In this Best Possible Taste interview, chef Tom Flavin shares details about his collaboration with childhood friend and award-winning butcher, Garrett Landers. The duo have launched a collection of delicious ready meals on to the market, under the brand Cook & Cleaver.
Listen to the interview here.
Cook and Cleaver redefine mealtime with a new healthy ready-made meals brand, founded by two childhood friends from Limerick
Award-winning butcher, Garrett Landers and award-winning chef, Tom Flavin invite people on their mission to redefine mealtime for busy households and indulge in the culinary delights that have captivated taste buds worldwide.
Cook and Cleaver was founded by childhood friends, Garrett and Tom who have shared a deep appreciation for exquisite flavours and exceptional ingredients ever since being school friends.
With a firm commitment to sourcing locally, every ingredient at Cook and Cleaver bears the mark of excellence as the duo aims to forever change the way busy households approach mealtime.
Speaking to I Love Limerick at the Cook and Cleaver launch event in Garrett’s Butchers, Raheen, Tom noted the convenience of the meals as “they’re all designed to reheat in 20 to 30 minutes” and they offer a wide variety such as lasagna, cottage pie, chicken curry, and more.
Having an award-winning chef and award-winning butcher team up means the food is produced to an amazing quality, and the ingredients used are no different with locally-sourced prime meat.
Garrett told I Love Limerick, “In our side, we wanted to give people the best. That’s where myself and Tom said ‘when we do it, we will do it 100 per cent right’. It’s been a great journey you know, and the products are very very good, we are very happy with them.”
He noted they use “all local products” and having control over that is important, “We can age our beef, we can age our pork. When Tom got the blend even for the lasagna, we took a few goes because we tried different parts of beef, and once we got it right, that was it.”
We noticed a gap in the market, people with busy lifestyles, busy households, they need a decent meal. One or two days a week, when you’re stuck, you don’t have time for cooking and you have training to go to, matches to go to it’s handy to have something in the fridge you can whip out and stick into the oven,
– Tom Flavin
The beauty of Tom and Garrett having control over what goes into their ready-meals means the two can provide a healthy meal option for consumers.
Tom said, “They’re no preservatives, it’s all fresh vegetables, fresh ingredients. We make the curry paste ourselves, we use a really high-quality packaging for it, the foil is microwave-friendly so if you do need to freeze it you can defrost it in the microwave. It’s ideal, it’s perfect.”
Tom and Garrett said being childhood friends and working on the project together was a great experience, with Garrett saying the experience “has been great”, he said, “We’ve been talking about it on and off for years and we were here one day just talking, and then it just started and I said ‘Tom we may as well see’.”
Catriona, a Cook and Cleaver customer said she loved the food, saying, “I love the quality and the taste. The value of what you’re getting with the quality and taste is unbelievable.”
Cook and Cleaver products are available in Garrett’s Butchers, Sonas Healthfoods in Newcastle West, Chill The Beans in Adare and on the Ennis Road, The Urban Co-Op in Limerick, and Neighbourfood at Limerick Milk Market also carry the product.
Just in the beginning of their journey, Cook and Cleaver hope to “go national” but Tom noted, “we’re going to go very slowly, make sure we have it right locally first and then who knows, the sky is the limit.”
From ilovelimerick.ie – read the full article here.
