When the nights draw in and the air gets chilly, the mind inevitably turns to warming, full-flavoured comfort food. Whether you have a distinctly sweet tooth, or revel in life's more savoury pleasures, this collection will have a dish for you.
Please click on the link below…
Christmas is back!
How is your company
celebrating the festive season this year?
It’s 43 sleeps until
Christmas Day, and here’s hoping that for the first time in three years
families can spend Christmas Day together again.
Most of us who do
celebrate Christmas managed to do so in some form or another over the last two years,
whether it was virtually, outside in the garden wearing many layers, or, in
some cases, carrying on regardless.
This year the Albacore
team are looking forward to providing a fortnight of festive lunches and events
for our clients and their employees.
The Christmas jumpers
will be reunited with their owners from the back of the wardrobe, the servery
and seating areas will be decorated with tinsel, baubles and lights, and there
might even be a tree! There may be an exchange of Secret Santa presents.
And this year people can
sit together with their teams instead of a table for one, they can
enjoy a delicious turkey dinner using crockery, cutlery and glassware, pull
crackers, and sing along to Michael Buble’s Christmas hits!
This may be the first
time they have all sat down together as a team in three years, and this is an
event that can really bring everyone together and cement relationships that
have perhaps only ever been virtual. And most importantly, it’s an opportunity
for employees to feel appreciated for all the hard work they’ve achieved in
2022. We are really looking forward to it!
With the passing of Queen Elizabeth earlier this month, it is interesting to look back on the monarch’s impact on dining over the past seventy years through the eyes of those who worked closely with her.
https://www.foodandwine.com/news/how-queen-elizabeth-impacted-food-drink?hid=55d09a47720729402ac0c73a476582c6bb6f5378&did=837350-20220911&utm_campaign=faw-top10_newsletter&utm_source=foodandwine.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=091122&cid=837350&mid=96816869894&lctg=78702369ARE YOUR EMPLOYEES BEGINNING TO FEEL THE PINCH?
Caring employers can demonstrate their commitment to employee
welfare at this time of crippling energy bills and food inflation by providing
a subsidised catering facility offering their workforce a choice of nutritional
and affordable meals at break time.
Social media, newspapers and television broadcasters are
currently bombarding the public with tales of doom - soaring energy bills, the
Ukraine war affecting food prices, and more and more food banks and charities
opening up to help families make ends meet. Unions are demanding pay increases,
workers are on strike – in fact you could almost believe we are back in the
1970’s! People are feeling the strain of increased costs against their salary.
Employees not eating regular nutritious meals could become
unwell, resulting in long term absences or inability to continue in their role,
particularly if it requires the individual to be physically and mentally fit. You
can reduce the likelihood of absence through illness by providing a canteen for
your workforce with healthy options at a subsidised tariff.
Yes - it is an overhead to your organisation, however
replacing employees on long term sick and recruiting inducting and training new
members of your work are equally expensive. An unhappy workforce causes
interruptions on the production line and lead to loss of product or time. The
canteen is their place of sanctuary to relax and unwind with their colleagues
away from their place of work.
Over 25 years, Albacore have transformed the culture of many well-known
Scottish companies with our simple philosophy of providing fresh local produce
simply prepared and served by our team of professional chefs and assistants who
are always prepared to go the extra mile.
The space you choose for your catering facility should be convenient
for your workforce to access at break times, and should have power, water and
extraction. With the capital expenditure you have available we will advise the
best use of the space operationally for the kitchen, equipment, serving area,
and seating area layout, and recommend the style of service best suited to your
organisation in relation to your budget. We will then transform the area into a
vibrant social space for your workforce with our professional catering team
providing a friendly service and fantastic food.
You are at a point of decision.
Get in touch for an initial chat!
Nicola Harrison
Director
M 07734 734
974
www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaharrison1
Watching the closing ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealthgames2022 Games the other night with Ozzy Osbourne, UB40 and Dexys Midnight Runners, brought back fond and vivid memories of when I worked at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games exactly 36 years ago!
Literally two days after
graduating from Napier University, I joined students and lecturers from the
Napier University Hospitality Department in providing the catering operations
in the Food Hall of the Athlete’s Village at the 1986 Commonwealth Games. We drew
the short straw – the 6am – 2pm shift! We fed and watered breakfast and lunch
to the 1,660 competitors who were based in Pollock Halls and other nearby
accommodation, the volunteers and the emergency, security and transport
services.
My work placement at university
encompassed contract catering and five star hotels, followed by a holiday
season in a restaurant on a campsite in France. Weekends during term time
involved banqueting shifts at The Caledonian and Grosvenor Hotels which were an
extension of my social life with my fellow students. I felt I already had quite
a lot of experience in the industry, but working on an event of this magnitude
was an opportunity too good to miss – and it certainly turned out to be just
that!
The village mobilised a couple of
weeks before the games opened, and we spent the first week gearing up, setting
up systems and customer journeys while learning about global foods, portion
control, customer service, and getting to grips with the politics between front
of house and the kitchen.
The sheer scale of daily food,
beverage and disposable orders arriving was impossible to comprehend, the top
commodities being bacon, 20 litre drums of oil, chicken breasts, haddock,
butter, and a daily plantation of bananas!
The range available for breakfast
and lunch blew me away, with menu choices from all over the world. Onion bhajis
and pakoras, pasta, eggs, rice, grilled meats, bread, yoghurt, exotic fruits
and vegetables, cereal and traditional breakfast disappeared at a rate of knots
from 6.30am. Our Food Hall team were paired at food stations - we were friendly
faces for the athletes, standing straight (no leaning!) throughout our shift,
and keeping the counters topped up by alerting the Operations Manager every
time we replaced a tray from the hot cupboard below. I can’t remember her name,
but I do remember she was super organised, had a great rapport with the
kitchen, and worked hard to make a team out of us and make it really fun. We
were instructed to control portion sizes, but found we were fighting a losing
battle with the gigantic weightlifters in the war of two link sausages versus
six!
To pass the time we tried to
guess who played what sport by what they looked like and what they ate! I
became pretty good at it.
Highlights of the event were the
day that Prince Charles and Princess Diana toured the food hall, and the whole
place was awash with police and sniffer dogs who were going berserk with the
smell of the sausages! Also spotting famous athletes like Daley Thomson, Steve
Cram, Tessa Sanderson, Liz McColgan, Steve Redgrave, Adrian Moorhouse and
Yvonne Murray as they came in to eat their meal and relax with their fellow
athletes.
Controversially, 32 countries
boycotted the games due to Margaret Thatcher’s government’s policy of
maintaining sporting links with apartheid South Africa, and the huge reduction
in numbers at short notice caused a logistical headache to say the least. The
City of Edinburgh was out of pocket by £500,000 due to funding issues.
Watching the Birmingham games
these past few days has brought it all these memories flooding back. It also
reminded me why I chose to work in hospitality in the first place.
Good news for those of you who find your bags of salad greens wilt before you have time to use them…
“The majority of bagged salads have an incredibly short shelf life and don’t survive much beyond the first serving, leading to 40% of them being thrown away (according to figures from government waste advisory body WRAP). However, since 2010 fresh & naked have been demonstrating that, by following a careful growing process and minimising the washing of the leaves, it’s possible to create a top-quality bagged baby leaf salad that stays fresh for longer whilst also tasting amazing.”
Fresh & Naked: The Waste-Minimising Bagged Salad - Great British Chefs
THE FOODIE FESTIVAL IS BACK!
We are delighted to hear that the Foodie Festival is taking place this year throughout the UK.
It’s a celebration of quality local food and drink, launched in Edinburgh in 2006, and there are now 12 festivals around the country, which makes it the largest food and drink festival in the UK.
You can attend the festival in Edinburgh from 5th to 7th August and in Glasgow from 12th to 14th August for top chefs, tasty food, delicious drinks and live music!
https://foodiesfestival.com/events/edinburgh/
Seafood Staycation!
If you are planning a beach staycation this year, there are plenty of recommendations for excellent seaside cafes and restaurants all over the UK.
Click on the link to discover some amazing places to east, including three in Scotland
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/jun/05/20-of-the-uks-best-seaside-restaurants-cafes-shacks
The Seafood Restaurant, St Andrews
https://www.theseafoodrestaurant.com/
The Lobster Shack, North Berwick
https://www.lobstershack.co.uk/
The Seafood Shack, Ullapool
Foraging season is upon us…
“The turn of spring brings with it a bounty of fresh produce – but few are more representative of the season than wild garlic. Wonderfully versatile and particularly pungent, these distinct flowering plants (also known as ransoms) can cover woodland floors like a blanket for a few months each year. This makes wild garlic a brilliant starting point for those who want to give foraging a try. Its short but sweet season means your window of opportunity is slim, but the abundance of wild garlic means there's plenty of it up for grabs.”
Click on the link below to learn all about this amazing plant.
The trials and tribulations of post pandemic recruitment
According to the Office for National Statistics, "hospitality businesses are most likely to be experiencing challenges in filling vacancies compared with normal expectations at this time of year."
We are proud of our low employee turnover within Albacore and don't need to recruit very often. However, I've just completed the recruitment process for a vacancy as our client experienced a surge in employees returning to the office preferring to interact with real humans again - great news for us!
Here we are edging out of the pandemic and finding that Brexit, hospitality business closures and the end of furlough have forced so many talented hospitality professionals to seek employment in other sectors.
I try to recruit all of our employees and it's a process I usually enjoy. My highlights are the amusing email addresses candidates use in the hope of securing their dream job. santababy@xxx.com, mamawontwork@xxx.com , and Im-just-bad-news@xxx.com, to name just three!
I then send about one hundred "I was
impressed with your cv and experience however... ''emails, and keep the six
best for interview and trial shift if appropriate.
I utilise an online advertising and community website as it's reasonably priced and you can use unlimited words, unlike a newspaper where ‘’ Catering Asst required M-F Bathgate’’ will set you back the price of a city break.
A couple of weeks ago, I placed one of my usual advertisements online with what I thought was a great opportunity. Catering Assistant, Monday to Friday,7am to 3pm, living wage, meal on duty, uniform, pension, development programme...I braced myself for the deluge of applications.
Replying to the first three candidates emails all three came back undelivered multiple times.
Then three applied by text- fantastic!
Initial phone interviews, all sounded perfect
for the role, a wonderful dilemma! Trial shifts arranged with payment at the
end.
All with the usual confirmation email, full instructions for location, travel, access to the building plus the plea that as I was travelling an hour to the site especially to meet them, JUST TEXT if you change your mind. Reply to my email to confirm you'll be attending.
I arrive at site half an hour early.
Reception, security, the team and I wait with anticipation. Will they be
THE ONE?
Twenty minutes later my welcoming smile has become rather crumpled. I feel like a teenager whose first date didn't show up.
What did I say?
What did I do wrong?
Did the bus break down?
Are they all lost, panicking out there
somewhere?
Were they all abducted by an alien?
Are they all involved in a vendetta to repay
me for something I unknowingly did to upset them?
Strangely now, the mobile number I was previously connected to with warmth and enthusiasm now cuts off when I speak, or goes straight to voicemail. I leave a lonely voice message, followed by an insincere text "I assume you're no longer interested in the position. Wishing you all the best for the future" and hold myself back from adding NOT!
It's not all doom and gloom, though. A day later, I received a text "intrstd in job no cv". I took a chance, called back within a millisecond and arranged the interview, trial shift and immediate offer and start date all completed in two days. The team on site are so happy with their new member and so is our client. And I'm ecstatic! On cloud nine!
I’m not speaking from actual experience, but
just like dating sites, there are still some really great matches out there, we
all just have to work harder to find them!
How do you take your coffee?
Personally, I like a simple café latte, but some coffee drinkers like to add all sorts of flavours to their caffeinated drink of choice.
I’m all for trying different things, but adding pureed vegetables isn’t something I’m keen on.
Click on the link to see some of the ideas from the new Food people blog…
As they say, each to his own…!
https://thefoodpeople.co.uk/blog/autumn-coffee-drinkswatching
