What do you do when you tire of long hours in a busy kitchen,
but do not want to leave the local food community that has grown
up around you? This was the dilemma facing Nick Barclay when he
decided that he wanted to spend more time with his young family
and less time standing over a hot stove. After six successful,
award-winning years at the Barclay House Hotel in Looe, Nick was
ready to swap the 24/7 hotel and restaurant lifestyle for "new
ventures and challenges".
It was, he says, a question of quitting while still ahead. For
the food and drink producers of South East Cornwall, the
prospect of losing one of their champions must have been
devastating - since arriving in the county Nick has been at the
forefront of the change to serve the best local produce. Not
only has he talked the talk, unlike many others he genuinely
walked the walk. They need not have worried.
"I've always embraced change and I like to be challenged by
change, and my partner Matt Chatfield came up with an idea for
what has become food4myholiday," he explains.
In essence this is taking the local food supply chain one step
further, on to the plates and tables of holidaymakers visiting
Cornwall. Having run six luxury self-catering cottages as part
of the hotel he knew that visitors prefer easy options.
"The last thing people want as they are driving down the A30 or
A38 is to stop or find groceries when the car is full, and at
that stage they're not concerned whether it is local or not. So
we thought, why not deliver it to their holiday home?
"Then wearing my dad's hat I thought, it's great supplying local
food but I would like some brown sauce with my bacon, what about
teabags, bananas and other essential ingredients?
"There are quite a lot of people doing Cornish food hampers but
not offering those things that people want from a supermarket.
I'm a realist, local food is great but you have to give people
what they want so if that's Diet Coke, we'll deliver Diet Coke."
It may be anecdotal, but it seems that the rule of thumb for
self-catering holidays is that visitors either bring all their
food with them, or they ask where the nearest supermarket is, or
they get Tesco to deliver to their holiday accommodation.
Food4myholiday offers a chef-selected range of great local
produce along with all the other holiday essentials. And there's
more. Nick will not only deliver on the day of arrival but has
already found himself delivering repeat orders later. And with
advance notice he will cook dinner parties for a selected number
of people.
He believes that offering top-notch local food without any
effort involved encourages visitors to go out and search for
more themselves. "So we use the website, not just for ordering
but to give them lots of stories about the people we do business
with, places to go, the scenery and tourist attractions.
"We want them to understand that by choosing us, rather than
Tesco, they are helping support local farmers, small producers,
that they are reducing food miles at the same time as buying
something with real provenance that is helping to keep the
Cornish countryside alive."
After a local soft-launch, working with businesses he already
knew on both the food production and holiday accommodation side,
he soon found interest growing without any real marketing or
publicity. It was a good way of making sure the system worked
before going all out for the 2008 season.
"Starting at the end of last summer gave me a chance to see what
it will be like this season, and to fine-tune and work on it,"
he said.
For holiday cottage owners it is an ideal way of offering
something extra with no additional work or cost involved. They
are served by a separate website, and send a flyer about the
service when visitors book.
Two days before arriving, the holidaymakers place their order
with Nick and his team, who then select the produce, assemble
the order and deliver by 6pm on the day of arrival.
As a holiday cottage owner himself he knows that changeover days
are a nightmare and it is essential not to deliver too early. At
each location the goods are delivered, the chilled goods are put
in the fridge, others left in old-fashioned brown paper bags,
clearly labelled. It is this attention to detail, going the
extra foodie mile (while probably saving several thousand over
the course of a season) that make this a winner.
Using the most up-to-date technology makes it easy to update the
website to reflect seasonality and availability. Nick adds that
he is happy to leave the admin to his partner while he
concentrates on "the foodie side".
However, as you might imagine for a man with Nick's drive,
energy and vision, food4myholidays is just one strand of many
other ideas he wants to try out. One is as a kitchen coach,
working with restaurants that are not doing well. But unlike
Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Nick sees this as taking a
long-term approach.
"It's something I've always wanted to do and I've already got
clients on board just through word of mouth," he explains.
"As well as showing them how to write menus and wine lists I can
bring new ideas to keep them on track and motivated."
Fans of Nick's cooking will be relieved to hear that he has not
hung up his chef's whites altogether. After an evening guest
chef-ing, which he does regularly for friends such as Richard
McGeown at Couch's in Polperro, he admits that he starts looking
at trade magazines to see which restaurants are up for sale,
until his wife reminds him why he decided to leave the hotel
behind.
"I still get a buzz from it and I can keep in touch with some of
my loyal customers, keep my hand in at the stove. It's great
because guests like to see us in a different light, and two
chefs working together is a lot of fun."
He is hinting that he may return to the stove, somewhere, by the
end of the year. But for now watch out for his vans around North
and South East Cornwall, helping more visitors to enjoy Cornwall
on a plate. |
