No Added Salt or Sugar

I have just spent the week in our Devon Development kitchen working on the latest Special for our ‘blackboard’ – really pleased with the results even if I do say so! Organic salmon, poached to order with a warm cannellini bean salad. The best thing about this dish for us is that because of the technology we use for delivery of our hot food the salmon arrives in perfect condition to the customer. It is also incredibly healthy but tastes great.

I was in the Fulham shop on Friday night having trained the guys on how to prepare the dish. I met a customer early on ordering his 'Bangers and Mash'. Turns out we have now become a great alternative to his usual convenience of 'Simply M + S' - just what we set out to do! What he did mention to me was the thing he liked (other than the taste) of our meals was that unlike lots of other convenience food he did not wake up in the middle of the night all thirsty because of the excess salt in the food - in fact, I told him, there is very little salt used in our food and hence a discussion on why the food then tastes so good and how this is acheived - when other ready meal options fail.

The simple answer is great ingredients - cooked properly. Simple as that. It is amazing though what some chefs add to dishes. I have found some we have employed over the past few years to be very partial to adding sugar and over seasoning food. It is very important to us for people to recognise the quality of our food as well as it being a ‘convenience option’. We don’t add excess salt or any sugar (unless it is a pudding and the recipe calls for it). I am a self trained cook and so I have been lucky enough not to have anyone showing me poor cooking skills in catering college (see Oliver Peyton’s latest rant on catering colleges). So we do things the old fashioned way, with great ingredients grown the old fashioned way.

By the by we ordered from a competitor on Thursday and the hummus and tzatziki seemed loaded with sugar (to the point they did not actually taste at all like they should). The kids rejected them (usually our final test on any menu item), and even Tom, whom likes most things sweet left the hummus (he noshes SCOFF hummus) and said he liked it, left it. (Note: Tom is not 3 yet so his comments should always be taken lightly, though not his taste buds!)