Tag: food and drink

Morrisons extends NHS 10% discount to September

– Initial 12 week discount for NHS Heroes will be extended until the end of September –

– The move is a thank you to hard working NHS staff during the battle against the coronavirus –

Morrisons is to extend the 10% discount that NHS heroes receive on their grocery shop until the end of September.

The discount was first introduced in April and aims to support the 1.5 million NHS staff through the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. It is a thank you from Morrisons.

NHS staff are continuing to put themselves at risk and face numerous challenges during the Coronavirus emergency.

Morrisons is therefore to extend the discount until September 30th when it will be reviewed.

For the first time, NHS workers will also be able to gain the discount if they are ordering a home delivery through Morrisons.com. They simply have to sign up for the Morrisons NHS Club to receive the discount.

David Potts, Morrisons Chief Executive said: “We want to thank everybody in the National Health Service for playing their part in the ongoing battle against the coronavirus.

“We hope this measure combined with our dedicated hours for NHS staff will make life a little easier at this very challenging time for them.”

To benefit from the 10% discount staff need to present their NHS ID card in all Morrisons stores.

To make sure NHS staff can get hold of the groceries they need, Morrisons have also introduced an NHS hour at the beginning of every day from 6am-7am. On Sundays, the majority of stores open at 9am for hard working NHS workers to shop.

#ItsMoreThanOurJob

Six in ten nervous about returning to work following lockdown

‘We are personally urging CEO’s to review their thought processes and empower their staff to work from which ever location makes them feel safest and most comfortable’ says Ruari Fairbairns

A nationwide YouGov survey, commissioned by One Year No Beer, has revealed that 60% of the UK workers who are no longer travelling to their usual place of work and now working from home  are nervous about returning to work following lockdown.

The survey also identified that women surveyed appear to be considerably more nervous with 70% of them opening up about their fears of returning to the workplace, opposed to 49% of men.

 61% of 18-34 workers who are not currently in their usual place of work agreed that they were nervous about returning and surprisingly fears were lowest amongst those aged 55 years and over.

Geographically, Midlands came out on top with 72% of all workers no longer travelling to their usual place of work nervous about returning to work, and those most relaxed about getting back to old routines were workers residing in the South (51%).

Whether people had children in their household or not seemed to have little impact on their attitudes towards returning to work with 63% of those with children in the household  opening up to anxiety around returning to the workplace, compared to 60% of those with no children in their household.

Ruari Fairbairns, founder and CEO of One Year No Beer, comments, “As the CEO of a company that operates its entire workforce remotely, I’m not sure why there is such a sense of urgency from employers to get their staff back into the work place, especially if they still feel so uncomfortable returning to work at this stage of the pandemics lifecycle.

 “With so much access to technology and productivity software, there is no need to be sitting in an office with each other right now (or ever) and the flexibility and freedom that working from home affords, by far outweighs any benefits of working in an office.

“We are personally urging CEO’s to review their thought processes and empower their staff to work from which ever location makes them feel safest and most comfortable.”

The same survey also revealed that nearly three-quarters of UK drinkers were drinking the same (45%) or more (29%) during lockdown, leaving only 25% drinking less. 18% believed they would emerge from lockdown drinking more than they did pre-lockdown.

Fairbairns continues, “I think a lot of people will have formed habits during this time they wouldn’t have before, and some may be challenging to shake.

“In hard times it’s easy to let things creep in that you wouldn’t normally do and if people are anxious about returning to work, the concern here is that they will start to lean more so on alcohol as a coping mechanism.”

Passionate about transforming the world’s relationship with alcohol and helping people, ‘Live Life Better’ One Year No Beer is a digital network, which has been designed to transform behaviour and support mental health.

Fairbairns concludes: “At One Year No Beer we focus on the habit-changing process, rather than just deleting alcohol from your life.

“We’ll help you break down and rebuild new habits as well as develop a new mindset that gives you complete control, something that will last way past finishing your challenge.”

For more information visit https://www.oneyearnobeer.com/

Support Stockbridge and Leith markets and their traders

Hi all,

Please help support Stockbridge and Leith markets and their producers: we want to be able to come back safely when its time 🙂
Stay Safe, Stay Distanced – but eat well with us! 🙂

help spread the word …

Regards

The Market team
At the Market Limited

Morrisons launches vegan essentials food box

  • 15kg box includes lentils, meat free sausages, vegan cheese, jackfruit, fresh fruit and vegetables
  • 23 products for £35, including next-day delivery, will feed two people for one week

Morrisons has launched a brand-new Vegan Essentials Food Box to help its vegan customers during the lockdown.

The food boxes are particularly helpful for those who are vulnerable or self-isolating and can’t leave the house but are available for anyone to purchase.

Created in response to requests from customers following the launch of Morrisons other food boxes, the Vegan Essentials Food Box is available for £35, including next-day delivery to your doorstep, and will feed two people for a week.

Weighing just under 15kg and containing 23 different items, the box includes lentils, jackfruit, couscous, meat free sausages, meat free mince, dairy free cheese and almond milk – as well as a mix of fresh fruit and vegetables.

A typical Morrisons Vegan Essentials Box will include:

●       KTC Chickpeas, 500g

●       Morrisons Jackfruit in BBQ Sauce, 150g

●       Morrisons Cous Cous, 500g

●       Di Martino Penne Pasta, 500g

●       Pure Sunflower Spread, 500g

●       Alpro Almond Milk Unsweetened, 1L

●       Alpro Plain Yoghurt, 500g

●       Morrisons Almonds, 200g

●       Violife Dairy Free Cheese, 200g

●       Heck Meat-Free Sausages

●       The Meatless Farm Co Mince, 400g

 

 ●     Morrisons V Taste No Chicken Strips, 228g

●     Morrisons Wonky Carrots, 1kg

●     Morrisons Brown Onions, 1kg

●     Morrisons The Best Sweet Peppers, 250g

●     Morrisons Baby Spinach, 160g

●     Morrisons The Best Farmhouse Loaf, 800g

●     Morrisons Baby Potatoes, 1kg

●     Morrisons Royal Gala Apples, 6 pack

●     Morrisons Passata, 500g

●     Morrisons Vegan Stock Pots, 4 pack

●     Morrisons Apple & Cinnamon Granola, 500g

●     Lotus Original Caramelised Biscuits, 250g

Possible recipe options include a vegan pasta bolognese, rainbow salad bowls, soups, vegan sausage sandwiches or granola.

Tessa Callaghan, Head of Food Boxes at Morrisons, says: “Many of our vegan customers have got in touch to ask whether we could create a food box for them. We’ve sourced some of the best vegan food for this food box as we continue to play our full part in feeding the nation during these unprecedented times.”

Lockdown has meant that people are shopping differently so Morrisons has launched a number of different food boxes including a Gluten Free Food Box, and British Farmers Food Box.

The Vegan Essentials Food Box is the latest in the range to help feed its vegan customers during the pandemic.  

For more information, visit www.morrisons.com/food-boxes/

#ItsMoreThanOurJob

Is COVID-19 changing our relationship with food?

How have our eating, cooking and food purchasing habits changed due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdown measures in the UK, Europe and much of the world?

Researchers at the James Hutton Institute are part of an EU consortium which has launched an international study to answer these questions.

Anecdotal evidence and social media suggest that more people are buying locally produced food, yet supermarkets and online retailers are experiencing record growth. It seems that our food-related habits have changed because of COVID-19, and in different ways.

That is why Hutton researchers and their colleagues across Europe have launched this large-scale study of the pandemic’s impact on how people relate to food, including food waste, at this time of crisis. Scientists are particularly interested in finding out if people are adopting more sustainable behaviours, and to see if these habits continue once the pandemic has passed.

The researchers have created a questionnaire open to anyone over the age of eighteen that can be accessed by visiting www.food-covid-19.org. The survey will be open until the end of June and the more widespread participation they get the better, so the team are calling on everyone who can to complete it and will report back on what they find.

Dr Liz Dinnie, a social researcher leading the research at the James Hutton Institute, said: “We are currently experiencing unprecedented circumstances where most people are forced to spend much more time at home.

“That also means many people eat more meals at home than before the lockdown. So far, we have no idea what consequences that has, e.g. in terms of how balanced the diets are, or how food systems in rural and urban areas might be affected. There are many contradictory trends, for instance a focus on healthy eating for strengthening the immune system, yet an increase in the sales of sweets, chocolate and snacks.

“With our research, we want to find out how food-related habits are changing in the population and what this means more widely, particularly in terms of food systems, sustainability and for tackling food poverty.

“We hope the results will give recommendations to decision-makers in the food sector and at policy level on how to respond to changes and make food systems fit for future food-related habits following the current pandemic.

“In Scotland this will include recommendations under the Good Food Nation Bill, which aims to put social justice and sustainability at the heart of Scotland’s food systems.”

Professor Colin Campbell, the Institute’s Chief Executive, commented: “Our food systems need to change if we are to change our trajectory on climate change. We also need a new relationship with food for the sake of our health.

“As the current pandemic has shown underlying health is critical to how we come through this, so we desperately need to know what people think and how they are changing if at all. It is only through understanding the changes taking place at this time that we can help to design food systems and value chains that are both socially just and environmentally sustainable.”

The survey can be accessed at www.food-covid-19.org.

Quarantini Boxes to Keep Edinburgh Thriving

With lockdown restrictions for the hospitality industry expected to extend for weeks to come, Robbie Allen, founder of ‘Keep Edinburgh Thriving’ has diversified his business offering to incorporate the ‘Quarantini Box’. 

Each Quarantini Box will be filled with cocktails lovingly crafted by Edinburgh bartenders and restaurateurs as well as beers and spirits from local distilleries and breweries.

Serving as a critical business lifeline for the hospitality industry, Robbie Allen plans to work with new bars and restaurants each week so the people of Edinburgh can support multiple hospitality businesses at the same time through the regular purchase of a Quarantini Box, which will be delivered free of charge every Friday & Saturday. 

The decision to diversify the business offering to support the hospitality industry is a direct result of customer driven demand with Allen confirming that he has sold over 2,000 Keep Edinburgh Thriving boxes (2,011 to be exact), generating over £55,000 in revenue for 47 local Edinburgh businesses in only 6 weeks. 

Robbie Allen, founder of Keep Edinburgh Thriving said: “We have been completely overwhelmed with the support we have seen for Keep Edinburgh Thriving and it’s been amazing to be able to support local independents to stay in business through such a tough time.  

“Our local bars and restaurants are expected to stay closed until at least July or early August so we want to support them as much as we can as well as bring a little bit of the Edinburgh bar scene to customers across the city who will be missing their favourite bars and restaurants.” 

Nick Robinson, Owner of Tonic Bar Edinburgh comments: “In this difficult time the Quarantini Box allows Tonic as a team to bring a little bit of normality back into our lives.

“We can’t wait to have our doors open again, to see our customers enjoy themselves and put this all behind us, but as our doors are closed we are accumulating substantial amounts of debt each week via fixed costs and the Quarantini Box will allow us to generate some revenue to reduce this debt.”

There are two box sizes of gift box available – a small box contains four cocktails and one beer (£39) and a large box contains six cocktails and one beer (£55). Each Quarantini box also contains garnishes, serve instructions and pick n mix. All you need is a glass and some ice.

If customers want to enhance their at home experience, they can add a cocktail shaker for only £5.

Rachel Bailey-Palumbo, Director at Hey Palu, said: “Hey Palu is still relatively new to the Edinburgh bar scene (under a year old), so the impact of COVID-19 and having to close our doors has felt particularly devastating.

“COVID-19 has meant we have had to think on our feet to diversify and has led to the creation of our ‘Hey Palu at Home’ ready to drink cocktails. When the opportunity arose to partner with the Thriving Box Company we were extremely excited.

“Their clever concept gives people both the opportunity to support Edinburgh small businesses like ourselves and try new products, whilst also opening up the possibility for us to engage with new customers, who we hope will become regulars once we are able to open again.”

Menu for delivery weekend of 22nd May will include:

  • Espresso Mart-ana-tini from Buck & Birch
  • Banana Daiquiri from Hey Palu
  • Negroni from Old Poison Distillery
  • Starburst from Tonic
  • Gluten free lager from Bellfield Brewery

To help support the local community further during this epidemic, £2 from each gift box sale will be donated to the Edinburgh Food Project.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has caused a sudden, steep decline in business for cafes, restaurants, boutiques, artisans, creators and local retailers.

For more information about how to support your local high street and keep Edinburgh Thriving, visit www.keepedinburghthriving.com  

Food for thought: ‘pandemic eating’ research

People’s eating habits during the pandemic are providing food for thought in a new piece of research, co-led by the University of Northampton.

The ‘Food, Mood and You’ study is looking to survey people over the age of 18 each day for a single week in which they note their activities, their emotions and how they are eating.

The results for the UK will be collated over the next two weeks and volunteers can register and take the survey online.

The study is also being rolled out across countries including Australia, Canada, USA, Finland, Spain, Italy, Russia, Portugal, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Korea.

Dr Josephine Chen-Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Developmental and Educational Psychology, is the UON lead. She said: “There are lots of anecdotal conversations about how we are supposedly eating more during lockdown – perhaps due to boredom – but no firm evidence about this and, more importantly, why that is happening, if at all.

“It will be fascinating to see what’s actually going, so I encourage people to take part in our survey and help us add another piece to the complex jigsaw puzzle of human behaviour during our ‘new normal’.”

Professor Tracey Devonport at University of Wolverhampton has been working collaboratively with colleagues from UON and University of Jyväskylä, Finland (Dr Montse Ruiz).

She adds: “It is likely that we have all heard friends and family talking about eating more during the COVID-19 pandemic because they are experiencing emotions such as boredom, stress or frustration.

“We wanted to develop a research project that explores emotions and eating and in doing so provide simple interventions that may help manage emotional eating during these challenging times.”

*The survey can be taken online.

Southsider’s Quizmaster crowned BBC’s Mastermind Champion

Dave McBryan, the Quizmaster of The Southsider, on West Richmond Street in Edinburgh, was crowned BBC’s 2020 Mastermind Champion on Monday night [Monday 4 May].

The 46-year old, who is originally from Dublin, beat off competition from 96 contestants throughout the series to take home the title, in an experience he described as a “pretty nerve-wracking affair”.

Appearing with five other contestants in the final, Dave chose the View Askewniverse films by Kevin Smith as his specialist subject, and American singer Otis Redding and Olympic Fencing as his specialist subjects in his heat and the semi-final.

This is the second time he has won a major TV quiz, after winning ‘Fifteen to One’ on Channel 4 in 2014.

Dave, who is currently ranked Number 2 in the Irish Quiz Rankings and is a member of the Irish Quiz Team, has been competing in quizzes for seven years and has been the quizmaster of The Southsider for over five years.

His quizzes were as popular as ever until the pub was forced to close during lockdown, drawing over 20 teams every week. However, it is not for the faint-hearted, with McBryan putting everyone through their paces every Thursday evening at 9pm.

David Moore, General Manager of The Southsider, said: “I am so delighted for Dave, his win is truly well-deserved. It is a real privilege to have him as our Quizmaster, his quizzes are a highlight of our week at The Southsider.

“He really is a professional and I am looking forward to what he has in store for our quiz programme when we are back open again.”

Last orders? CAMRA responds to extended lockdown

Responding to the Scottish Government’s strategy to exit lockdown measures, which state that gathering in pubs is likely to be banned or restricted ‘for some time to come’, CAMRA Director for Scotland Sarah Crawford said: “While the Government must follow scientific advice and do what is right to keep people safe, this will undoubtedly be a huge blow for pubs and breweries. 

“The pub and brewing sector was among the first to be hit by the lockdown and it is set to be among the last to get back to normality. One thing many people are looking forward to when all this is over is going down the pub to meet friends and family for a drink.

If the Scottish and UK Governments do not make sure that our local pubs and breweries receive all the financial support that they need to weather this crisis, we risk not having them around at all when all this is over.”

Sainsbury’s Update

I’m writing to you today to update you on the range of ways we are helping to get food and essential items to those who need them most (writes Sainsburys Chief Executive MIKE COUPE).

We continue to prioritise elderly and vulnerable customers for online delivery and have offered over 725,000 elderly and vulnerable people access to slots so far. We identified 450,000 of these customers based on our own data and from customers registering with us.

We have also been able to match over 275,000 additional customers in England, Scotland and Wales based on government data and we are contacting these customers to arrange priority home delivery.

We will be in touch with more customers based on the database we receive from Northern Ireland as soon as we can. For vulnerable customers who have been offered a slot and are unable to place their order online, we offer a telephone ordering service and we now have five times the number of colleagues on hand to help with this.

As we do our best to keep our colleagues and our customers safe, we have had to temporarily change some of our processes.

To help our colleagues socially distance, we are no longer asking them to accept unwanted substitutions or to process refunds on your doorstep. If you do not want the substitutions, then you need to call us to let us know and we will process the refund for you.

This is only temporary and we are working on a digital process to make this quicker and smoother. I apologise for the inconvenience in the meantime and I’ll write again to let you know when the new process is up and running.

As I’m sure you can appreciate, our online home delivery and click & collect services are in more demand than ever before.

We are increasing our capacity as much and as quickly as we can and by the end of the month we aim to offer 600,000 online slots per week. We are doing our best to add more slots and will keep going with this but it’s important that I highlight that there is far more demand for these slots at the moment than we can ever satisfy. I have therefore included below a full list of other ways to access food and other essential items.

We are doing our best to reduce queuing times both inside and outside our stores.

To help with this, we have been extending our opening hours. By Monday the vast majority of our supermarkets will be open from 08.00-22.00. We are installing perspex safety screens in our petrol filling station stores and these will start to re-open from next week.

We are also extending opening hours in many Convenience stores to 10pm or 11pm. You can check the latest opening hours in your area before shopping here.

To help with queuing inside stores, we are installing additional protective screens between manned checkouts.

These screens will help keep our colleagues and customers safe and will mean we can open far more manned checkouts in the stores that have them. We are installing them in over 150 stores over the next week or two and I will keep you updated on this and other steps we are taking to help make your shopping trip quicker and easier.

For elderly and vulnerable customers, we offer dedicated shopping hours between 08.00 and 09.00 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And NHS and social care workers can shop in our supermarkets from 07.30 to 08.00 Monday to Saturday before they open.

We have also extended our partnership with WHSmith to provide easy access to food for NHS workers in 80 hospitals across the UK at a discounted rate.

We know that many of you are already shopping for friends, family and neighbours and we are very grateful to you for providing this community service. I mentioned in my last letter that we were launching a Volunteer Shopping Card to make it easier for people to shop for others and I am pleased to let you know that these are now available online.

For customers who are struggling to leave the house to get to the shops, we have also expanded our on-demand delivery service ChopChop to London zones 1 and 2. The service allows you to choose up to 20 of 400 grocery and essential items for home delivery within an hour. We’re looking at how we can bring this service to more people in more places across the country and I will keep you updated on progress.

Many of you have also written to ask me what additional steps we are taking to support the most vulnerable in our communities.

In addition to donating £3 million in cash to Fareshare to help to distribute food to food banks and other vulnerable communities across the UK, we are also supporting the government’s free school meal vouchers scheme, ensuring that children who qualify for free school meals can continue to access free meals while schools are closed.

Many of you are also helping us to make a real difference to communities across the UK by buying a copy of The Big Issue in stores and online. We are also supporting Comic Relief and the BBC on The Big Night In, which is raising money for people impacted by COVID-19. I hope lots of you will be able to join me in tuning in this Thursday at 7pm and donating in a range of ways if you can.

I know that most of you really appreciate the essential role that our colleagues are playing at the moment to keep the nation fed.

Our colleagues are working in really challenging circumstances, constantly trying to balance the need to serve our customers well, to keep shelves stocked and to help people get in and out of shops as quickly as possible.

We are also asking them to help us keep you safe. Unfortunately this means they will ask you to queue outside shops when they are busy. Please help us to make our colleagues’ jobs easier by showing them kindness and respect at all times.

Best wishes

Mike