Frozen food distributor Central Foods engages new executive chef

New Executive chef Paul Hunt

Leading frozen food distributor Central Foods has expanded its team by engaging an experienced chef, who has worked with some of the largest UK foodservice operators and brands in the business.

Executive chef Paul Hunt will be showcasing products supplied by Central Foods and taking part in demonstrations and sampling sessions to help promote the range available.

He will also assist the development of products and recipes for chefs, using items supplied by the frozen food distributor, which will prove popular in foodservice outlets – helping them to grow their restaurants, bar food and other catering and hospitality operations.

In addition, Paul’s new role will help Central Foods to have a better understanding of the needs of the customers of their wholesaler customers – allowing the expanding firm to source and offer exactly what is needed in terms of foodservice products in the future.

Paul, aka The Skinny Chef, is a fully qualified chef who has undertaken recipe development work for key food manufacturers. He has also been responsible for putting food on the tables of high street restaurants and pub brands, as well as developing products for supermarkets in the UK and Europe.

Gordon Lauder, managing director at Central Foods, said: “Paul is extremely passionate about food and is an expert in his field. Not only does he speak the language of chefs, he also has a great insight into what customers want.

“We’re delighted to have him contracted with Central Foods to help us showcase the very wide range of products that we supply, and to develop recipes and products that chefs can be confident will prove popular with their customers, whether they are serving in pubs or bars, restaurants, business catering operations, sporting venues or leisure outlets.

“In due course, we will be uploading recipe videos to our website which we hope will inspire chefs with their menu ideas and highlight some of the latest trends that they can tap into.” 

Paul, who has more than 30 years of experience in food development, preparation and styling, has worked with major supermarkets, restaurant groups, wholesalers and food manufacturers.

Northamptonshire-based, he said: “I am proud and excited that I have been contracted with Central Foods as executive chef. My skill set is varied and includes customer product presentations from food service to wholesalers and manufacturers, menu and recipe development, food and concept development, food styling for photographers and most of all cooking.

“As a leading, long-standing frozen food distributor, Central Foods has an excellent reputation for insight into upcoming trends and for customer service, and I am looking forward to helping the company to build on that by promoting the products they supply and by creating menu ideas that will go down well with their customers and with their customers’ customers too.”

Central Foods, which is based at Collingtree near Northampton, supplies more than 220 independent wholesalers, as well as larger national and regional wholesalers. It also supplies to foodservice caterers across the entire foodservice industry, including pubs, hotels, restaurants, staff canteens, schools, hospitals, coffee shops, football grounds and universities.

Offering a one-stop shop to the foodservice sector, Central Foods sources products from around the world and the UK, supplying more than 400 different lines, ranging from meat, bakery items and canapés through to buffet products, desserts and puddings.

The company has steadily grown since it was founded 21 years ago, and recently was named for the first time in a report by Grant Thornton as being in the top 100 companies in Northamptonshire. The company was also a finalist in the Family Business United Family Business of the Year Awards 2017 for the Midlands.

For more details about Central Foods, visit www.centralfoods.co.uk

Press release issued by Nottingham based PR company Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk

Celebrity chef Cyrus Todiwala creates serving suggestions for Butt Foods’ new artisan sourdough recipe naan

Cyrus Todiwala

Specialist baker Butt Foods has launched a new naan bread that’s lighter and more bubbly than ever before in response to trends for premium and new wave Indian food dining experiences.

The Baked Earth artisan sourdough recipe naan benefits from a live cultured sourdough with a long fermentation process to improve flavour and texture – creating a naan bread that’s bubbly, soft and suitable for a range of meal applications throughout the day.

The company commissioned celebrity chef and former BBC Food Personality of the Year Cyrus Todiwala OBE to develop a range of uses for the artisan sourdough recipe naans to illustrate the flexibility of the flat breads. He has created a selection of serving suggestions for the naans that show the real versatility of the product which go far beyond the traditional side-of-plate application and which highlight just how many options chefs have to be creative with this new concept in naan breads.

“Naan is brilliant – it’s such a versatile bread. Just use your imagination and the world lies at your feet,” said Cyrus, who has a broad portfolio of restaurants, running Café Spice Namaste, Mr Todiwala’s Kitchen at Heathrow T5, Assado London and The Park Café.

Available in 6 inch and 4 inch sizes, the new naans are perfect for restaurants, hotels, bars and other food service operators, such as street food vendors, that are committed to serving up top quality naan breads, as well as the growing number of new wave contemporary Indian eateries that are offering dining options from breakfast through to evening. 

As a result of its special composition, the Baked Earth artisan sourdough recipe naans can be topped, filled, folded and wrapped, and the serving suggestions created by Cyrus include hand-held ‘sliders’, pizza-style topped naans, foldovers and wraps, and cover meal occasions including breakfast and brunch, snacks and main meals. 

Ideas include Bombay-style minced beef burritos, Indian-style roasted vegetable pizzas and Jungli chicken wraps.

Videos of the dishes created by Cyrus and filmed in the development kitchen of his Café Spice Namaste restaurant in London are available to watch for free on the Butt Foods website in Chef’s Corner. 

Butt Foods has been baking naan breads for more than 25 years, having introduced authentic frozen naan to the foodservice market in 1991. Its latest naan is a light and bubbly Indian bread baked with yoghurt, with toasted kalonji and cumin seeds adding a nutty flavour, made from the company’s unique recipe.

It has been developed in response to its research into the changing UK Indian restaurant scene, which shows the increase in exciting new wave eateries that offer various degrees of all-day dining, depending on location, with menus to suit. 

“New Indian food is moving away from traditional curries into a world of new flavours, snacks and small plates, different presentation and extended meal occasions. We’re very pleased to be launching our Baked Earth artisan sourdough recipe naans, which are really something very special and which have been created to provide restaurants and other eateries with a tasty naan bread that’s both versatile and flexible,” said managing director of Nottingham-based Butt Foods David Williams.

“Our market research has shown a new wave of Indian restaurants bringing exciting new flavours and formats, and we believe our range of Artisan sourdough recipe naans are perfect for these outlets which are providing an alternative experience for diners.

“We were delighted when, in independent research, our product outscored the leading foodservice competitor on taste and texture.” 

The artisan sourdough recipe naan is made from a natural process that takes up to ten days from starter through to mother dough, mature dough and then final dough. No raising agents mean a more natural product and better flavour, with pure butter ghee adding colour and taste.

The Baked Earth artisan sourdough recipe naans are available frozen through Central Foods.

Cyrus, the 2014 BBC Food Personality of the Year, was born and brought up in Bombay. In his bastion Cafe Spice Namaste, Cyrus is known for his refined, elegantly spiced and sophisticated cooking. He has cooked for royalty, presidents and international celebrities and is often invited to be a guest chef at food festivals and hotels from Dubai to Durban, and all across the United Kingdom.

For more information about Butt Foods, to see its latest trend reports or the videos featuring menu ideas created by Cyrus, visit www.buttfoods.co.uk

Press release issued by Nottingham based PR company Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk

Welcome back to Nottingham for Orange tree head chef

Chef Ian Martin at the Orange Tree

Chef Ian Martin has returned to his roots in Nottingham and is back in the kitchen he helped to establish more than 12 years ago when he became the first head chef at the Orange tree pub in the city.

Ian has once again taken charge in the kitchen of the popular bar after returning to the city following a spell working abroad.

It’s a venue he knows well. He spent four years there as head chef when the pub opened in 2003.

Ian, 45, said: “It’s great to be back running the kitchen where I was the original head chef when it first launched back in 2003. It was very satisfying to be the launch chef and help to build up the good reputation for food that the Orange tree still has today.

“There’s been a lot of change in Nottingham in that time. There’s much more choice for eating and a much stronger presence from the chains, but there are fewer strong independent pubs, like the Orange tree, in my view.”

Coincidently, there’s another link for Ian to the building that houses the Orange tree on the corner of Shakespeare Street and North Sherwood Street.

Before he joined the Orange tree first time round, he had previously been head chef to Nottingham Forest Football Club, and the Orange tree sits on the site of the building in which the football club was born 150 years ago, in 1865. Then known as the Clinton Arms, it was the venue for a meeting of shinney players – who played a sport similar to hockey – and, when they decided to begin playing football instead, it was the start of Nottingham Forest Football Club.

During Ian’s first spell at the Orange tree, more than a decade ago, the menu was very much targeted at the student market. Now, however, the pub attracts a much wider clientele and the new Spring menu, which has just launched this month, has been designed to reflect that.

His appointment at the Orange tree marks a home-coming for Ian, who grew up in the city where his dad ran various pubs. Classically French trained, he undertook his chef’s training in Nottingham before working at a variety of positions in the region including at Nottingham Forest, where he travelled all over the world with the football team. He also worked as head chef at the county cricket ground at Derby.

After four years at the Orange tree, he moved on to run a bistro restaurant in the Canary Islands, and later became the head chef at a four-star hotel on the islands.

Ian, who is also head chef for Orange tree Weddings and the Orange tree group’s events side of the business, said: “Styles and fashions in food have changed over the years, but I’m really pleased that the Orange tree still has a good reputation for quality food and for a relaxed, laid-back atmosphere. It’s good to have returned to the kitchen here.”

The Orange tree in Nottingham, part of the East Midlands-based independent Orange tree group of bars, serves food daily from noon until 7pm.

Group managing director Gareth Smith said: “We’re delighted to have Ian back at the helm in the kitchens in Nottingham. He knows the group, he knows the Nottingham pub, he knows the kitchen very well, and what’s really important is that he knows our customers.”

For more information, visit www.orangetree.co.uk/nottingham

Press release issued by Nottingham based pr company Perfect 10 PR http://www.perfect10pr.co.uk