Based in Stoke-On-Trent, Cris Cohen’s FEASTED is changing the way we see fine dining. By giving their customers set ingredients and carefully curated instructions, anyone can experience a five course, fine dining experience that they have cooked themselves. Cris is passionate about innovation - he is dedicated to using innovative methods to reduce waste and improve sustainability, particularly through championing fermentation and composting as a means to make restaurants more environmentally friendly. He is also passionate about finding tech solutions to the ongoing problems that hospitality faces.

When we asked Cris about what he wanted out of a hygiene records app, he was adamant that it boiled down to 2 key factors: “Easy to use, cost effective and grows with the business”. Cris acknowledged that “Pen and paper is the standard” in hospitality at the moment, but comes with a whole host of disadvantages - using pen and paper is “time consuming, unhygienic and bloated”.

When choosing leafe as a solution to digitise his team’s paperwork, Cris mentioned that leafe really stood out to him because it was “Set up by chefs - that's somebody that understands the needs of the users”. He said that “When using leafe, it's so streamlined and simple - that's the beauty of it. We had our first inspection about 2 months ago - We were given a five and EHO were very impressed with it”

We’ve found that chefs really appreciate that we have deep roots in the industry - this is something we’re incredibly proud of because we know what it’s like to have piles of paperwork getting in the way of your true passion - which is creating great food. Cris echoed this when we spoke to him, saying that “having a good system in the background can motivate staff and gives people a sense of belief that you are doing great things. We are a highly ambitious, highly progressive business, and we want to use products around us that have [companies behind them] with a similar outlook - and leafe fits in with that.”

What Cris was most excited about, however, was the potential he saw in leafe to contribute to restaurants’ sustainability. Cris said that “Hygiene paperwork, as it stands, feels like it’s something that is being imposed on you. But, when it comes to food management systems that can be utilised to eliminate food waste, a change happens. If there's a focus on sustainability, there’s a much more interesting proposition that food hygiene and quality management systems can deliver”.

Being conscious of the environmental impact that hospitality has is something that the industry has been relatively slow to pick up on. Now, chefs are beginning to put sustainability as a core part of the way they carry out their craft. This means that incorporating sustainable practices into their daily routines through leafe (such as tracking their food waste with our all-new Inventory module) is making chefs want to contribute more to this side of the Kitchen. This is why we’re trying to make it so elegantly simple - chefs should be able to do good for the planet without having to sacrifice time creating showstopping food.