Throughout the winter we are running a number of great ways to save time and money with SCOFF - the real food takeaway in London
MID WEEK SPECIAL £10
Choose any Pie, Pasta or burger with a side dish PLUS ONE of the following: 2nd side; home made pud; whoileearth organic drink
e.g. Shepherd's Pie, vegetables and chocolate brownie £10
Available Monday - Thursday (phone orders only)
Dinner for Two - 2 Free Puds
Enjoy some special time together. Order 2 mains and 2 sides and get 2 home made puds FREE
24 Hour notice Discount. Buy 1, get one 1/2 price
Plan ahead! Order your SCOFF at least one night in advance and enjoy a 'buy one, get one half price' offer on all mains, sides and desserts (Cannot be used with any other offer)
Feed the family for £6.25 per head
Family sized portions of your favourites with vegetables OR salad and a 500ml tub of organic ice cream (serves 2 adulst/2 children or 3/4 adults). Choose from: Shepherd's Pie, beef lasagne, meatballs and pasta, macaroni cheese or vegetable crumble. Great option for a busy week night.
Host a SCOFF Dinner Party from £15 per head
Keep it fun a stress free with a SCOFF with FRIENDS menu delivered to your door before your guests arrive. Keep warm in a low oven until you are ready to eat. Includes nibbles, mains, sides and puds. Download menus from the website
We know this a pain but the above offers can only be processed over the phone as our website cannot at the moment take special offers. If you want to continue ordering via the website and take advantage of these offers then the relevant 'discount' will be added in points to your account once you have placed you order for use against future orders. Please email discounts@scoff.co.uk with a copy of your web order reference to have the points added to your account.
WIN A WEEKEND AWAY AND/OR A MEAL FOR TWO
Complete the short survey's/competitions on the ritght hand side of this page and have your chance of getting a little winter pick me up (check out the cottages at http://www.holwelldartmoor.co.uk/)
Monday 24 November 2008
Saturday 25 October 2008
Surviving the Credit Crunch - don't forget the small farmers
We have been customers of John Rowswell's for many years and he grows and supplies all our vegetables and most of the salad we use.
The Rowswells have lived in the Somerset village of Barrington for 500 years.Ten years ago John Rowswell’s family faced an uncertain future. For almost a century, they had kept cattle on a small farm near Ilminster but with farming in decline were struggling to make ends meet. John’s brave new idea was to specialise in unusual varieties and to do it exceptionally. Today he is many a South West chef’s favourite producer as he personally delivers 50-60 varieties of year round, colourful and unfamiliar goodies bursting with freshness and natural flavour. Opponents to the supermarket’s prepacked, ‘wash everything in chlorine’ culture will fall in love with the fields, sheds and barns that make up this near-organic, leguminous treasure chest.A trip around his farm shop is an education in just exactly what can be grown with a little imagination and without the need for pesticides and chemicals. ‘Tigerella’ tomatoes, Romanesco, a sweet crunchy cauliflower, black and golden French beans and red Jerusalem artichokes are just the tip of the iceberg. There are sixteen types of tomato, at least seven prolific varieties of chilli and a repertoire of nine different potatoes including the Pink Fir apple potato, a waxy, old-fashioned spud favoured by the likes of Rick Stein. Salad lovers are more than catered for with seven kinds of lettuce and nine types of salad leaf including Japanese red mustard and mizuna.It’s hard not to be swept away by the enthusiasm that John exudes. His passion for the novel means that he is now busy preparing for a monster harvest of banana shallots, long favoured by the French, and so called because of their shape. He is the only person in the country growing these and last October planted half a million from seed that were quickly snapped up by top hotels and restaurants. In 2006 John was made the UKTV Food Hero of the Year for the South West and last year he was honoured as the Best Food Producer in Somerset.
This recession is going to be deep. But life must go on. Small business' will be hit very hard and food business' especially early when consumers tighten their belts. Restaurants with lower customer numbers are already affecting many of the top class producers we work with we are told. What they do is farm responsibly and traditionally. It is not posh produce, but it is more expensive than factory farmed produce (but umpteen times as good). They protect the countryside and if we as a nation could get our heads around prioritising food then not only would we be healthier, but also the protection of our countryside for generations to come would be secure.
We are building what we hope to be a recession surviving business (I don't think any business is recession proof). Tom Aikens restaurant business has already gone to the wall (I suspect because he was ill advised in the past couple of years and had overgeared himself, spending many hundreds of thousands of pounds launching and refurbing his restaurant and fish and chip shop). Small suppliers have so far been left out to dry by all reports. Perhaps they will get paid in time, I certainly hope so, but for the time being their cash flow will come under extraordinary strain, and the banks will not be particularly interested. I expect a lot more to follow.
What to the future then. Already there are reports of people shopping for cheaper food. I know I am a foodie but the idea that when life gets tough people resort to buying cheap food (perhaps we are so undeveloped in this country we have not connected the fact that 'garbage in, garbage out' does not only apply to computer processing). Feed yourselves well, your body and mind will be well nourished and certainly ready to face the competitive world we live in. Now, more than ever we need to prepare ourselves for being innovitive and we are not going to be able to do this without feeding our minds & bodies properly.
Cheap supermarket food, lacking in any kind of nutrition, and ,marketed to the unsuspecting public (Tesco was selling soup for 4p recently - well water and additives to those who could read the label) have in my opinion been the cause of a great many social issues we see today. Society has stopped feeling responsible and the government have helped feed the notions of millions whom have developed a selfish attitude to life and a 'what's in it for me' persona. The dumbing down of peoples eating habits is just one of many examples of how society has changed - I believe for the worse. Do you see the Chinese or the Indian's, Greeks's, Italians doing the same - NO, their nutrition stays at the top of their shopping list. We need to change or watch out.
So - what of our future. Restaurants are coming under strain and this has a knock on effect for small producers. Luckily we seem to be bucking the trend. We were interviewed by Sky News last night as we seem to be picking up the fallout from lost restaurant sales (I suppose we are a sort of no frills solution, same quality without the glitz). Our small producers, such as John, needs ours and your support to get through all this.
The Rowswells have lived in the Somerset village of Barrington for 500 years.Ten years ago John Rowswell’s family faced an uncertain future. For almost a century, they had kept cattle on a small farm near Ilminster but with farming in decline were struggling to make ends meet. John’s brave new idea was to specialise in unusual varieties and to do it exceptionally. Today he is many a South West chef’s favourite producer as he personally delivers 50-60 varieties of year round, colourful and unfamiliar goodies bursting with freshness and natural flavour. Opponents to the supermarket’s prepacked, ‘wash everything in chlorine’ culture will fall in love with the fields, sheds and barns that make up this near-organic, leguminous treasure chest.A trip around his farm shop is an education in just exactly what can be grown with a little imagination and without the need for pesticides and chemicals. ‘Tigerella’ tomatoes, Romanesco, a sweet crunchy cauliflower, black and golden French beans and red Jerusalem artichokes are just the tip of the iceberg. There are sixteen types of tomato, at least seven prolific varieties of chilli and a repertoire of nine different potatoes including the Pink Fir apple potato, a waxy, old-fashioned spud favoured by the likes of Rick Stein. Salad lovers are more than catered for with seven kinds of lettuce and nine types of salad leaf including Japanese red mustard and mizuna.It’s hard not to be swept away by the enthusiasm that John exudes. His passion for the novel means that he is now busy preparing for a monster harvest of banana shallots, long favoured by the French, and so called because of their shape. He is the only person in the country growing these and last October planted half a million from seed that were quickly snapped up by top hotels and restaurants. In 2006 John was made the UKTV Food Hero of the Year for the South West and last year he was honoured as the Best Food Producer in Somerset.
This recession is going to be deep. But life must go on. Small business' will be hit very hard and food business' especially early when consumers tighten their belts. Restaurants with lower customer numbers are already affecting many of the top class producers we work with we are told. What they do is farm responsibly and traditionally. It is not posh produce, but it is more expensive than factory farmed produce (but umpteen times as good). They protect the countryside and if we as a nation could get our heads around prioritising food then not only would we be healthier, but also the protection of our countryside for generations to come would be secure.
We are building what we hope to be a recession surviving business (I don't think any business is recession proof). Tom Aikens restaurant business has already gone to the wall (I suspect because he was ill advised in the past couple of years and had overgeared himself, spending many hundreds of thousands of pounds launching and refurbing his restaurant and fish and chip shop). Small suppliers have so far been left out to dry by all reports. Perhaps they will get paid in time, I certainly hope so, but for the time being their cash flow will come under extraordinary strain, and the banks will not be particularly interested. I expect a lot more to follow.
What to the future then. Already there are reports of people shopping for cheaper food. I know I am a foodie but the idea that when life gets tough people resort to buying cheap food (perhaps we are so undeveloped in this country we have not connected the fact that 'garbage in, garbage out' does not only apply to computer processing). Feed yourselves well, your body and mind will be well nourished and certainly ready to face the competitive world we live in. Now, more than ever we need to prepare ourselves for being innovitive and we are not going to be able to do this without feeding our minds & bodies properly.
Cheap supermarket food, lacking in any kind of nutrition, and ,marketed to the unsuspecting public (Tesco was selling soup for 4p recently - well water and additives to those who could read the label) have in my opinion been the cause of a great many social issues we see today. Society has stopped feeling responsible and the government have helped feed the notions of millions whom have developed a selfish attitude to life and a 'what's in it for me' persona. The dumbing down of peoples eating habits is just one of many examples of how society has changed - I believe for the worse. Do you see the Chinese or the Indian's, Greeks's, Italians doing the same - NO, their nutrition stays at the top of their shopping list. We need to change or watch out.
So - what of our future. Restaurants are coming under strain and this has a knock on effect for small producers. Luckily we seem to be bucking the trend. We were interviewed by Sky News last night as we seem to be picking up the fallout from lost restaurant sales (I suppose we are a sort of no frills solution, same quality without the glitz). Our small producers, such as John, needs ours and your support to get through all this.
Friday 28 March 2008
Free Range Chicken
The recent series on TV by Jamie and Hugh F-W has had a remarkable response in the supermarkets. Animal welfare is back on the agenda now and not just because of a respect for living creatures, but also because these higher welfare animal production methods actually result in a product that tastes better and does us more good (grass fed cattle are higher in Omega 3 than barn reared and fed). What is interesting is that although the majority of the nation is waking up to buying more responsibly in their everyday shopping this does not cross over into the meal replacement market. There are many gastropubs that have been championing free range etc. for years (us amongst them), but look at the growth in popularity of say Dominoes, Pizza Express, Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Look at the ingredient list for Dominoes and see that their broiler chicken comes from Thailand. In fact, in the majority of household named take away's and food delivery companies (e.g. Bombay Bicycle Club - a very well respected Indian food delivery business - owned by the same people as Gourmet Burger Kitchen) don't use free range chicken in their restaurants. How many people ask them the question? Not many I am told.
We don't get asked a lot either. I had thought for a while this was because we were good at advertising the fact that we only source free range meat but perhaps it is because people just have not made the leap to suggest they have choice when eating a meal replacement - whether in a restuarant or take away/food delivery that the meat is free range. To make the most of supporting Hugh we should all ensure that when we order food, wherever it is, we are sure of the provenance of that food. Hugh's Chicken Out Campaign has demonstrated very clearly that left to the maufacturers, caterers and supermarkets that the quality of our food, from how it is sourced to how it is cooked can become so out of kilter with how many of us used to beleive things were. We had trusted these people to act responsibly and they chose not to, in the pursuit of profit. It seems that the only way to change this is from consumer pressure - so come on, next time you eat out or eat a ready meal or take away, make sure that you know the provenance of the product.
Tuesday 26 February 2008
Pig Industry in Crisis
This is important. It amazes me how many intelligent people just cannot get their head around the issue of cheap food. We struggle as a business to convince our potential customers that the high levels of animal welfare and cost of raw ingredients that we use are important. Not just for health as that is obvious, but for our national landscape.
We at SCOFF support all these artisan producers whom are being hit so hard and it is about time that everyone woke up and understood the issues.
Please ... If you can spare 5 minutes then read the following article to find out what is happening to the industry and then make informed decisions about where you buy your meat, supermarkets or farmers markets/butchers?
Telegraph Pig Crisis
We at SCOFF support all these artisan producers whom are being hit so hard and it is about time that everyone woke up and understood the issues.
Please ... If you can spare 5 minutes then read the following article to find out what is happening to the industry and then make informed decisions about where you buy your meat, supermarkets or farmers markets/butchers?
Telegraph Pig Crisis
Saturday 19 January 2008
Where does the time go!
It has been a long time since I managed to write anything down here! Having had a few days off over Christmas I enjoyed reading the papers and having time to relax - but then an article in one of the Sundays announced that if you were to have a blog then you needed to update it everyday! Well, I know quarterly updates are probably too infrequent butv every day - I wouldn't have time to run the business.
It is pretty hectic and 2008 has kicked off really well with 3 new arms to the business: school food (kidsscoff), business food(cityscoff) and pub food (pubscoff - back where we started!)
We started providing school lunches at Eridge House (www.eridgehouse.co.uk) in Fulham at the start of the year. The lunches have been a big hit with the kids.
We are about to start supplying food at The Bricklayer's Arm's (www.bricklayers-arms.co.uk) in Putney from Monday 21st January. This fantastic real ale pub is the perfect place for Scoff and we are very excited to be able to work alongside Becky and her team at the pub.
..and to finish off last week we managed to feed 170 people in a Berkeley Square office with only 24 hours notice (which entailed a trip to Devon to restock chicken from Creedy Carver and vegetables from John Rowswell).
So all good, more to come soon..........
It is pretty hectic and 2008 has kicked off really well with 3 new arms to the business: school food (kidsscoff), business food(cityscoff) and pub food (pubscoff - back where we started!)
We started providing school lunches at Eridge House (www.eridgehouse.co.uk) in Fulham at the start of the year. The lunches have been a big hit with the kids.
We are about to start supplying food at The Bricklayer's Arm's (www.bricklayers-arms.co.uk) in Putney from Monday 21st January. This fantastic real ale pub is the perfect place for Scoff and we are very excited to be able to work alongside Becky and her team at the pub.
..and to finish off last week we managed to feed 170 people in a Berkeley Square office with only 24 hours notice (which entailed a trip to Devon to restock chicken from Creedy Carver and vegetables from John Rowswell).
So all good, more to come soon..........
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