Neil Nugent is Executive Chef for Waitrose, where he develops dishes and product ranges for the food division. In his column for JLP e-zine, he talks about his work, recommends new products and serves up the tasty recipes.
'It's great meeting and working with producers and suppliers, as well as our own Waitrose buyers,' he explains. They are foodies in the truest sense - skilled butchers, bakers and fishmongers, people who have a real understanding of their products.
Neil recently visited Heston Blumenthal's three-star restaurant, The Fat Duck, so that he 'could understand the environment he works in' – Heston, along with Delia Smith, is a food ambassador for Waitrose.
'It certainly was an experience,' he says. 'First off, it had a lot of chefs and a huge quantity of scientific equipment that made the kitchen seem more like a laboratory. We measured absolutely everything so that every ingredient was 'inch perfect'.