cheese Sablé recipe.

Several years on and now being stocked by many of the best food shops in the UK and overseas, Pea Green Boat’s Cheese Sablés continue to be made, still using Hugh’s original recipe.

Following the crumbs of time…

2010

Hugh Corbin sets out on his quest to bake the ultimate cheese biscuit. And succeeds!

2011

Maddy establishes her fine food company, Pea Green Boat, in Edinburgh; selling her products at local farmers markets.

2012

Pea Green Boat has grown a loyal foodie following, and her father’s cheese sablés are Maddy’s star product – so popular, that production moves into a commercial kitchen.

2013

A thriving local cheesemonger discovers the cheese sablés and asks Pea Green Boat to supply stock to sell in their store – and Maddy creates the first batch of Cumin Cheese Sables, adding a tasty twist to the original recipe.

2014

The first stockist sparks the mission to bring Cheese Sablés to foodies across the country, with listings in the finest food shops and delis, and things start to heat up as Fennel & Chilli variety is added to the range.

2015

A delectable trio! All three varieties of Pea Green Boat Cheese Sablés win Great Taste Awards; Fennel & Chilli received a one star, Cumin two stars, and Original was awarded an incredible three stars!

2015

A red letter day for Pea Green Boat arrives, as Fortnum & Mason begin stocking the full range of three cheese sablé flavours.

2017

Popularity explodes! Maddy and her hard-working team can no longer make sablés fast enough and approach local artisan bakery, Shortbread House of Edinburgh to form the perfect partnership to meet demand while maintaining integrity.

2017

The Sunday Times awards Pea Green Boat Cheese Sablés a five-star rating and glowing review – naming them the best cheese biscuit on the market.

2018

Pea Green Boat Cheese Sablés repeat their delectable trio of Great Taste Awards! Welcome recognition that the new home and partnership had in no way rocked the boat.

2018

After Chris and Sean of Shortbread House spend a year under Maddy’s watchful eye, baking is finally moved from Portobello to Leith, with absolute certainty that quality would never be compromised.

2019

Pea Green Boat Cheese Sablés are once again triumphant at the Great Taste Awards. The product range was awarded a 3 star and two 2 star awards for the Fennel & Chilli, Cumin and Original Cheese Sablés respectively.

2022

After years of recipe trials, we were excited to launch the Nigella Seed & Chive Cheese Sablés. This immediately won a Great Taste Award thereby verifying their place in the range.

Today

The voyage continues as Pea Green Boat Cheese Sablés sail into more locations across the UK and beyond, with every batch baked true to Hugh’s original recipe.

Illustrated bird flying towards the camera

Meet the team

A family affair

As a small family-run team of artisanal bakers and fanatic foodies, we’re passionate about protecting the family tradition that created these incredible sablés – baking every batch true to the recipe and craft of Hugh’s original recipe, for the ultimate cheese biscuit. Meet the Pea Green Boat family.

An illustrated bird

With a bakery by the sea under the watchful eye of the resident cat, and her enduring fondness for wooden rowboats, the name for Maddy’s fantastic little food company was simply meant to be – borrowing inspiration for ‘Pea Green Boat’ from her favourite childhood poem, ‘The Owl and the Pussycat,’ which we are delighted to share with you today:

The Owl & the Pussycat

Poem by Edward Lear

I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

II
Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

illustrated cat in front of one of our cheese sables