Something special
It's 7am on a dark, wintry morning and eight trucks bearing customised JUGG number plates roll out from a jumbled collection of buildings in north London on the first leg of their journey delivering Jugg's food throughout the country.
Jugg Foods supplies pubs, hotels, lodges and leisure clubs with quality hand-made meals. Supplied in either single or multi-size portions, the range encompasses starters and main courses plus dips, pasta toppings and sauces.
Dedication to producing "something special", the ability to keep abreast of current food trends, and a commitment to producing high-standard products are the qualities that see Jugg's prospering and looking to expand beyond the 120,000 portions currently produced each week.
At the helm of Jugg Foods are two former chefs, managing director Roger Ibbott and operations director Donald Bruce. They've pooled their expertise, gleaned from Grosvenor House, London, and several Scottish hotels, respectively, and now spend their days concocting and testing new recipes for customers.
Back in 1971 Ibbott began the business with a staff of two; today the company has an annual turnover of £5.5m and a staff of 70 involved in preparing, cooking, packing and distributing ready-made food.
Jugg's team peel and chop mountains of onions, peppers, mushrooms and potatoes; de-bone countless fish; and slice enormous quantities of lamb, pork, beef and chicken, all by hand, to produce the 100 dishes listed in its catalogue. A further 50 dishes are prepared for customers with special requirements.
Dishes such as spicy vegetable salsa (£1.40 per 12oz portion); seafood prawn Creole (£2.55 per 10oz portion); and beef bourguignonne (£13.50 per 5lb tray) are a sample of what's available. The speciality sauces include orange sauce (£1.25 per 10oz tray), Madeira (£1.25) and spicy Caribbean (£1.35).
The unit operates much the same as a restaurant kitchen. Prepped meat and vegetables are chilled until required by the chefs.
Next door to the kitchen stands one employee measuring out spices and flavourings to be used in dishes such as jambalaya, or Raffles lamb and mango curry. The jars and tins surrounding him are sourced from around the world as part of Jugg's commitment to using quality ingredients.
The quest for the best brings olives from Morocco and Greece; sun-dried tomatoes and pesto from Italy; lamb and the white fish, hoki, from New Zealand; and Norwegian and Scottish salmon. Ibbott says: "If you want quality and flavour in dishes, you can't afford to compromise on ingredients. Our customers expect high-quality dishes. We ensure we deliver just that."
Thirty chefs work side by side, cooking at gas-fired boilers. Ibbott prefers the somewhat old-fashioned boilers to anything else he has tried and has no plans to replace them. The 21 100-litre boilers, some 60 years old, are in constant use, sautéing and simmering vegetables and meat.
Dishes are cooked in the traditional manner, as if preparing for 10, not 100. Portions of meat are individually weighed by hand, vegetables added and sauces spooned over, then the dishes are blast-chilled for 24 hours. After which they are screened through a metal-detecting machine "just to be absolutely certain" no contamination has occurred, before being loaded up for national distribution.
Meat-free meals
Vegetarian dishes account for 20% of total production. Bruce explains: "The key to our vegetarian success is our willingness to experiment. We don't set out to make exclusive vegetarian dishes, just good food that anyone would eat. Avocado and corn bake, coated with spicy taco sauce and cheese sauce and topped with grated cheese is one of the premium vegetarian dishes from our range of 14 [cost £2.25 per 14oz portion]", explains Ibbott. Leeks are a fashionable vegetable this year, according to Ibbott, hence the inclusion of harvest vegetable and leek crumble (cost £1.55 per 12oz portion) on the list.
Single portions of a particular dish are sold in packs of eight or 10, while multi-portion packs contain 5lb of a particular line. A willingness to sell a pack of mixed dishes, with free delivery on a minimum order of £100, ensures Jugg's food is available to independent operators as well as large brewery chains.
Ibbott and Bruce constantly monitor the latest food trends. Ideas are carefully adapted to suit Jugg's customers' requirements. They can turn around a dish from the initial concept, through the careful trials of cooking, tasting and adjusting, to inclusion in the range on offer, in just two weeks. Bruce claims he tastes at least 85% of all batches cooked. "Roger might appear to have the ideas for new dishes, but I refine them and make them work," he laughs.
Plans are afoot to build on a single site. This will not only allow Jugg's to expand its range, but will help alleviate the constant traffic between the present hotchpotch of buildings on two sites. Processing can then be streamlined in one factory - although Ibbott views it as essentially a "big kitchen" rather than a factory. "There's no reason why we can't take our cottage industry and build it," he says, tongue-in-cheek.
