Come visit our factory, meet our dedicated team and enjoy other events throughout the day. Transport is included and the event is free of charge. Booking form can be printed here.
Several members of the Braehead Foods team successfully raised over £2000 for the Anthony Nolan Trust on Sunday 16th May 2010 by abseiling off of Crosshouse Hospital.
Yet another award for Craig Stevenson, the owner and managing director of, Braehead Foods and the Cook School. Craig was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Hospitality Industry Trust (HIT) Scotland at its annual dinner last night (18th March 2010) in Glasgow.
Over 400 guests enjoyed a meal which included courses created by Michelin starred chefs, Martin Wishart of Wishart’s restaurant, Jeff Bland of Balmoral and Steven Doherty of the Cook School.
Craig learnt he was receiving the award at the start of the evening. The HIT Scotland lifetime achievement award is presented to someone who goes above and beyond their role to raise standards and aspirations in the industry. Sponsored by industry magazine, Caterer and Hotelkeeper and Brakes Fresh Ideas, the annual award was created to reward and promote role models for the Hospitality industry.
David Cochrane, Chief Executive of HIT Scotland said, “We felt that Craig deserved the award because of his key role as a promoter of authentic Scottish products and for supporting rural tourism. Craig invests much of his own time and resources in the chefs of tomorrow at his Braehead Cook School and through sholarships. This is in addition to his generosity to industry charities. He has helped ensure many charity events, such as ours are successes”.
Craig said, “This award comes as a complete surprise but I am over the moon to receive it. For me, it is important to put money, time and effort back into the business and community we earn a living from and I think the hospitality industry in Scotland is particularly good at this. There are many people like me giving back and I am surprised but delighted to be recognised for it.”
Previous winner of the award include: Peter Lederer of Gleneagles, Stewart Cameron, Andrew Fairlie, James Thomson, and Willie Pike.
The Hospitality Industry Trust, known as HIT Scotland, is a Scotland based charity, which raises funds to support and encourage excellence in the hospitality industry. The charity’s bursary scheme provides hospitality students with financial support to ensure they complete their course if in difficulty. The charity also provides scholarships to emerging talent already working in the industry. These place promising people on world class learning experiences at home and abroad.
For more information please contact Braehead Foods on 01563 550008 or email danni@braeheadfoods.co.uk.
(Photograph courtesy of Edinburgh and Glasgow PR Photographer, Simon Williams)
You can purchase gift vouchers for the cook school and shop online - making it easier to purchase gifts for your friends and family whatever the occasion. Whats more - post and packing is free!
The online shop can be found by clicking here!
Sandi Hellowell, VisitScotland’s Regional Director said: “This is great news for East Ayrshire and Scotland as a whole and will certainly add an extra dimension to the tourism offering in the area. It is great to see businesses such as the Cook School at Braehead Foods continue to invest in tourism which is crucial to the ongoing success of the tourism industry in East Ayrshire and the wider area. This has real potential to be a centrepiece attraction and all involved should be commended on their efforts.”
Read the full story at: http://www.visitscotland.org/news_item.htm?newsID=53182
To judge this competition the Countryside Alliance split the UK into 13 geographical regions and picked a winner in each of the five categories below. The Scottish Countryside Alliance Awards were judged by a specialist panel led by Scottish Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Geva Blackett. The panel picked an overall Scottish winner in each category.
1. Best Local Food Award
2. Best Village Shop/ PO Award
3. Rural Enterprise Award (formerly the diversification category)
4. Best Traditional Business Award
5. Rural Hero
Rural Hero was a new award category introduced for 2008 and the organizers have confirmed that Craig was awarded the prize because he goes ‘above and beyond’ the call of duty to promote or protect his local community, sport or rural Scotland in general”. He has been singled out particularly because of his passionate promotion of Scottish game and the effect his efforts have had on the shooting industry and on the whole rural Scotland. Organisers were quoted as saying ‘Not only did Craig create an excellent reputation for his company, but he also made his mark on the local area and beyond’.
Craig is delighted to have won this award and will now go forward with the other four Scottish category winners to the final where regional winners from England, Northern Ireland and Wales will meet for a reception at the House of Lords on 18 March 09 and the overall winner will be chosen by a panel which will be chaired by Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart.
The class list has been updated with numerous new dates. Included in these new dates are a selection of new classes. The new classes include:
We have now moved into our new, purpose-built 30,000 sq ft factory; 6 times the size of the previous factory. It has a much larger stock holding capacity and a new production kitchen allowing us to increase our product range, bringing your kitchen a source of any bespoke products you may require.
As well as the production kitchen, we are putting in a demonstration kitchen that will double up as a cook school. We are currently looking for chefs willing to come to Kilmarnock for the day to take classes of around 20 made up of the general public. All chefs will be paid and this is an excellent opportunity to promote your restaurant to a new market. We plan to set aside a percentage of the money raised from these sessions to pay for young chefs from across Scotland to visit Braehead for 2 or 3 days to get a feel for the industry from the suppliers’ perspective and will show them everything from game processing to order processing. We also plan to invite our suppliers to give demonstrations and take classes, and we would like to give you the chance to become involved in this too.
Our ‘open doors’ policy for customer visits remains however we have invited our suppliers of specialist products to visit us during the last two weeks in April and the first two weeks in May, to discuss their full product range with you. This is a great opportunity to speak with the producers face to face.
Please contact your sales representative or Aileen at our office on aileen@braeheadfoods.co.uk to register your interest.
Thank you for your continued support.
Craig and everyone at Braehead Foods
