Our Kitchen - Ken "The Gatekeeper"

Ken, a chef with over 30 years experience and his trusty sidekick John check in all ingredients with the same diligence as a sergeant major inspecting his troops on the parade ground.

No ingredient enters the kitchen unless they are 100% happy and, as all our suppliers will tell you, they are really very, very fussy.

Our Kitchen - "The Prep Team"

Run by the human dynamo that is Lynette, her team prepare all the ingredients for the chefs.

To give you a snapshot of what they get up to, I have just walked through the kitchen and her team were hard at work hand trimming some beef skirt for our Lasagne Al Forno to ensure there is absolutely no gristle. Piled up on the table behind were 150 kilos of Butternut Squash which all had to peeled by hand.

Whether it is dicing, cutting, chopping or preparing the marinades for the meat "The Prep Team" do it all while listening to music at a volume that will make your ears bleed.

Our Kitchen - The Cooking Chefs

It's simple. Once all the ingredients have been prepared they are cooked by the chefs in exactly the same way that you would use at home.

Proper roux, veloute, reductions, we even mash all the potatoes by hand which has led to some sore backs but bulging biceps.

Just like a top restaurant kitchen you'll find total attention to detail and a lot of bad language but without all that Gordon Ramsay macho nonsense.

Our Kitchen - The Finishing Team

There is a conspiculous lack of machinery in our finishing department as we believe that people can do a more thorough and detailed job than machines.

For example, just a minute ago in the kitchen they were dishing up the Moroccan Spiced Lamb Tagine. This involves five separate processes: weighing the lamb in, weighing the sauce in, weighing in the chickpeas, weighing in the dates and finally sprinkling the right amount of almonds on the top.

Laborious but worth it.

Our Kitchen - Freezing

We have got some pretty serious kit that runs at -35 C which means that we can freeze down our meals incredibly fast.

Freezing is nature's way of preserving which means we don't need to use any additives/preservatives in our food at all.

You can then cook the meal from frozen meaning no nutrients are lost along the way.

Our Kitchen - Packing and Labelling

Diane, Tracey and their teams are the unsung heros.

There is no point in having great tasting food if it is not packed and labelled correctly and these good people ensure it happens.

Our Kitchen - The Kitchen Porters

My co-founder and Head Chef, Dale says that these unsung heroes are the most important people in the kitchen.

They do all the washing up of the pots and pans and generally making sure that the kitchen is kept scrupulously clean. If everything is not cleaned and washed up quickly and efficiently then the whole kitchen soon grinds to a halt.

Not glamorous stuff, but vitally important nevertheless - guys we salute you.

Our Kitchen - Pastry

We have four pastry chefs led by Carol who has over thirty years experience working with pastry (sorry Carol, you still look 35).

All of our pastry is handmade and cooked as you would at home; whether it be sponge mixes, crumbles, or our quiche bases, all of which we blind bake.