Stocks & sauces focus: Just add sauce
At the risk of going over old ground, the different pressures pubs face when creating and delivering a successful menu mean that preparing everything from scratch is a luxury in all but a few pub kitchens.
Rising staff costs, skill levels and unpredictable patterns of trade all play their part. One tried-and-trusted way of meeting customer expectations is to have a core bank of quality, fresh ingredients matched with a range of sauces to offer variety.
David Grainger, food development director with Atlantic Foods, says: "In a perfect world, we'd have the time to get back to basics and prepare our sauces from scratch, but the reality is that pubs simply don't have the time or the skill base to do so."
Buying ready-made sauces also allows pubs to extend their menu repertoire with new flavours. "The key to a successful menu is keeping a good mix of traditional and contemporary dishes," says David.
"Pies and lasagne will always do well but consumers are becoming increasingly adventurous in their food choice. A visit to the local supermarket will show you there is a growing number of ready meals and sauces from more unusual regions such as Portugal, the Mediterranean and Mexico, and this type of demand is now expanding into foodservice."
In response, Atlantic Foods has added a new Portuguese Peri Peri to its range of sauces, made with ground dried chillies and lime oil.
Peri Peri is versatile enough to be used as a sauce, marinade or dip. For a light bite or bar menu simply serve a Peri Peri dip with mozzarella or breaded mushrooms, while for main dishes it complements chicken and seafood.
Rachael Bouch, foodservice innovation controller at Premier Foods, comments: "Ready-to-use sauces are an important ingredient in most kitchens, particularly when it comes to Indian and Oriental sauces, which are complicated to make because of the number of different ingredients that go into them.
"When a menu consists of, say, five dishes that have a sauce, the list of ingredients for them all is endless, not to mention the time it takes to make them from scratch," she says. "Curry pastes are becoming increasingly popular, as they give pub chefs a base to add their own ingredients to make up their sauces, personalise their curry creations, and adapt to their own brand."
The Sharwoods range of sauces and pastes offers authentic and consistent flavours in a quick and easy-to-use format.
Rachael adds: "Nowadays customers are trading up to sauces that are a little spicier and more exotic as their tastes change.
Although they are still popular on menus, customers are no longer satisfied with only being offered a korma or a black bean sauce - they want more modern, regional flavours."
Simon Muschamp, head of marketing at Pritchitts, says: "Indian and Oriental sauces remain incredibly popular in the UK, but more traditional European varieties such as red and white wine sauces and casseroles enjoy a resurgence on menus during the winter months as they offer a warm, comforting dish that customers desire when it's cold outside.
"Although ready-to-use sauces offer convenience and save publicans valuable time spent on making them from scratch, fresh sauces often look and taste more appetising. Whether you decide to cook with ready-to-use or fresh, sauces should complement a dish rather than overpower it, as you don't want to lose the flavours of the other ingredients."
Cream is a key component of many sauces, but fresh cream can be inconvenient for food operations due to its limited shelf life and need to be chilled. Pritchitts cream alternative Millac Gold eliminates these problems as it has a six-month shelf life and can be stored at an ambient temperature, meaning it doesn't take up valuable chilled storage space.
