Edwards and Ward

Edwards and Ward Professional Fresh Food Caterers UK
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Rivers Academy Inset Day

In my position as Company Chef at Edwards and Ward, it’s great to be able to support and inspire our chefs. Inset days where we look after the teachers are a perfect opportunity to leave our mark and show not only the school but the chefs onsite our vision for the future.

Edwards and Ward were given a brief: feed 90 teachers and wow us. Normally these kinds of days are a classic…bacon butties for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and gallons of coffee kind of day.

We wanted to show the school something that was more in keeping with our recent shift in the delivery across our secondaries.

When I’m given a brief, I take the demographic, what food they currently have, and I listen to our clients to get a feel of our approach and our overall delivery to ensure that we get the offer right.

With the help of Head Chef, Ian; Assistant, Wendy; and our new Operations Manager, Henry Maasdorp, we produced a breakfast of fresh croissants, cookies, fresh fruit and cruffins—croissants that are rolled out, filled with either a savoury or sweet filling and placed in a muffin tin—an ideal talking point over coffee first thing in the morning.

We followed this at lunch with a selection of potted main course tasters: sticky sweet and sour Asian chicken on fragrant rice; roasted squash, spinach and chickpea tagine on tabbouleh topped with pickled shallots; a dairy-free Quorn and mushroom keema spiced pizza; and pea and mint shots.

A selection of rustic sandwiches was served in upcycled Japanese wine boxes alongside Marmite wafers—strips of floured wraps tossed in butter and splatterings of marmite which are then baked— perfect as a nibble but work really well with a sandwich lunch.

The meal was then finished off with decadent chocolate possets topped with raspberries, a classic lemon drizzle cake, and an elderflower hydration water.

It is so rewarding when we get to cater for inset days. Teachers are often so busy that they struggle to grab lunch during a normal day, but these functions give us the opportunity to spoil them, show them what we can do and hopefully inspire.

David Belsey
Company Chef

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone at Rivers Academy for your positive feedback and for allowing us to share your story.