{"id":1100,"date":"2010-02-24T14:49:41","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T13:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/?p=1100"},"modified":"2017-05-20T11:51:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T10:51:16","slug":"gluten-free-fun-at-sainsburys-hq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.free-from.com\/blog\/gluten-free-fun-at-sainsburys-hq\/","title":{"rendered":"Gluten Free Fun at Sainsbury’s HQ"},"content":{"rendered":"

So<\/em><\/strong> much fun at Sainsbury\u2019s last night…<\/p>\n

Unusually, Sainsbury\u2019s has product development kitchens at headquarters. So a team of bloggers with an interest in cooking allergy-free turned up at the very smart Sainsbury HQ in the middle of London. As I arrived, most people were leaving the offices for the evening, but the front desk were still warm and welcoming \u2013 always a great start, when the reception team confirms the brand of the company.<\/p>\n

\"free-from\"After champagne and canap\u00e9s (I told you it was fun) we were rapidly pressed into service, cooking our own dinner using recipes crafted by the Sainsbury\u2019s Try Team to suit the range of different allergies and intolerances we represented. Gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, nut free, egg free, and soya free at least \u2013 did I miss something?<\/p>\n

Two teams, one sweet and one savoury …I volunteered to prep the treacle tarts, while others made cupcakes, and dairy-free icecream. In the other kitchen, people made Asian fish cakes, a stir fry, Thai beef salad, prawn Pad Thai and some spiced sweet potato wedges.<\/p>\n

Naturally, we were togged up in hairnets and white coats, flapping around as you do in a strange kitchen. Where do they keep their knives? Who\u2019s got the scissors? It was a little like those cookery programmes, where frantic members of the public cook for experts, while simultaneously chatting to the presenters and someone in the back is calling out \u20185 minutes left\u2019… Except that they don\u2019t have nearly so much fun as we had. I met a lot of very interesting people, learned a great deal about how Sainsbury\u2019s develops and markets its free from products, and still managed to produce the treacle tarts.<\/p>\n

And it has to be said that the food was excellent \u2013 the Sainsbury experts are clearly very good at innovating to solve the \u2018missing ingredients\u2019 problems, and are obviously lateral thinkers. You know how difficult it is to create a gluten free pastry lattice, because the pastry strips won\u2019t \u2018lift\u2019 easily? The Sainsbury solution is to create a reverse-lattice, and create pastry diamonds instead, so that the lattice isn\u2019t the pastry but is the pie filling… now why didn\u2019t I think of that?<\/p>\n

Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n