FOOD - INTERVIEWS - PHILOSOPHIES

# 01

2

WHAT’S NEXT FOR CEREAL?

An email from one of Spoon Cereals’ followers

Dear Spoon People, I am an avid cereal enthusiast- from the golden nugget to the humble granola I feel I have nowsampled all of the cereals on god’s green breakfast table.

I admit there have been dark days, when all I have left is coco pops and banana flavoured milkshake.. Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about those times...

Look, I’m past that now- seriously; truly it has left me humbled, seeking answers to the big questions.. What is the best cereal? Which cereals will give me the best and most balanced start to my

day? How much fibre is too much?But those are questions of philosophy, not science- I have come to youseeking the answer to the ultimate question, where is cereal going, what’s next..?

If at all possible please consult your oracles (market research team) so we can nail down the final answer.. The fate of everyone’s breakfast.. Is in your hands. Hoping this reaches you before it’s too late.

Stephen Williams read reply >>

Dear Steve, thank you for reaching out to us at Spoon. You pose a goodquestion, which we’d like to try and answer to the best of our ability. As you say, it’s a question of philosophy and we are inclined to agree. We believe that a product like cereal - eaten by 50% of the population - has scope to head in all kinds of interesting directions. This is the first edition of the Spoon magazine, which devotes itself toanswering your question. It’s a smallinsight into the path we’re heading down as a new breakfast cerealcompany seeking to provide everyone a reason to get out of the bed in themorning. A fuller explanation is up on our new website, which you might want to save for when you have givenyourself some time to enjoy a good read. As a start up company consisting of just two Spoon people and a few brand ambassadors, we’ve had the luxury of immersing ourselves in the breakfast market by taking our recipes across the UK in the form of our breakfast cereal pop-up bars. We’ve enjoyedspeaking to everyone that’s visited our pop up sites – at train stations, city banks, food markets and music festivals. Not only has the feedback on ourproduct and brand been invaluable, we’ve also come away with a clear

understanding of what our customers want.

With these insights firmly under our belts, we’ve then gone and attempted to answer all of their needs byproducing a granola product stemmed from a simple home recipe – nothing too ambiguous and nothing too boring or unhealthy, just full of the rightingredients that happen to taste pretty damn good when baked in the oven at 160 degrees for 30 minutes at a time. As an added bonus our granolas are great as part of a healthy balanced lifestyle, which a number of top names in the health and food industry seem to agree on too. The beauty of working in food and drink is the chance to meet all the incredible people within it. So for us, it’s notalways about granola – we’reconstantly on the look out for the latest restaurant opening or cookbook launch. It’s these people who inspire our own line of work, especially when it comes to new cereal recipe developments, which we hope will become the next best thing. We hope you agree and continue tofollow us down this path.

Kindest regards, Annie, Spoon Cereals co-owner

4

Annie Morris

Founder + editor

Jonny Shimmin

Founder + contributor

The Magic Elephant

Contributor

Ed Haslam

Contributor

The London-based qual i ty granola company

CONTENTS: SPOON {EATS}

10 : Our granola : deconstructed

12 : Our granola : ways to eat

20 : Recipe : homemade branflakes

SPOON {MEETS}

06 : Spoon Cereals :

An introduction

16 : A cook : Anna Jones

SPOON {PHILOSOPHIES}

14 : The granola health debate

22 : Listen to yourself

SPOON {EVENTS}

24 : Breakfast festival

www.spooncereals.co.uk@spooncereals /spooncereals#nosmalltalkbeforebreakfast

Spoon Cereals is a biannual publication. The articles reflect theopinions of the authors, notnecessarily the views of thepublishers or editor.

Spoon Cereals UK Ltd. All rights reserved. All material in this publication may not bereproduced or distributed in any form without the written permission of Spoon Cereals.

Spoon Cereals is a registeredtrademark.

6

SPOON {MEETS}

Spoon Cereals : an in t roduct ion

Annie and Jonny met over a familydinner. Long after plates emptied,everyone left and candles reached their ends, they remained talking about a shared passion they discovered that night: a bowl of granola. Back then Annie was working inadvertising - she used to spend her days with a notepad and a 5.0 black sketching pen daydreaming ideas. On her way to work, Annie, a granola and muesli addict, would pass by localsupermarkets, breakfast cafes and market stalls, with curiosity she searched for a perfect pot of wholesome granola. Nothing too sweet, or too sugary, instead she dreamt of crunchy grains, roasted nuts, coconut chips that create light and crispy texture and perhaps a touch of maple syrup. A tiny bit of cinnamon, to keep her warm on rainy days.

Jonny came from a different walk of life, creative at heart he lived in Amsterdam

and worked in investment. When Annie got speaking to Jonny, her soon-to-be brother in law, he agreed to help her with the Spoon venture. They decided to test the concept - the next thing they knew, they were running a pop up at the Old Street station. In the playful form of a ‘build your own’ breakfast bowl, they were serving fresh pots of their homemade granola with yoghurt,compotes fruit - everyone could choose just the right amount of yogurt ortoppings, just the way they liked it. Together Annie and Jonny jumped on another adventure and tried their luck on the BBC Dragons’ Den programme. Good fortune was on their side and Spoon received investment. Spoon is now launching nationwide,first stop - your local supermarket.

Interview extracts on page 8/9. Read the full interview onlinewww.spooncereals.co.uk

Copy : Rasa Jusionyte

Photography: Helena La Petite

Spoon Cereals granola

Ceramic Coffee Cups: from Japan

8

“Our philosophy is all about keeping things simple as well as striving for a happy balanced lifestyle. There have been times in the past where certain aspects of my life have been off balance and still are to this day. But by immersing myself in the food world and being a part of the health and wellness movement, I now feel I know what it takes.”

ANNIE MORRIS

One hal f o f Spoon Cereals

“The Spoon business philosophy is strongly tied to our personal beliefs about food, health and well-being. We aim to use the best natural ingred -ients possible and create a product that tastes great and looks beautiful on the shelf. We want to create a team of people at Spoon Cereals that will share in the success of the business and grow with us.”

JONNY SHIMMIN

The other hal f o f Spoon Cereals

10

Wholegrain Jumbo Oats: classic base for a granola, we love the satisfaction you get in every mouthful, keeping your your energylevels steadily humming for hours after.

Coconut chips: the light crispy texture the coconut flakes create in your bowl, even after they’ve been swimming in milk for a while.

Pecan pieces: We love their smooth, melt in the mouth texture.

Maple Syrup: naturally sweet, full of antioxidants and rich in flavour. Jonny’s uncle also has a maple farm in Canada!

Honey: Bees work hard to produce thisdelicious sweetener, and we really appreciate it.

Cinnamon: All the sweetness and flavourwithout the sugar high, instead regulates blood sugar levels. The perfect seasoning in our opinion.

Natural vanilla flavouring: magically brings out the flavour of our cinnamon granola and adds a subtle sweetness, without tasting too vanill-ary.

Sea salt: Just a little pinch to unlock all the flavours within our recipes.

Rapeseed oil: sits modestly on the ingredient list and the reason our granola provides that crispy, yet melt in the mouth texture.

SPOON {EATS}

Our granola : decons t ruc ted

12

GREEK YOGHURT + BERRIES SPRINKLED ON PORRIDGE

ON ITS OWN JUST ADD MILK

SPOON {EATS}

Our granola : ways to eat

14

TH

E G

RA

NO

LA Ed Foy, cold juice PRESS London

founder Yes, it is about combining something delicious, filling and healthy intopeople’s day to day lives. People hate to compromise their routine. So you have to find ways to fit into that routine. Its easier than trying to change people’s behaviour and ultimately leads to better success in helping people to actually make healthier choices.

Lydia McCall, Holistic Health and lifestyle coach Your granola is delicious and healthy. Most granolas that are on the market are full of sugar which is not the right way to start your day off as eating such a large amount of sugar in the morning will only lead you to craving more sugar throughout the day.

SPOON {PHILOSOPHIES}

We asked people work ing in the heal th and wel lness indus t r ies whether our granola matches thei r heal th phi losophies.. .

HE

ALTH

DE

BA

TEPip Murray, nut butter maker and founder of Pip&Nut

In my books health(y) food is absolutely not about sacrifice but aboutdiscovering new and exciting food that you can get creative with. Spoon is generous in every way. The fact that you use use real ingredients, that are packed with flavour, aligns with our values here at Pip & Nut.

Claire Rother, is a founder of The Life Delight, medical herbalist,nutritionist and personal coach

Yes if it’s full of natural ingredients and free from processed nasties. Spoon has less sugar than most granolas which is a real health bonus. The nuts and coconut content give it a dose of good fats and fibre and make it more filling than lots of other granolas I’ve tried. Having the added healthy fats in there also means that the sugars make their way into the bloodstream more slowly and give a steady supply of energy rather than a sugar rush!

Illustrations : Ed Haslam@ed.vards

16

SPOON {MEETS}

A Chef : Anna Jones

When it comes to modern vegetarian cooking, great style and a tasty lifestyle, name Anna Jones is the one to mention.

Anna has a lot on her plate - afterleaving a well paid financial PR job, she chose to pursue a life long dream and become a chef. She replied to an ad in a newspaper advertising Fifteen, Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant, and so was trained under one of the mostinspirational modern chefs - Jamiehimself. From there life only got better. Today she is an internationallyrenowned chef, with a secondcookbook coming out this summer and a strong, well established online voice. Anna is also about to become a first time mother. We gathered around a long oak kitchen table to talk about her life, routine, relationship to food, her work andcooking. She told us how it felt to cook for world leaders - Anna helped Jamie to cook dinner for the G20 summit at

10 Downing street, but also sharedmemories of cooking at schools and traveling England with educational projects. Anna lives in Hackney, London. Her house used to belong to a carpenter - the back garden still bears traces of its previous owner - and we find a beautiful tree house with an old fashioned world map glued to its decaying walls. Only a doorstep separates the garden from Anna’s kitchen. While we sip tea and munch on earl grey cookies, we can’t help but get sucked into Anna’s world. It’s a happy place inviting others to rediscover flavours and life choices.

While she makes us another cup of tea we observe Anna’s surroundings, she has an impressive tea pot collection and her pans are nicely piled up in a corner, waiting to be used again. Another impressive collection of colour coded cookbooks tickle our curiosity too. >>

Copy : Rasa Jusionyte

18

How did you get intocooking, styling andwriting? What came first?

Cooking came first. I cooked from a really early age - I was a bit of a geek! When other kids were playing outside I’d be in the kitchen mak-ing lemon mousse. The big change came when I was 22, I was getting a train to work one day and I read an article, which said you have to determine your calling by which section in a Sunday paper you read first. It’s a great advice - a light bulb in my head switched on and I made the decision to change my life. I got to work, looked online, found Jamie’s training programme, applied, and the next day I had an interview. By the next Monday I quit my job and next thing I knew I was in the kitchen cooking. It was really fascinating. When people make such huge decisions they usually look for signs, for me it was anobvious thing to jump straight into. That’s how I started cooking professionally, but I wascooking at home for years and years. My mum hates cooking and when shediscovered I have a passion

give them quick energy. A lot of that is changing now, but I remember when I was still working at restaurants, there was a chef that for a few weeks made us scrambled eggs for breakfast. Nobody could work out why it was so delicious. About three weeks later he revealed to us that he is doing 50/50 ratio eggs to butter. The food that I make is about celebrating individualingredients and vegetables. Drowning it in fat or dairy doesn’t do that for me. Just because you are a vegetarian doesn’t mean you are happy to eat a baked camembert and nothing else nutritious.

What would be your ideal way to eat a bowl of granola? And at what time of day? It depends how much in a rush I am. Literally, If I have to leave right now, I will take a jar and layer berries with yogurt and granola.Sometimes it feels fun, as a child I was obsessed with ice cream sundaes, and my morning granola in a jarreminds me of that happiness.

for it, she really encouragedme - she bought me my first cookbooks and always made sure I have plenty ofingredients to experiment with.

How about school, was it an encouraging place to pursue a cooking career?

Oh, no. When I asked if I can do something a little more creative for my A levels, I was told I should do economics. I always had a deepfascination towards cooking. Up to a point when it seemed like magic to me - whip some eggs, add some sugar and an hour later it turns into ameringue. As a kid it felt magical to me. I was never scared to burn anything and my parents really praised me. I can make an average, a bit unappealing dish to my dad and he will say it is the most delicious thing he’s ever eaten. Such a relationship and the ability to bring joy to other people always kept me going.

Chefs have awful diets, don’t they?

A lot of chefs run onadrenaline, they eat food that

www.annajones.co.uk

20

SPOON {EATS}

Recipe : homemade branf lakes

A cereal addict, I always look for new recipes and so was extremely happy when a another healthy cereal geek, friend and co-owner of Lunch BXD shared her homemade bran flakes recipe with me. We garnished our bowl with some of ourpeanut + apple granola, blueberries and raw coconut chips. If you have the time to make these on the weekend, all I can say is, do.

Annie x

www.lunchbxd.com

Nutty Bran Flakes(makes enough for 2 people)

40g ground almonds65g wholewheat flour65g bran60ml water75ml almond milkpinch of sea salt1/4 teaspoon baking powder2 tablespoon honey

1} Preheat oven to 140oC

2} Place dry ingredients in a bowl and slowly add the liquid, mixing well tocreate a wet dough.

3} Cut two sheets of silicon paper to fit two baking trays. (make sure you use silicon to ensure the wet dough doesn’t stick]

4} Spread the dough onto each piece of silicon paper, then place a piece of clingfilm over the top and use a rolling pin to roll so evenly flat. It should be spread so thin that it is almost transparent (this ensures you have crispy flakes!)

5} Remove the cling film and place on the baking trays into the oven. Cook for 10 minutes, check after 5 to make sure they don’t burn. 6} Remove from oven after 10 minutes and allow to cool. Whilst coolingreduce the oven temperature to 110oC. Tear the giant bran flake into smaller pieces, whatever size you want the final flakes to be. 7} Place on a fresh piece of silicon paper and place back in the oven on a tray. Cook for a further 15-20 mins and keep turning them every few minutes to make sure they cook evenly.

8} Let them cool before eating.

22

SPOON {PHILOSOPHIES}

L i s ten to yourse l f

You probably know the feeling – your over-indulged self thinking “why did I eat that much” and “if only I hadn’t….”.

Over the course of career in finance lasting over fifteen years I got used to this feeling. I thought it was normal. Just part of life. Especially as my office-based existence followed hot on the heels of three student years of eating all the junk food I could get my hands on.

The corporate world typically provides such an abundance of food at or near your workplace such that it is notnecessary to think too hard about where your next meal is going to come from. Breakfast, lunch and dinner (and drinks before, during and afterwards) are all usually very well catered for. Convenience food, restaurant food, sweet and salty snacks and supermarketfresh prepared food was providing me three meals a day, for at least five days a week.

The problem was, thesetemporary mealtime and snacking blips aside, I felt great. I felt indestructible. The over-indulgence never lasted long and, after all, wasn’t I doing loads of exercise?

Well as it turns out I wasn’t doing as much exercise as I needed to (sitting at a desk for 10-12 hours a day is not typically what is recommended for a healthy, mobile body). Exercise was not going to be the factor that changeddramatically, as long as I kept going at my sedentary job. I had limited time in the day to move - I could add some movement where I was able – but I could change what I ate, how much I ate and how often.

As I started feeling lower and lower on energy after mealtimes, something that was affecting my work, I felt that I had very good reason to experiment with my diet in order to improve how I felt. It was a case of listening to my body telling me what was not good for it and trying to work out how to improve things.

As energy levels got lower, motivation got lower and spirits got lower. It was a cycle I was very keen to get myself out of...

>> Continue reading online www.spooncereals.co.uk

Copy : Jonny Shimmin

24

THE SPOON {POP-UPS}Photography: Issy Croker

THE SPOON CEREALS POP-UP BAR TOUR

Coming soon...For all event enquiries,

please contact spoon@spooncereals.co.uk