Peach Pub Company talks about fish

Months of work came to fruition for Peach Pub Company as the Scottish Skippers Scheme went into full-time operation. Christopher Walton reports

There is little point to having a pub called the Fishes if you don't actually serve fish but, as ever with Peach Pub Company, there are ways to serve fish that are just Peachy.

On an unseasonably warm evening late in February, locals in the Oxford pub - with a few regional food writers, a Caterer hack and, to everyone's surprise, Raymond Blanc - gathered at the Fishes to talk about fish.

This wasn't a typical evening of "foodies" getting together to talk cod, monkfish and langoustines, although there would be plenty of time for that. In fact it was the culmination of four months' hard work by Peach, supplier M&J Seafood, Seafood Scotland and some hardy Scottish souls who regularly sail the icy waters of the North Sea to ensure that the diners of Oxford can have the freshest and most ethically sourced fish on their plates.

Mixing with the locals were James West Snr and Peter Bruce, skippers of the Fruitful Bough and the Budding Rose respectively. Those familiar with the BBC One series Trawlermen, and with Jimmy Buchan, skipper of the Amity II, would be familiar with the type of cloth from which West and Bruce are cut, especially as all the boats sail from the same Peterhead harbour in Aberdeenshire.

Last time we caught up with Peach and talked about the development of its spring menus, its chefs had been part of a trial of the Scottish Skippers Scheme for three months.

At the Fishes, this meant that head chef Corin Earland had been getting in touch with skippers at the end of each voyage to discuss the haul from their last two days at sea. In this way Earland knew what fish were coming in and could develop specials, while the fish were being put on ice. The fish stocks remain sustainable because the boats rely on selling what is caught, rather than what is desired before they go out.

The February event marked the successful end of the trial and the beginning of the full-time use of the scheme throughout the Peach estate.

Co-founder Lee Cash is keen to push the company's credentials when it comes to the ethical sourcing of food. "I am the one at Peach who gets excited about free-range and ethical food," he says.

"Before we started Peach, six years ago, I spent eight years working with Raymond Blanc and getting more excited about quality and where food came from. Like many people, I was not that interested at the beginning of my career, but now I have got to meet suppliers and we are moving on to having free-range - and that was long before the recent Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver programmes came along. We were always talking about fish, and now we have come together with this idea."

The Scottish Skippers Scheme is not just a chance for Peach to flex its ethically sourced, sustainable food muscles. It also means the trawlermen get a fair deal on their catch. According to West, the overheads on a three-week voyage are about £6,000, and costs continue to rise as the price of fuel spirals inexorably upwards. As a result, all fishermen are looking for a quality catch for which they can get the best price.

"It seems to be more about sustainability," West says, "and we are managing to be more sustainable now. I think that the fishing industry is quite healthy now and has quite a good future, but we need to keep going and keep working, and that means getting better at traceability and sustainability."

Part of that process involves chefs. Earland says that the trial had been a hard process and that it took four months to develop a system of working that was beneficial to everybody. Now he is in a situation where he receives an e-mail every two days from a Scottish Skippers Scheme boat, with details about the catch from the previous two days, and he can plan his menu in advance with confidence.

He says: "I hope I am doing justice to the skippers and to the hours they spend out on the high seas. The hard thing is that we are really limiting ourselves to the last two or three days of the catch. We are trying to get a really good spread on the menu, with a 50:50 split between meat and fish, plus the vegetarian dishes. We have found people will try anything once they have confidence in the kitchen, and it is probably expected that we have a high proportion of fish dishes on the menu."

Making sure that there is always good-quality fish on the menu at the Fishes, and throughout the Peach Pubs estate, is a key part of Peach's approach for the future.

Fishes on a mountaintop

As Peach Pubs throughout the UK prepared for the arrival of spring, Fishes head chef Corin Earland was dreaming of snow.

Plans are progressing for Earland to become the latest Peach joint-venture partner and to set up his own Peach pub. This time, however, Earland plans to take Peach out of its English Midlands heartland and open a ski lodge in the French Alps.

This may sound like an idea that was developed after a few late-night glasses of wine, and Earland admits that what started as a conversation is now something that has gained the working title of White Peach. By summer 2009, Earland and his girlfriend intend to open the site in Morzine, a farming and slate-mining village between Lake Geneva in Switzerland and Mont Blanc in France.

"It was sort of an impossible dream," Earland says. "Getting our own business was something that always seemed a long way off, but Peach has made it happen. Mine will be the first chef joint venture, and I am excited to prove that things can happen and you can achieve whatever you want.

"Hamish Stoddart and Lee Cash (Peach's joint founders) are always pushing me to do more than just what I see next year, and to feel that anything is achievable. Now I am in a position to really make it work."

The site will take all of Peach's principles to the French Alps - such as good food and comfortable rooms - and will not rely on the ski season for trade. Earland says that the location has a "massive summer season" that attracts walkers and mountain-bikers, all looking for places to stay and to eat.

The story so far

Lee Cash and Hamish Stoddart founded the Peach Pub Company in 2001 and bought their first site, the Rose and Crown in Warwick, in 2002. The company added two more sites the following year and this has now grown to seven in total.

In February, Peach was a winner in the Caterer and Hotelkeeper Best Places to Work in Hospitality Awards, winning in the category for restaurant or bar chains with one to 10 sites.

One judge described the company as "innovative, caring and committed", and the panel noted that Peach had a strong track record of supporting its people and nurturing talent.

Watch for further details in future issues of Caterer.