food and drink – Page 86 – The NEN

Environment Secretary thanks the food and drink industry

To those working hard to feed the nation,

In the face of what is perhaps the greatest health challenge this country has faced in our lifetime, I want to pay tribute to all those who are working around the clock to keep the nation fed – in our fields, processing plants, factories, wholesalers, stores and takeaways and all of those moving goods around the country and to our homes.

The last three weeks have been stressful and difficult for everyone working to feed the country and provide them with other essential items. Food retailers have faced an unprecedented increase in demand and those working in food production and distribution have had to work harder than ever to ensure that food and drink are kept on the shelves.

The Government has recently taken some unprecedented steps to close cinemas, leisure centres and other public venues and to instruct people to stay at home, protect our NHS and save lives.

However, there are many key workers that are crucial to the resilience of our country. Our NHS staff will be working harder than ever in the weeks ahead. Those of you working to provide the nation with food and other essentials are also delivering an absolutely vital service.

I am in regular dialogue with the food and drink industry and the Government has offered guidance to employers to ensure that when you do your job, you can do so safely. The advice of Public Health England is that there is very little risk of the virus being spread on food or packaging.

Everyone working in the food and drink industry has rallied in an extraordinary way to respond to this unprecedented challenge. Having worked in the food industry myself, I am personally enormously proud and thankful for all the work that you have done in recent weeks, and will be asked to do in the weeks ahead. In many cases you are the hidden heroes, and the country is grateful for all that you have done.

Yours sincerely,

George Eustice

Update on Tesco response to Coronavirus

We wrote to you last week setting out the measures we are taking to provide more of the food that people need, in a safe and clean environment (writes Tesco CEO DAVE LEWIS).

Our colleagues have risen brilliantly to the challenges of recent days, but this challenge is unprecedented and inevitably, despite our hard work and best intentions, not everything has or will go exactly to plan. But we’ll take learnings, we’ll be informed by the latest guidance from the Government, and we’ll keep going.

Importantly, we need your help to do this.

With that in mind, following the Prime Minister’s recent announcement, we wanted to write and update you on the measures we continue to take, and what new things you will begin to see in our stores in the next few days.

Food for all

To ensure more people have access to everyday essentials, we have introduced a store-wide restriction of 3 items per customer on every product line and removed multi-buy promotions.
In product areas where demand is particularly high, we have simplified our range to get more of the most popular products on shelves.
We have introduced a special hour in stores for NHS workers as a thank you for all they are doing. On Sundays, they can browse our large stores and select their shopping an hour before the checkouts open. All we ask is, if you’re an NHS worker, that you bring a form of ID to store, such as an NHS staff card. We have listened to feedback and are looking at how we can extend this to include extra days from next week.
To ensure our more vulnerable and elderly customers can shop for what they need in our large stores, we have prioritised one hour every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning between 9-10am.
We know that it’s difficult right now to get a delivery slot for online shopping. We are at full capacity for the next few weeks and we ask those who are able to safely come to stores to do so, instead of shopping online, so that we can start to free up more slots for the more vulnerable.
We are looking at every opportunity to increase the number of slots available. As we increase our capacity, we will also set aside more of these slots for our most vulnerable customers.
We have more stock coming into stores every day, with up to double the usual amounts of key essentials arriving – but we need everyone’s help: please buy only what you need, so that there is enough for everyone.

Safety for everyone

To ensure we are doing everything possible to reduce the risk of infection for our customers and colleagues, we will begin to introduce new social distancing measures in stores in the coming days:

Floor markings in our car parks will help you to maintain safe distances when queuing.
Where necessary, we will limit the flow of people coming into our stores to ensure they don’t get too congested.
Hand sanitisers are being placed around our stores for customers and colleagues to use, as well as extra cleaning products to wipe down your trolley or basket.
In some stores, we will introduce directional floor markings and new signage, to create a safe flow around the store.
New floor markings will help you to keep a safe distance from others while waiting to pay.
We are installing protective screens at our checkouts.
Where possible, we will create separate entrances and exits to our stores, so that it’s easier to keep a safe distance from other shoppers.

Supporting our colleagues

We are fully supporting our team of more than 300,000 Tesco colleagues, many of whom will be affected by this situation personally or will need to care for their own loved ones. The countless messages of gratitude I’ve received are testament to the incredible job they are doing, at a time when our stores have never been busier. Your small gestures and kind words really do go a long way.
We have almost 3,000 colleagues over the age of 70 and we are fully supporting them, as well as our vulnerable and pregnant colleagues, with 12 weeks’ fully paid absence.
Colleagues who are in isolation are receiving full pay from their first day of absence, so that nobody finds themselves in a situation where they have to work when unwell.
To help support our team, we are recruiting an additional 20,000 temporary colleagues. We’ve already appointed 12,500 new colleagues, but we will need more. We are also bringing in 8,000 new colleagues in driving roles, and we are training them as fast as we can.

It’s a challenging time for the whole country, but we are committed to playing our part in feeding the nation and to keeping everyone safe.

We also need your help to change the way you shop with us, so here are a few simple requests to help us serve you better:

Please check your store’s opening hours in advance.
Before you leave home, please bring enough bags for your shop. If it’s raining, don’t forget an umbrella too, in case you need to queue outside the store.
Try to shop with no more than one other person, which will help to reduce the number of people in-store at any one time.
Please use our cleaning stations to wipe your trolley, basket, or Scan as you Shop handset.
If possible, use card or contactless payments.
Please avoid shopping during our dedicated times for vulnerable and elderly people, and NHS workers, and be kind to our colleagues as they’re working hard to serve you; we’re all in this together.

We want to thank our suppliers, our colleagues – and especially you, our customers – for understanding and helping.

We know these are some big changes, and we will all need to do our very best to adjust. We will continue to update you as things change.

Together, we can do this.

Dave Lewis

Tesco CEO

Garden Centres ‘open for business’

A message from Dobbies Garden Centres:

We will be open for business this morning.

We have carefully reviewed the guidance provided by Government, which clearly states that food shops, home and hardware shops, and pet shops should continue to operate to provide essential goods.

In all of these categories Dobbies already provides a comprehensive range, sales in these categories represent 70% of our turnover.

We have therefore taken the decision to continue to operate our stores to serve our local communities.

There will, however, be strict procedures in place to protect our customers and team members:

Limiting the number of customers that can be in the store
Social distancing rules will apply requiring that we keep two metres apart at all times

We will be working very hard today to bring these changes into immediate effect.

Thank you for your support in advance.

The Dobbies team

Morrisons introduces NHS Hour

Many NHS workers have said that they are struggling to buy the products they need at the beginning or the end of their shift, as supermarkets have seen unprecedented demand.

So we’re responding by introducing an NHS hour at all our stores at the beginning of every day, Monday to Saturday, so NHS workers can shop for groceries for themselves and their families.

This will be from 7am to 8am and a Morrisons colleague will be on the door to let staff with an NHS badge in.

Our new opening hours for all our other customers are 8am to 8pm, Monday to Saturday. On Sundays we’ll be open as usual.

We promise to play our part in feeding the nation – it’s more than our job.

David Potts,

Chief Executive, Morrisons

Another update from Sainbury’s

A further update from Sainsbury’s Chief Executive Mike Coupe:

We are continuing to work around the clock to feed the nation in these challenging times.

Many of you have written to me in the past 24 hours to tell me that you like the idea of priority shopping for NHS workers and for elderly and disabled customers, but that these should be at different times.

We have therefore decided to allow NHS and social care workers to shop in our supermarkets for half an hour before they open each day. So anyone with NHS ID will be able to shop from 07.30-08.00 every day from Monday to Saturday.

We’re delighted to be able to offer priority shopping to all the hard-working NHS staff across the country who are working so hard to keep us all safe and well.

In addition to this, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all our supermarkets will dedicate 08.00-09.00 to serving elderly customers, disabled customers and carers.

Many of you have also asked me about priority online delivery slots for elderly, disabled and vulnerable customers.

We have been able to identify a number of customers as elderly and vulnerable based on the information they have given us previously. These details would include date of birth and if you have ever used our vulnerable customer helpline. For all of these customers, we will email you today (Sunday) with information on when slots will become available.

If you do not receive an email and you consider yourself to be vulnerable, please visit our Groceries Online website on Monday for information on how to contact us.

We are also working as quickly as possible on an option for people to register themselves as disabled and vulnerable on their online shopping accounts.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to get in touch with me and share your feedback – it’s because of you that we are making these changes and we will continue to listen, learn and adapt during this uncertain time.

Best wishes

Mike

Update from Sainsbury’s Chief Executive Mike Coupe

I wanted to write to you again to update you on the steps we are taking to make sure everyone has access to food and essential items. I’m also sharing more information about how we are supporting our colleagues in these challenging times and how you can help.

An increasing number of you have told me that you’re not always able to get the items that you need when you need them. We are working with our suppliers to get even more stock of essential items and we are adding warehouse capacity on a daily basis.

You will have seen that we put restrictions in place this week to ensure that more products are on shelf for longer.

From Monday 23rd March, we are consolidating our opening hours and all our supermarkets will be open from 8am to 8pm, Monday-Saturday, including those with an Argos store. Sunday opening, Sainsbury’s Local and petrol station opening times will stay the same.

This means we can focus our store colleagues’ time on keeping shelves stocked and serving our customers well during the times that most of you are already shopping.

Last Thursday, we set aside an hour for elderly and vulnerable shoppers in our supermarkets. Many of you have told me how much you appreciated this and that you would like this to become a regular event. Some of you also said we should extend this to members of our hardworking NHS and Social Care workers. And we will be doing just that.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all our supermarkets will dedicate 8am – 9am to serving elderly, disabled and vulnerable customers, as well as NHS and Social Care workers.

They will just need to show us their pass or ID when they visit. Some of you fed back that you couldn’t find what you wanted during that hour, so we will try our best to have essential items on shelf for these customers.

We will be working to keep our shelves well stocked and would encourage customers to arrive throughout the hour to prevent queues forming and to help everyone keep a safe distance.

Hundreds of you have written to me to thank our amazing colleagues who are working around the clock to serve our customers. A number of you have also shared your concerns for the safety and wellbeing of our colleagues.

I want you to know that we are doing all we can to support everyone who works in our business.

We have committed to paying all colleagues who are unwell or need to self-isolate for the full period of fourteen days. We have also committed to paying vulnerable and elderly colleagues in full if the government decides they should isolate for 12 weeks.

We hope this will go some way to helping our teams through this uncertain time and we are looking at other ways to thank our colleagues for their extraordinary efforts.

To keep our colleagues safe, I need to ask again for your help. Please do your best to stand one metre away from colleagues in our stores where you can. And we would prefer you to pay with card rather than cash at our tills.

Please also treat our colleagues and other customers with kindness and respect. These are unprecedented circumstances and our colleagues are being asked to come to work every day while so many others are being asked to stay at home.

We all need them to keep coming to work to feed the nation – a small thank you goes a really long way.

I hope you will join us in looking out for each other and the communities that we serve.

Best wishes

Mike

Co-op to donate to donate £1.5m worth of food to FareShare

Convenience retailer Co-op has announced that from next week, it will be donating £1.5 million worth of food to FareShare, in a show of co-operation to help boost stocks, support local communities and those citizens who are struggling amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

FareShare – the UK’s largest hunger fighting charity – supports over 11,000 charities and community groups, including food banks and Co-op has pledged £1.5 million of essential food products which will be split amongst FareShare’s 23 regional centres, and then supplied to a network of local community groups across the country.

Food banks have seen a significant drop in donations as the Coronavirus takes hold, but it is in these times of national crisis that they remain a lifeline for those who rely on the donations to feed their families. Demand is only set to grow as the number of people who unexpectedly find themselves out of work increases.

Jo Whitfield, CEO, Co-op Food, said: “The Co-op has a critical role to play in supporting our members, customers and colleagues, as well as the local communities that our stores sit at the heart of.

“Food banks have never been more important, so it makes sense that we provide support to help FareShare keep people fed and watered during this unprecedented time.

“Co-op already supports around 1,500 local community groups with our national food redistribution programme, Food Share, and we know that they are finding it tough at the moment, so I’m really pleased and proud we can provide FareShare directly with the essential products they need to help our communities.

“It’s a great example of us all cooperating and pulling together to help those most in need and I would ask everybody if they can, to contribute to a food bank near to them. Every tin, jar or carton makes a difference.”

Lindsay Boswell, CEO FareShare, said “At this time of huge uncertainty, we all need to pull together to help those most vulnerable and most affected by the issues caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The very generous support of £1.5 million worth of food from the Co-op will enable the FareShare network to maintain a continued vital food supply line into our charities over a prolonged period of ten weeks, providing great reassurance that there will be a baseload of food provided to the 11,000 charities and community groups that FareShare and our partners support every week across the UK.”

Co-op have also announced today they will be prioritising more vulnerable customers and those who care for them, during the hours of 8am to 9am Monday – Saturday /10am to 11am on Sundays. As a local convenience retailer, Co-op is uniquely positioned to serve these customers.

Jo Whitfield, CEO, Co-op Food said: “I would like to thank our customers for their ongoing support as we all pull together during these unprecedented times.

“We won’t close our Co-op to other customers during this hour, but I would ask for their understanding as we prioritise the needs of our most vulnerable customers and the amazing people who look after and care for them.”

Earlier this week the Co-op also announced measures to combat holiday hunger in pupils caused by unplanned school closures. 6,500 students across 25 Co-op Academy Schools who currently have free school meals, will be given a £20 voucher for every week that schools remain shut.

Consumers asked to shop considerately

As increasing numbers of supermarkets and shops try to deal with the challenge of replenishing shelves in time to meet demand, the Scottish Government has asked consumers to shop considerately – in particular to ensure those in the frontline of dealing with COVID-19 are able to get the supplies they need.

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said: “Ensuring that we all have access to food and other essentials is key to our safety and wellbeing in these unprecedented times.

“I want to thank everyone working to produce food, distribute it and sell it in shops and supermarkets for all their efforts to keep products on the shelves.

“For the past week I have been in close contact with Scotland’s national retailers, who confirmed that they have sufficient stocks to provide enough food and other essentials for everyone.

“The issue is that, currently, demand is so high that products cannot be replenished on shelves in time, which is creating a perception of food shortages. This is a false picture though, and pressure on the supply could be greatly eased if shoppers buy just what they need rather than stockpiling. So I am calling on consumers to please shop considerately.

“In particular I would ask people to think about the needs and interests of our frontline and key workers who cannot get to the shops as often as the rest of us and who are shopping at unsocial hours.

“Please also consider helping those who can’t get to the shops themselves, especially elderly and vulnerable neighbours, family and friends who are being asked to restrict their social contact. And consider supporting local businesses and smaller retailers in the community by giving them your custom as well.

“I also want to assure consumers that the Scottish Government is continually working with the food and drink industry and liaising closely with local government and other governments across the UK to ensure that fresh food and supplies remain available across all of Scotland.

We have already acted to enable local authorities to relax restrictions on delivery hours, delivery driver work patterns, and shop opening times to help supermarkets and shops remain stocked and allow shoppers more opportunity to access supplies out of normal business hours. We remain committed to doing all we can to keep the shelves stocked – the public has a pivotal role to play in helping us do that.”

Eight food items you never knew you could freeze

Overdone the panic buying? Experts from NetVoucherCodes.co.uk have revealed eight of the more surprising food items that can be safely frozen and eaten at a later date.

Eggs, chocolate and even cooked pasta have been named in a list of surprising foods which can be frozen.

Penny-pinching gurus from NetVoucherCodes.co.uk is advising of eiight of the lesser-known food items that can be safely stored in a freezer, to help households save money and cut down on food wastage.

By storing food at below zero degrees the conditions are frozen, preserving the food as potentially harmful molecules enter a dormant state.

Most foods will last at least three months in the freezer, so you can defrost and eat at a later date.

But it’s important that once food is defrosted it isn’t then refrozen, as this can lead to illnesses.

A spokesperson from NetVoucherCodes.co.uk said: “Food waste costs Brits a lot of money, plus, it’s really bad for the environment. By learning some of the surprising things you can freeze you’re helping save the world and your bank account – what’s not to love?

“Freezers can become messy quickly, so try and freeze food as flat as possible, and get rid of any excess packaging to help keep some order.”

This is NetVoucherCodes.co.uk’s list of eight surprising food items you can freeze:

1. Eggs

The shell of eggs can’t be frozen, but everything else can. Crack the eggs into a muffin tray, then place these into the freezer. Once fully frozen they can be transferred into a plastic container, creating even more space.

2. Cheese

This can be frozen as a full block, or if you mainly use it grated, you can grate the block and freeze it, meaning you can grab handfuls of cheese as and when you need it. Anything from mozzarella to parmesan can cope with being put in the freezer, but be warned, cottage cheese may react badly.

3. Milk

Frozen milk should be thawed before it is used and be sure to give it a big shake before you pour it to ensure all the solids and liquids have been fully mixed. Milk will also expand when it’s frozen, so don’t put it in a tight container.

4. Bread

This should be frozen when fresh otherwise it will still be a bit stale once defrosted. You can freeze it as a full loaf, or in individual slices if this is easier. You can then leave your bread to thaw naturally or pop it straight into the toaster.

5. Chocolate

Chocolate doesn’t contain much water which means that it won’t change as much as other items when frozen and defrosted. Put the chocolate in the fridge for a few hours before placing it into the freezer as this will help bring the temperature down slowly, reducing the risk of the flavour or appearance changing.

6/7. Rice and Pasta

It’s impossible to make the right amount of pasta or rice, but next time instead of throwing the excess away, you can freeze it. Place it onto a flat baking tray and into the freezer. Once fully frozen you can then transfer them into a different container. Simply pour hot water over the rice or pasta to defrost and recook.

8. Yogurt

Fro-yo is an increasingly popular dessert which you can enjoy at home too. Some yoghurts can be affected by the freezing process, so it’s important to try freezing a small amount before to ensure the taste isn’t affected dramatically.

Fabio’s up for sale

Specialist business property adviser, Christie & Co, has brought to the market Fabio’s, a very successful family owned Italian restaurant that has been trading since 1998.

The restaurant has long been recognised for its great menu, relaxed surroundings and unpretentious attitude.

The restaurant is situated in the residential area of Corstorphine on Glasgow Road, one of the main thoroughfares into Edinburgh City Centre and only three miles away from Edinburgh airport which attracts millions of tourists each year. Fabio’s is a staple of the local community and is popular with residents and visitors alike.

This presents a unique opportunity to purchase an established and profitable restaurant business. The property can accommodate 70 and would suit an owner operator or couple. However, it would also be a great addition to an existing portfolio.

The business has been owned by the Crolla Family for 22 years and they are now selling the lease to retire.

Pietro Crolla Jr commented: “Dad and his brother are still cooking in the kitchen in their 70s and have been in the restaurant trade since the 1960’s in Edinburgh and had quite a few restaurants over the years.

“It has been a pleasure to serve the local community, but it is time for a well-deserved retirement.”

Tony Spence, Business Agent at Christie & Co, is handling the sale. He said: “The market remains interesting with uncertainty beginning to fade out which has created an increased appetite for well performing businesses within the city.

“We expect this appetite to remain with operators keen to expand their portfolios within the casual dining sector.”

Fabio’s is offered for sale on a leasehold basis, with an asking price of offers in the region of £150,000.