BORN out of the need to “find a way to continue” when the coronavirus lockdown set in, the chef and owner of The Crown at Mickleton devised a ready meal business and says demand has surpassed his wildest expectations.
The dining room at the popular and once well-frequented pub has been turned into a packaging warehouse and industrial catering equipment has been purchased to keep up with orders.
Owner Andrew Rowbotham said: “When I put together an idea of doing the ready meal, I had thought it would be great if I could get 50 orders a week that would keep us going. But then when we launched that first week I got 60 orders and it’s just gone up and up ever since.
“It was a shot in the dark really but it did work and it’s been a massive learning curve as well as huge challenge, but I love a challenge and in times of adversity having a failure is not an option and having that mindset you do what you have to do.”
Demand has been so great for the ready meals, which are based on his popular menu at the pub, has been so “massive” Mr Rowbotham has taken some staff off furlough to help with the workload.
The new venture, The Crown at Home, has customers from as far afield as Darlington and Richmond.
He added: “We’re averaging around 100 orders a week and that’s great for business, but there are long hours and until I can figure out a plan to bring more of the chefs back on safely I’ll carry on in the kitchen myself.
“We are doing a colossal amount of food in a very different way to where we were three months ago.
“We’ve just had our best week yet because I put my signature dish, twice cooked beef, on the menu and we’ve done about 1,000 individual portions.
“Our kitchen is not designed for bulk catering. Everything we normally do is made to order. But we’re adapting as best we can and catering for about 400 to 600 a week.”
An industrial food processor has been purchased to help lighten the load along with professional food labelling equipment to ensure all meals have allergen information, ingredient lists and re-heating instructions.
A refrigerated trailer, which the business normally uses for catering at outside events, is acting as an enormous walk-in freezer.
Menus are changed each week with customers encouraged to order as early as possible. Then orders are available on Thursday and Fridays for collection and deliveries are also sent out.
He added: “I had thought about going back to our roots and serving classic pub comfort food such as stew and dumplings, but we had a lot of requests from customers asking for the meals we normally serve.
“I’ve had customers in touch saying they look on the meals as a treat – a night out, in. Some customers have told us they’re using our meals as a bit of a date night.
“They’re getting dressed up, like they would if they’re going out for a meal.”
Mr Rowbotham has also created video tutorials for diners at home to help them get the most out of each meal.
He added: “I never had to think about reheating any of my food, but we’ve got instructions and the videos are just a bit of a help, like a cook-along, so they can put the dishes together the way we would here at The Crown.
Menus are changed on a weekly basis and orders need to be made by Sunday evenings for delivery and collection the following Thursday and Friday. Meals have been priced individually, starting at £5.50 with desserts from £4. There are three different sizes to suit most households.
