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With the public's enduring enthusiasm for TV cookery shows and a greater requirement for high quality food in restaurants, cook schools are seemingly appearing in virtually every corner of the country, from Ayrshire to the Outer Hebrides. However, as well as amateur chefs looking to improve their culinary repertoires, there is also significant demand from the professional fraternity for a world-class learning platform in Scotland. As the hospitality and catering industry evolves, so too does the need for new knowledge, crafts and techniques, and there's now a fast-growing establishment which covers all the bases. Beth Pearson visits the Braehead Foods and the Cook School, and discovers a new world of education and entertainment that's rewriting the rulebook of culinary skills…
It's 6pm on a Friday evening. A delivery of pheasants, partridges and mallard has just arrived at the factory in Kilmarnock. Shot on private estates earlier today, they'll be plucked and processed tomorrow ready for delivery. Elsewhere in the factory, orders are being made up for delivery in the morning, and sales staff are upstairs in the office, taking orders until 11pm.
Should any customer require several breasts of Gressingham duck [see sidebar] or a large quantity of fine dark coverture Belgian chocolate after this time – and before sales lines reopen at 8am – they'll call managing director Craig Stevenson on his mobile, confident that he'll pick up or return your call as quickly as possible.
Braehead Foods is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation, and so is Stevenson. Tonight, orders for Aberdeen, Fort William, Perth, Glasgow and Edinburgh are placed ready for pick-up. Stevenson will deliver one himself on his way home.
'I've delivered on Christmas day and Christmas night, and I don't think anything of that,' he says. 'Our customers are out there all day, every day. We don't work Monday to Friday, because our customers don't. I answer most missed calls within five minutes and I'll certainly reply within two hours. Do I take calls during the football on a Saturday afternoon? Yes.'
It's this kind of unrelenting commitment to customer service that has made Braehead Foods Scotland's leading supplier of game and fine food to hotels and restaurants. When Craig bought the company in 1999, it was a small, farm-based firm which traded a limited line of products within a relatively unambitious area of Scotland. Nowadays it has an annual turnover of over £7 million, a brand-new, purpose-built factory and warehouse, and a client list that stretches from Scrabster to Northumberland, including some of the top chefs and establishments in Scotland.
Craig lives and breathes the catering industry; every Saturday night is spent dining at one of his customer's restaurants, and his foreign holidays tend to be dotted with visits to clients and suppliers throughout Europe. This enthusiasm tempers his commercial instinct:
'We can't apologise for making money, because we can only exist as long as we make it,' he says. 'But we don't need to make loads of money or a certain amount on every product. If we can earn a decent living, reinvest in the industry, maybe take three or four days out of the Cook School and give it to the industry for nothing instead of earning money from paying members of the public, then we're doing our job.'
Well-known for its support of organisations like the Federation of Chefs Scotland and the Scottish Culinary Team, Braehead Foods is committed to ensuring that the industry has a voice, that it is constantly evolving and, ultimately, that it can compete on the world stage:
'I don't think of the short-term cost of the investment in events such as the Scottish Chefs' Conference, or of the man hours that have gone into getting the conference up and running,' says Craig. 'If it's for the greater good of the industry, what cost can you put on that?'
Elsewhere in the business, the Cook School is further evidence of Braehead's ongoing progress. Led by chef director Steven Doherty, who worked with Albert and Michel Roux at Le Gavaroche when it became the UK's first three-Michelin-Star restaurant, the Cook School has more than one principal objective:
'We're here to educate and entertain both the public and trained chefs,' explains Steven. 'Together with our Head of School, Jason McNelly, and our in-house team of professional chefs – plus a roster of guest chefs from around the country - we offer 21 master classes in different cuisines covering a wide range of themes from shellfish and red meat to feathered game and desserts.'
Jacqueline O'Donnell, Chef-Patron of the Sisters restaurants in Glasgow, is one such guest chef who has worked with the Cook School on several occasions over the last six months:
'Since it opened I've led a few teaching days, including classes on Scottish seafood, shellfish, red-meat, game and 'Friends for Dinner' tutorials,' she explains.
'Each class has been full and although you don't know the students' abilities until they're in the kitchen, they've all worked efficiently and achieved their own aims. Whatever they're there for, though, they always come away with more tips, techniques and trade secrets than they thought they would.'
Jacqueline says she likes the spirit and ethos of the Cook School because, in addition to educating people of varying abilities, it offers additional touches that customers wouldn't normally expect:
'Last week, for instance, I brought in some feathered grouse to show the class how to identify male and female birds, and how to pluck and prepare them for cooking. The 'students', if you can call them that, all went away having learnt something they never expected to when they signed up. 'It's the little extras like that which make all the difference.'
And as well as teaching the public and chefs of tomorrow about Scotland's infinite larder, Jacqueline has also used the Cook School to film a number of TV programmes: 'The kitchen's layout is very camera-friendly and allows for excellent camera angles and the best shots for cooking demonstrations,' she says.
'Most kitchens do not offer a very suitable environment for film crews, but the Cook School is ideal.'
Indeed, the facility has been used to film various food features for STV's daily current affairs show, The Hour. Guest-presented on occasion by the Balmoral Hotel's executive chef Jeff Bland, the programme has opened up the Cook School to a whole new at-home audience: 'I've been using some of the vast range of game foods that Braehead offers, including partridge and grouse which are particularly popular on our menus at the Balmoral,' explains Jeff.
'They've got a great set-up there which is ideal for teaching people of all ages and abilities how to cook well and, more importantly, how to enjoy it.'
Meanwhile, demonstrations of the Rational SelfCooking Centre, the world's best-selling combination oven, are also held each month at the Cook School.
Zak Miller, Rational's development chef for Scotland, heads up the company's Cooking Live! seminars, and is impressed with the layout and facilities at the school:
'The Cook School's a hugely popular venue because chefs want to come along and see where their produce originates,' he says. 'Our Cooking Live! demonstrations always end up oversubscribed but I guess that's a reflection of Braehead Foods' reputation within the industry; people know they can expect to enjoy themselves while also learning something new.'
And it's this blend of education and entertainment that forms the backbone of the Cook School's raison d'etre. In addition to teaching the public how to expand their culinary repertoires, the school is also available for dedicated training sessions in diverse specialities from foie gras to chocolate, aimed at both young and experienced chefs.
'The Cook School has recently become Scotland's only Callebaut Chocolate Training Academy,' beams Steven Doherty, 'and that's a significant achievement for us.'
It's also a real endorsement of the facility's design, equipment levels and overall capabilities. With twelve Chocolate Academies dotted across the globe, Callebaut is a world-leader in professional chocolate craftsmanship, and to have secured its support in Scotland is a particular coup for the Cook School:
'The academy offers practical and theoretical help in a wide range of courses, from introductory level for novices, to advanced programmes for experienced confectioners, pastry chefs, bakers, caterers, lecturers and chefs de cuisine,' explains Steven. 'Like the original UK Callebaut Chocolate Academy in Banbury, ours is a purpose-built training environment with ten two-person work stations which allow for one-to-one, hands-on tuition and demos from the world-class chocolatiers who join us as guest lecturers.'
Although the Cook School has been fully operational in its own right for over six months, Stevenson and his colleagues are constantly coming up with new ideas to offer more to both the public and the professional chefs who use it. The latest development to go ahead is a new, fully functional production kitchen which, when complete, will allow Braehead's chefs to create terrines, stocks, stuffed game and, according to Craig, 'any product our customers ask for'.
The basic premise of the production kitchen is that all the products will be made by chefs, to chef standards, for chefs: 'They'll be finished off in the hotel or restaurant kitchen, but we'll take the labour out of it,' says Craig. 'Demand for such products is already there, and it's growing due to kitchen brigades being smaller and a lack of young chefs coming into the industry.
'Kitchens don't always have the manpower to produce high-volume products, and the youngsters don't want to work split shifts or Friday and Saturday nights anymore. But we've got chefs here working straight shifts Sunday to Thursday, so we can produce what the industry needs.'
Judging from the opinions of the chefs who work with Braehead Foods, not to mention his peers and colleagues throughout the industry, it's fair to say that this ethos is appreciated by most people who know Craig and his work:
'Craig is pioneering changes in the industry that are well-needed,' says Mark Greenaway, head chef at Dryburgh Abbey in the Scottish Borders, and one of the Cook School chefs. 'He educates chefs by taking them on trips to meet suppliers, cookery demonstrations and sponsoring competitions that without his support probably wouldn't go ahead.
'It's very unusual given that he's a businessman and has to make money but still reinvests in the industry.'
Likewise, Tony Borthwick of Edinburgh's Michelin-Star Plumed Horse restaurant in Leith, praises Stevenson's can-do attitude:
'Craig's enthusiasm enhances the industry, and his willingness to support Scottish chefs ensures they get the best product and service so they can do their job,' he says. 'I've been in the industry for 20 years and no one comes close to Craig for support. His motto is 'it's not an issue' and he's built his business with the attitude of 'we don't say no'.'
As the clock nears 8pm on that same Friday evening, it's pretty obvious that tomorrow's ideas are already forming in Stevenson's mind, and he's keen not to let Braehead Foods, the Cook School, or any other part of his business rest on its laurels. As he paces the factory floor, checks orders and glances at his mobile, it's debatable whether he knows what 'resting' involves at all.
www.braeheadfoods.co.ukThis article has been edited from its original version. For the complete feature, please see Catering in Scotland magazine November/December 2009.
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