Counter cultures
Operating in what is arguably one of the most ruthless of industries, supermarkets must constantly create innovative products in order to stay ahead of, or even in, the game. To help them do that, many of the leading retailers are leaning on chefs to source products, develop dishes and, more recently, demonstrate culinary techniques.
In a relatively recent move, Sainsbury's has, for the first time, introduced in-store chefs. There are now five of its 464 stores - Calcot in Reading, Berkshire; Putney and Surbiton in London; London Colney in Hertfordshire; and Monks Cross in York - where they can be found, with another three stores due to recruit their own chefs soon.
While other supermarkets, such as Tesco and Waitrose, have home economists and tutors demonstrating in certain stores, Sainsbury's believes that it can offer customers a better service by using chefs. "Whereas home economists tend to be more focused on the nutritional and dietary side of food, chefs are more geared towards creating something new and interesting out of the ingredients they have to work with," says Sally Hobbs, project manager for Sainsbury's.
Traditionally, chefs employed by supermarkets have not been seen by customers, as they have worked behind closed doors, developing new products. Asda and Sainsbury's have two and three development chefs respectively, while Marks & Spencer, where every product on the shelves is an own-brand item, employs about 35 product developers with a variety of different backgrounds, including the catering industry and food retailing. Tesco, however, has no in-house development chefs, preferring to employ home economists to liaise with the development chefs working for their suppliers. At Waitrose, a chef is employed to manage the kitchen in the sampling facility, where he cooks ready-made products and prepares dishes using new ingredients for sampling by buyers and food technologists.
Supermarkets also use celebrity chefs. Most notably, Jamie Oliver has an input behind the scenes developing new lines and introducing new ingredients at Sainsbury's, as well as being the public face of the company's multimillion-pound advertising campaign. Raymond Blanc writes recipes for Waitrose's in-store monthly promotional literature, and also provides training at his cookery school at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons for staff involved in new product development. And Brian Turner has a contract with Tesco to do 30-40 days' work a year on protein products, which involves recipe development and demonstration work.
Marks & Spencer is prepared take on a chef from outside the company on a consultancy basis if the specialist skills required are not available in-house. More often than not, these chefs - even though they may be household names in their own right - will remain anonymous. However, six chefs involved in creating a range of Chef's Specials sandwiches for the company's 319 food stores are currently being recognised on the packaging. "This time we wanted to reflect the particular style of each chef's cooking," says Kay Coombes, manager of the Marks & Spencer trends team.
The result is a broad range of sandwiches featuring, for instance, the fusion cooking of Peter Gordon of Providores, London, in chicken marinated in aromatic spices with hummus, falafel, juicy pears and a hint of chilli, wrapped in a tortilla; and the British flavour of Paul Heathcote's style of food with his sandwich of rare roast beef, creamy Somerset goats' cheese mayonnaise with rocket and tomatoes on a multi-seed bloomer.
While restaurant chefs have little time to step (or even think) beyond the four walls of the kitchen they work in, the chefs featured here all agree that their current positions have broadened their horizons considerably, providing them with an opportunity to expand their knowledge on the subject that they all love with a passion - food.
The development chef After working for nearly 13 years in the restaurant industry, culminating in the post of sous chef at the Michelin-starred Pool Court at 42 in Leeds, Neil Nugent joined Asda as a development chef for the supermarket's own-brand label. "I felt exhausted by restaurants and was attracted to Asda by the opportunity of being able to make some kind of impact and reach a bigger audience," he says. "We serve some eight to nine million customers a week, which is a considerable difference to the few hundred I used to cook for in restaurants."
Based at the company's head office in Leeds, Nugent is one of two development chefs employed by Asda to develop recipes and select products for the supermarket's Extra Special premium range, the Good for You label and the standard range of goods. "We go from one extreme to another," he says. "One minute we may be tasting traditional smoked salmon, the next it could be baked beans."
In order to research new products and seek inspiration for dishes, Nugent spends time travelling both in the UK and abroad, taking as many as eight trips a year to foreign lands. Recent trips have taken in Thailand and Vietnam, where he attended a food show as well as picking up ideas for new salad ingredients, ready meals, dipping sauces, ambient sauces and frozen products. And in New York he gleaned a range of new food concepts from the city's renowned delis.
"It is very important for us to keep a close eye on what is happening in the latest restaurants, and to this end we receive a monthly document which collates all the major food trends covered by magazines and newspapers," says Nugent. "We also receive regular information on what is going on in the USA."
While Nugent is currently working on developing new lines for summer 2003, including a new range of barbecue dishes, the results of his efforts last year - developing a new range of Extra Special dishes - will reach the shelves next month. These will include a salmon joint filled with a cream cheese mousse, chicken wrapped in ham with red onion marmalade, and a roast tomato and sweet red pepper soup with pesto.
Nugent works closely with Asda's trading team and suppliers to ensure that dishes he has devised are authentically prepared with the minimum of extraneous ingredients.
"We use our technical chef skills all the time to improve the quality of convenience foods," says Nugent, who believes that he has learnt more about food in the past four years than he did in all the years he worked in restaurants. "Through travelling and working in such a wide variety of areas, my horizons have broadened enormously."
Regarding salary and working conditions, Nugent believes that his earnings are probably similar to those of a head chef in a top hotel, but that his overall package, taking into account his pension, share scheme and discounts available to him, is better. "I still work a long day - probably 12 hours," he says. "That's better than the 16 hours I used to do in restaurants, but at least I'm home every night, and with a young family that's important."
The in-store chef
Nick Collingwood joined a team of five in-store chefs when he was recruited by Sainsbury's in September 2001. He was previously head chef of Bruerne's Lock restaurant in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire.
"The idea is to bring live theatre into the store, making food fun, quick, and easy to understand in an unpretentious way," says Collingwood, who is based at Calcot.
A typical day might involve Collingwood undertaking five to seven demonstrations, usually lasting 10 to 15 minutes each. He will either use new ingredients and products, or present familiar ingredients in a new way. He also walks around the store chatting to customers, giving advice and suggestions, as well as being available via telephone or e-mail to answer questions.
Each day Collingwood writes two or three recipes, which are added to a database that customers can access at any time. The most popular request is for dishes that are quick and easy. While the majority of recipes focus on using fresh produce, Collingwood also makes use of the 20,000 or so different product lines on the shelves around him. His recent recipes have included trout fillets served with a spinach and spring onion mash, roasted cod loin set in a stir-fry of Oriental vegetables flavoured with ginger and garlic, and breast of chicken wrapped in Parma ham stuffed with pesto and mozzarella.
"The job is totally customer-focused," says Collingwood. "Anyone doing this kind of job has to like people and be able to communicate easily, as well as being experienced at doing demonstrations in public and continually coming up with new ideas."
Collingwood is constantly challenged. "For instance," he says, "I'm currently working on recipes for a customer who cannot eat any dairy products, sugar, spices, wheat or nuts."
The job has given Collingwood something of a celebrity status in the local area. Not only has he became well known to Sainsbury's customers, he has also become more widely known through a monthly column that he writes for the local paper, the Reading Chronicle. In addition, he visits local schools to give basic culinary lessons.
For Sainsbury's, having a purpose-built kitchen in-store has the twofold benefit of offering an informative service to customers as well as providing a facility for launching and promoting new ranges of Sainsbury's products. It also enables celebrity chefs such as Rick Stein, Ken Hom and Ainsley Harriott to visit for demonstrations and book promotions.
The product developer
A six-year career in the contract catering industry, latterly as chef-manager with Catering & Allied at Cadbury Schweppes, was the launch pad in 1997 for Helen Grinyer's move into product development with Marks & Spencer. Having worked as a product developer on meat pies and prepared vegetables, Grinyer currently works in the bakery department, a role she loves.
Although based at Marks & Spencer's head office in London, she spends a lot of time out and about. As well as keeping an eye on the stores' 130 in-house bakeries, she also goes on fact-finding tours, eating her way around bakeries, food shops and restaurants - most recently she visited Brighton. She also regularly visits suppliers, including one in France, as well as looking for inspiration further afield, as on a recent trip to Italy.
Besides working in a variety of locations, Grinyer also enjoys a salary and benefits package which she describes as being "miles better" than she would probably be able to command in the catering industry. Marks & Spencer is currently quoting salaries of £38,000-£64,000 plus bonuses and car allowances for product developers.
Although she occasionally misses the buzz of the kitchen and the immediate deadlines of a busy lunch service, Grinyer says that she would now find it hard to leave behind a job that allows her the opportunity to use the very best ingredients. "There are no holds barred," she says. "If I want to use the finest sultanas and raisins, then there is nothing to stop me from doing so.
"The attention to detail here is phenomenal. If I wanted carrots when working in contract catering, I would just order them. Here, I consider exactly what variety will work best for the product I am working on. I think about whether they will be available all year round, as well as determining the colour, sweetness and texture I require."
Moving from catering into the retail industry has required Grinyer to adopt a whole new culture. "Catering is more immediate," she says. "Retail involves an enormous amount of background work and research before we can even think about getting a product launched. Even the language is different - here we talk about the ‘eat' of a product, rather than the ‘taste'.
"The job requires a strong character, in order to ensure that you get what you want from your suppliers, as well as vision and good organisational skills. But, most importantly, you must be a real foodie to do the job well. It would be so easy to get swept along with the manufacturing process, but all the time my love for food is at the front of my mind - and that is something I've had with me since my days in the catering industry."
