Speed sandwich making challenge, for a well know tv show. 10 sandwiches made in 1 minute.
A few years ago we were asked to make as many ham and cheese sandwiches as we could in a minute for a well know afternoon tv show.
I could not make it to the show in the end due to Trenchers being really busy, however we still have the attempt on video and we have just stumbled upon it.
Take a look.
We make 70,000 sandwiches a year,(WOW) would you like to know what fillings we use on a regular basis, then read on......
Here at Trenchers catering in Birmingham we make around 70,000 sandwiches a year, so what are the great fillings that keeps our customers happy and coming back for more?
After many years of many different fillings, we have had many conversations with our customers, and we have come up with a standard set of options that we try to stick to unless requested by a specific customer.
Our meat fillings are as follows:
Ham and tomato
Ham salad
roast beef and tomato
roast beef salad
turkey salad
mature cheddar and tomato
chicken and sweetcorn
chicken mayo and bacon
chicken and stuffing
tuna mayo and sweetcorn
chicken tikka
coronation chicken
ham and cheese
Our veg fillings consist of the following....
mature cheddar and tomato
mature cheddar and salad
mature cheddar and Branston pickle salad
egg mayo and salad
brie and cranberry
three cheese and onion in mayo salad
Houmous and roast veg.
Our vegan fillings are as follows......
Roast pepper houmous salad
houmous and roast veg salad
vegan cheese salad
Our halal fillings are as follows...
Chicken tikka
coronation chicken
chicken mayo
tuna mayo
Christmas Fillings:
Turkey and Stuffing,
Turkey cranberry and stuffing
Turkey Cranberry stuffing and bacon,
Roast beef and horseradish
Cheddar and pickle
Smoked salmon and cream cheese,
Brie and Grapes
Brie and Cranberry
Brie bacon and cranberry.
Any filling suggestions are always welcome, so please ask the team to add your favourite.
How Trenchers Caters for so many companies at once.
How do we cater for multiple companies?
At Trenchers we work really hard to plan and deliver wonderful, fresh locally sourced catering to a great number of corporate clients in and around Birmingham.
The first thing we need is an order, at this moment in time the most popular form or ordering is via email, and the information we take from each order is as follows…..
Company name, address, telephone number, email address, what the company would like to order and a delivery time, if this is a new customer, these details will be inputted to our accounts software(we use Kashflow, however there are many others to choice from like SAGE, or QuickBooks).
How we go about this, takes quite a lot of explaining….
At any one time, we can caterer for up to 50 companies in a single day, to accomplish this we have to break down every order in to as small a number as possible and re configure it all into a grid planning system,
This system will consist of multiple rows and column, with each column, being a company and each row will have the items to be made and platted up.
Company a company b company c
Meat sandwich
Veg sandwich
Meat savory
Veg savory
Cake
Fruit
Crisps
Drinks
Special requirements
Using the above system we can not only break down an order, but also split the order for each caterer to have their own section and can easily work along the line and do multiple orders at once, platting and labelling each order as they are made and placed in the respective fridges.
From this planner sheet, we also take the total number of meat and veg sandwiches and the total number of meat and veg savories, and these get made separately and placed in the fridge, and get platted up when they have cooled down to below 5c in the case of the savories or in the case of the sandwiches, when all the baguettes, wraps and special requirements have been made and then we can start plating the sandwiches up to the customers specification.
The production side of things can mean a very early start for everyone at Trenchers, so once all the orders are made and in their specific fridges, we will take a break, so we can work out all the delivery runs and who will be doing what and where.
After a break we spend some time putting all the mixed up buffets in to the individual customers order boxes, and checked via the planner, and then a secondary check via the printed of email, that the company had originally sent over to us. This process takes 4 people almost 30 minutes and has to be done correctly, as this is where mistakes are made and rectified.
Once we are all happy with the lunches, they get loaded up, into our refrigerated vans with temperatures below 5c.
We generally like our delivery drivers to leave at 10am, as most customers like their lunches delivered between 11am and 12pm. We cover the whole of Birmingham, so the earlier we leave the better we deliver on time, I do love the saying “if you are early you are on time, if you are on time you are late and to be late is unacceptable.”
At the point of delivery the delivery, the driver will take the van temperature and note the time of delivery, and the customer will sign the delivery form acknowledging the delivery time and van temperature.
Trenchers take a look at the sandwich market in the UK.
At Trenchers catering we are proud to be a member of the British Sandwich Association (BSA), and this week they have sent me some really interesting information regarding the way the sandwich market in the UK has grown, and how it employ's a great number of people across the country, and so i though i would help spread the word.
Did you know the sandwich industry employs 325k people in this country alone, and this number rises all the time with more and more people selling more and more sandwiches.
Last year Trenchers catering found our most popular sandwich filling was cheddar cheese, however cheese only comes in at number 3 on the list of most popular, being beaten to the top spot nationally by Bacon, and with chicken coming in at a very close 2nd place.
chicken
Cheese
ham
pork
beef
egg
tuna
prawn
All day breakfast.
Whats your number 1?
The average price for a sandwich in the UK is now £2.27, i think this is good value, and shows that you can still have a good lunch for under £2.50.
The sandwich sector in the UK is now worth £8bn to the UK economy.
3.5bn sandwiches are consumed each year.
The sandwich market is made up of 40% sandwich bars and bakeries, 15% supermarkets, 9% coffee shops, 11% workplace and education and 16% other.
The sandwich sector as a whole is up year on year by 3%.
I hope this is as informative to the reader as it is for me.
thank you for reading.