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"Transitioning to takeaway meant bringing in the expert": how one chef embraced digital pivoting during lockdown

June 25, 2020

Digital pivoting has emerged as one of the new buzzphrases during the pandemic – and especially so in hospitality. Being forced by lockdown to find new ways to survive now and into the future means restaurateurs are entering new territory: The Takeaway.

Offering meals to collect from the restaurant or have delivered to homes not only means re-thinking the creative working week in the kitchen: it also require expertise in user-friendly, efficient and effective online management. Since this is a relatively novel skill that many chefs aren’t traditionally trained in, or have had the time to learn, how do they make this vital transition?

To get an insight I spoke with Andrew Moss, above, chef-patron of The North Port family-run restaurant in Perth, who launched an At Home menu earlier this month with the help of his friend and former colleague, the Glasgow-based marketing and events professional Rachel Edwards (below).

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The restaurant offers click-and-collect or home delivery menu of hot dishes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday - a seismic shift from running the restaurant five days from Tuesday through Saturday. It has sold out since the June 5 launch.

“We’d never done much social media before lockdown because we didn’t really have to,” says chef Moss, who runs North Port with his wife Karen. “Doing takeaway for the first time since we opened eight years ago means we’ve had to have a total re-think and be super-organised, and it would not have been as successful as it has been so far without Rachel’s expertise.

“Setting up a workable online booking system with pre-payment was absolutely vital, not only because handling cash is not viable at the moment, but also because people want to come and pick up and leave quickly so the food stays as hot as possible.”

The first task for Rachel - who has 17 years’ experience in the Scottish hospitality and events industry, co-founded Galvanize Events and whose most recent projects include the Clydebuilt Festival in partnership with the Clyde Maritime Trust; The Tall Ship at Riverside Museum, Glasgow; the 2014 Commonwealth Games; and Cameron House Hotel Loch Lomond - was to set up the social media strategy to promote the new North Port At Home takeaway menu.

Andrew offers an a la carte choice of four starters, four mains and four desserts plus two side options of home-baked bread and cultured butter, plus a wide range of matched wines - not as straightforward for him as doing a set menu might be.

The next stage was equally important.

“Updating the restaurant website and making the At Home menu more visible on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram was paramount,” she explains. The first FB post announcing the launch of the At Home menu had an organic reach of over 18,000 people within hours.

Writing regular website content, thanking everybody for their orders, sharing customer photographs and replying to comments personally is also part of Rachel’s job.

Online presence has its advantages for the kitchen, too: social media updates trigger immediate booking responses.

“Being able to use my phone to click into the ResDiary bookings as the week progresses has been really handy,” says Andrew. “I can see if I need to get 10 beef and five crab ready, for example, so it allows me to source and prepare throughout the week.”

How is doing takeaway different from running the restaurant? “Our working days have shifted from Tuesday through Saturday to Friday, Saturday and Sunday and it’s more intense on those days,” he says. “People are working from home and cooking meals all week, so they see the weekend as time for a break and a treat, and we’re happy to accommodate that shift for them.”

Although they are cooking fewer meals than before – around half the number they would do over five days – the work is more concentrated over their three operational days compared to the previous five, and with a much smaller team.

Will he keep the takeaway offer once restaurants are allowed to re-open? “We’d rather do this than not do it,” he says. “Looking towards when we are allowed to re-open we’ll continue to offer takeaway for a wee while in addition to the restaurant. If the two-metre distancing rule is retained, we will not re-open. But if it’s reduced to one metre, we’ll be just about ok, so we’ll continue to do both.

“The takeaway menu is simplified so it travels well for delivery. But we’re already seeing people booking every weekend, so we enjoy a lot of repeat business from loyal customers, which we’re extremely grateful for.”

He adds that while many restaurants in Glasgow and Edinburgh are doing ‘finish at home’ takeaway menus with lots of boxes and tubs and cooking instructions, that wouldn’t work in Perth, which is a much smaller city.

“We want to offer our customers an easier more convenient option, which is hot restaurant quality food, ready to eat at home,” says Andrew.

I wonder if awareness of the restaurant is growing via social media. “Another positive of this new way of working online is that we may make restaurant quality food more accessible to people who might not normally visit The North Port.

“I hope that through this digital pivoting experience with the addition of word-of-mouth we’ll get a wider reach when the restaurant does re-open.

“It would not have been possible to even contemplate that without Rachel.”

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For her part, Rachel - who has just joined Glasgow Community Food Network as logistics co-ordinator - says believing in the product was a huge motivator for her. “Mutual trust is vital in a venture like this.

“It’s so easy to work with a restaurant that is already successful and I’m happy to have had the opportunity to work with Andrew and Karen during this difficult time. Running a restaurant and producing amazing food is not the same as organising its social media. Andrew is the one with the vision,” she says.

“It’s also very encouraging to see customers being so loyal and enthusiastic during this trying time for restaurants. North Port’s success is not down to me. I’m just a link in the chain.”

Andrew adds: “Doing At Home takeaway is about keeping our name out there, raising awareness, highlighting your profile and keeping your and your staff’s skills up while lockdown continues. It would be too easy to just disappear.”

Text ©️CateDevine

Photo credits: Fraser Band Photography/Jemma Wood.

 

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The mystery of the Michelin star chef who can't even get a job picking fruit

June 18, 2020

Exclusive

One of Scotland’s top chefs is currently out of work – and he can’t even get a job picking fruit.

Graeme Cheevers, who has held a Michelin star at two Scottish restaurants for eight consecutive years, first applied for work at several Scottish farms after news emerged in April that there was a need for thousands of UK-based fruit and vegetable pickers to replace the overseas workers who normally arrive to pick crops during the season but had been prevented from travelling due mainly to the coronavirus lockdown. UK Government advertisements urging furloughed and out of work workers to Pick for Britain ran in the mainstream media, and the campaign was backed by Prince Charles. By May only around one-third of overseas workers had arrived, and there was a shortfall of supply from the UK. The National Farmers Union in Scotland (NFUS) also helped suport the industry by flagging up vacancies on its website fo link applicants with farms.

Yet Chef Cheevers, 30, who gained a Michelin star first for Restaurant Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond at Cameron House and more recently at Isle of Eriska in Argyll, has been repeatedly told there is no work available at the 20 Scottish farms he has applied to from the start of lockdown. Even now, at the height of the strawberry season, several farms are still advertising for workers. And it’s not just for soft fruit: many need people to harvest other fruit and vegetables right into the autumn.

The NFUS says Scotland needed 10,000 seasonal workers to get its world-class soft fruit and fresh produce out of the fields and into shops and supermarkets. A spokesman added: “I can’t think of any barriers to people in the food industry applying for these jobs.”

Cheevers, who is based in Glasgow, said: “I’m very hard-working and physically fit, and find myself unemployed for the first time in my life.

“I’m trying to do something to help the economy recover and to keep the food chain running smoothly. Unlike many of my chef friends I’m not in a position to start a takeaway service or do online cooking tutorials, although I applaud them for doing it. I’d rather go back to basics and help keep the local food chain running smoothly. To do my bit, as it were, especially when it appeared that British people weren’t interested in helping this sector.

“I’ve always been interested in where our food comes from and how we get food from the farm to the table, so I am keen to use this as an opportunity to not only extend my knowledge, but also help the Scottish economy and potentially earn some money while the lockdown remains in place.

“However, I’ve discovered it’s not as easy as I thought it would be. After applying to 20 Scottish farms, I’ve been turned away by all of them. I’ve said I would be happy to work any shifts they required me to do and that I could stay for as long as needed. Most haven’t replied. Some have thanked me for my application but have said onsite accommodation was full. When I said I could stay with family nearby, they then said there were no vacancies left.” This has happened three times, the last being only yesterday [June 17].

“I get the feeling they don’t want local workers and would prefer to recruit from abroad,” said Cheevers.

“The online application form for overseas workers ask when they can start, but for Scottish hopefuls like me they seem to be throwing up hurdles. Maybe they are worried that we’ll abandon ship as soon as we get work in our own field. But I don’t have any other plans or commitments, and I have made it clear that I’d commit to staying for the season or as long as required.

“I keep being put off. At first I was advised to wait until the middle of May when more jobs would come up, then it was mid-June. Now I’m told all jobs are taken. And the same has happened to many of my own chefs also looking for work.

“It seems to me that all those government advertisements were meaningless. It really annoys me when people say British workers are lazy and don’t want the work.”

A spokesman for the NFUS said: “We still have farms advertising places. We did have almost 30 at the start but every week or so we contact the farms asking if they still want the availability of jobs kept on our website.

“There is a feeling that once furlough starts to roll back some more places will become available in Scotland.

“We are only just getting into peak season for strawberries – raspberries are later in the season, and veg will be a bit later again – so the 10,000 places is across the whole fruit and veg season rather than all being required on day one.”

[Text and photo ©️CateDevine]

ENDS

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Now 'seasonal and Scottish' are the hottest ingredients in the UK's hippest soda brand

June 5, 2020

Softness, subtlety and sophistication aren’t usually associated with the cracking open of a can of pop. More often, what hits first is that all-too-familiar combo of harsh carbonation, hyper-sweetness and unchanging flavour from first sip to last.

But Gregor Leckie’s Glasgow-based Rapscallion brand of hand-engineered fresh fruit sodas has been slowly challenging consumer tastes and is now making serious inroads in a UK soft drinks market that already has a staggering 273 brands all jostling for attention.

His latest flavour, Rhubarb S_01 Sour Face Pull - the first in a new series using seasonal Scottish soft fruits - shifted 2500 cans in the week before its official lockdown launch purely via social media and without any advertising.

Not bad for his first step into the all-important digital pivot, or leap to online marketing, which has become the way forward for many in food and drink during the pandemic lockdown. (Leckie’s growing list of restaurant and bar clients disappeared overnight when they were forced to close indefinitely.)

When I first wrote about Rapscallion in 2016, it was after meeting Leckie (whom I photographed at the time, above), a GP’s son from Edinburgh, in his tiny lab in the Gallowgate in Glasgow’s East End and he had just launched his ground-breaking brand. Surrounded by tanks, tubes, bags and canisters. He looked for all the world like a modern-day alchemist and now, in retrospect, very Breaking Bad. He was actually developing his unique technique for cold-infusing his fresh fruits with a range of spices and herbs – a slow process that enhances flavour and avoids the need for artificial additives - and tweaking his carbonisation process. He was testing the brand with “taster kegs” at pop-up events and talking to top restaurateurs. He moved larger scale a year later and is now in hip new premises in the Gorbals.

But his ambition remains as firm as ever: to “start an awkward conversation with the soft drinks industry without trying to preach to people”. Hence the name Rapscallion, meaning iconoclast or rebel.

The 33 year old’s product chimes with the current foodie obsession with provenance. “I’m not aiming to take out Schweppes but I do want to start a counter-culture,” he told me.

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I got to sample Rhubarb S_01 on a Zoom media launch with Leckie himself hosting. It was a most spectacular and surprising taste sensation: on its own, a hit of intense very slightly sour yet sweet rhubarb flavour in the mouth in a light fizz, with the nose registering grapefruit and very subtle floral lift of pepperiness. It was almost like a wine tasting. Indeed, the wine writer Peter Ranscombe has already expertly described Rhubarb S_01 as having “a vegetal whiff of wet leaf on the nose and then a bitter tang on the finish”. When sampled with botanical gin it complemented and enhanced it.

Rhubarb S_01 with ice and grapefruit wedge and Sichuan pepper: I love its delicate pink colour.

Rhubarb S_01 with ice and grapefruit wedge and Sichuan pepper: I love its delicate pink colour.

The rhubarb is from Fraser McDonald’s farm in Arbroath, and is infused with candied pink grapefruit zest and Sichuan pepper with a touch of raw organic cane sugar. It’s very delicate in colour. To illustrate how different parts of the fruit make for different flavours, we tried the soda with three different expressions of grapefruit: whole grapefruit sous-vide in rhubarb sugar; grapefruit wedges with Sichuan pepper, to show the intense aroma of the pepper (see right); and zest on its own, to highlight the bright bitter oils released in the glass. The addition of gin or vodka was optional. Ice altered perceptions too.

Leckie explained: “Rhubarb is one of the simplest drinks we do, but it’s exciting to play with different batches. Some people find rhubarb intensely grapefruity, and rhubarb changes its flavour as it matures, so we can adjust the balance between them as the season develops.”

Strawberry with Scotch Bonnet chilli (S_02), and Raspberry with oats, lemon zest and star anise (S_03) will follow as the Scottish soft fruits come into season. This makes the sodas tantalisingly short-batch and limited edition, as well as local and seasonal. They will join Rapscallion’s core range of Ginger Ninja with pimento and lemon zest (C_01), Burnt Lemon with charred zest and coriander seed (C_02) and Dry Lime with rind, saffron, lime leaf (C_03).

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I love the packaging by Freytag Anderson, the German-Scots design studio based in Glasgow and Oban. “We wanted to build on the subversive, rebellious nature of the Rapscallion name and better communicate the all natural ingredients,” they explain. “A sterile approach to layout, bold use of colour and minimal type treatments help to differentiate core range and seasonal product lines. The deliberate short stop label highlights the cans base metal, hinting at a more clinical and scientific approach to production.”

Leckie’s sodas, on their own or with white spirits like gin, vodka or Tequila, don't flood the tastebuds like some mass-market brands, and as mixers they're intended to compliment rather than dominate botanical craft spirits. At the moment they are 60:40 soft drinks to mixers, though Leckie has mixed alcoholic drinks in the pipeline in collaboration with the likes of Scots brands Arbikie and Porter’s, and he hinted that the Ginger Ninja works well with a Lowland Malt. Rhubarb S_01 goes really well with gin.

He’s naturally hesitant to divulge the exact process he’s taken years to perfect. And with good reason. It’s surely only a matter of time before the big brands look to tap into the emerging market Leckie has so beautifully and painstakingly curated.

©️CateDevine

 

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Pic Credit: Nordic Food Lab

Pic Credit: Nordic Food Lab

"I like to think we put a bee in the bonnet of the Scottish food revival."

June 2, 2020

EXCLUSIVE

I caught up with Ben Reade - former head of research and development at Noma’s Nordic Food Lab in Denmark - to talk about the future for his Edinburgh Food Studio following the decision to close its doors after five years, in part due to lockdown and its devastating long-term effect on restaurant closures.

In fact, the five-year lease on the EFS premises on Edinburgh’s Dalkeith Road was up for renewal on June 1. Reade decided to call it quits.

“It’s bittersweet,” he told me. “It hasn’t gone according to plan. You can get really upset about what’s happening just now, or just accept it. Being able to walk away from the lease just now, as things are looking so bad for restaurants, is actually an advantage because that site – much as we loved it - was never going to work with social distancing. So I see this as an opportunity, a blessing in many ways.

“Lots of other interesting sites will come up in Edinburgh. All sorts of opportunities will raise their heads. We’re not done as a company yet. We will bounce back in one form or another. But there’s no point in opening anything during lockdown.”

He is grateful still to have The Company Bakery, the Edinburgh bread co-operative he runs with four other stakeholders and six full-time bakers. When lockdown began and restaurant customers closed, they lost 85% of their business overnight. Now they deliver award-winning sourdough made with 80% Scottish-milled flour wholesale and direct to over 500 customers across the city. During lockdown demand has grown and they are now supplement box deliveries and restaurant takeaway menus too.

“Bread is about redefining what’s important, what really counts, for people at the moment. I feel we’re part of a growing community that has had to stop going to restaurants and is now buying better locally produced food to cook and eat at home. We’re part of the changing food culture.”

All the same, he admits he’s “really aching” to get back to the “touchy-feely” society we were before Covid-19 and the conviviality of eating together in restaurants.

“We still have the Edinburgh Food Studio (EFS) brand. I don’t know what form it will take yet. We’ve got to stay on our toes, weather the storm, and take time to work out what’s to be done.”

EFS was a restaurant but also a research hub that hosted many international interns. What does he feel EFS achieved? “I think we helped build new respect for local producers and products, and a recognition for Scottish food. We were part of a wider food movement, but I reckon we put a bee under the bonnet of the Scots food culture revival, and got things moving.”

He seems particularly proud of the guest-chef pop-up events.

“I like to think our guest chef events helped break down barriers and made fancy food accessible,” he says. “We got some super-famous chefs coming to Edinburgh from all over the world, and nobody else was doing that except the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy.”

I ask for his stand-out memories. “The diver Roddie Sloan from the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway came here with a load of indigenous seafood - sea urchins, mahogany clams - that had been in the ocean at 3am and was being prepared and consumed in Edinburgh at 7pm the same day. It was a real coup for us to get Ezben Holmbo Bang, the world’s youngest three-star chef at Maaemo in Oslo, cook a meal for £42. And Ana Roš, Head Chef at Hiša Franko, Kobarid, Slovenia.” Others came from Hong Kong. Latvia, Bolivia, Chile, Denmark, Spain, India, Lebanon, Hungary, France, Turkey, Italy, Norway, Malaysia, Portugal, USA, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium.

“We learned lots about other food cultures. And they were so impressed with Scottish produce. They didn’t know anything about it before coming here and that was so exciting.

“It’s easy to doubt yourself and what you’re doing. That they recognised Scotland in a totally different light was really heartening. People now travel to Scotland to eat. That’s a whole new thing.”

He adds that EFS’ focus was bringing guest chefs here, but could it also be something that pops up elsewhere – taking Scotland’s food story out of Scotland? “It’s something we’ve always really wanted,” he says.

“So the ending of our lease in lockdown has been a positive thing. Now I’m free to explore the future.”

©️CateDevine

  • See also my blog post “Looking to the past to feed the future” from 2018.

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  • Such an ‘empowering’ morning! And great to see you @hvasspastrychef #GiovannaEusebi @Rebecca_Ric https://t.co/phFHWkWwNm
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