HOW BUSINESSES MADE CHANGES AND ARE MOVING FORWARD UNDER THE NEW EU RELATIONSHIP
Rosie Reynolds is an expert at saving time in the kitchen – here she reveals her top 20 tips for speedy success
When Alison Wood, 25, and Mhairi Cochrane, 23, launched their sustainable hygiene brand, Lilypads, last year, they knew they would have to prepare for the end of the Brexit transition period pretty quickly.
Based in Edinburgh, theirs is a truly international business. Their reusable period pads are manufactured in Lithuania, and as well as donating 10 per cent of their revenue to subsidise period products in places such as Kenya, they also export to Spain, Holland and Denmark.
And as the UK has now left the EU customs union, all businesses that trade with Europe must follow new rules on exports, imports, hiring and travel. Unless you’ve prepared for the changes, your business may face disruption.
For Alison, preparation meant running through a checklist to make sure the company was ready for new customs declarations, VAT rules and border control changes.
Although there was additional admin to take care of, Alison wasn’t daunted by it. “We already have our international exports,” she says, “so it didn’t seem like that big a jump. I got used to commodity codes and we had professional advice from Business Gateway, who made it easy.
“I used the Brexit Checker tool on the gov.uk website and that flagged some of the things we hadn’t thought about. We export British materials and bring them back from Lithuania, so we must now declare how much material we’ve sent and how many pads are coming back.”
And now that Lilypads has its processes in place, things have gone smoothly post-transition and the company is looking forward to more growth.
“When we export to the EU, we have to declare what’s in the envelope, but we’re already doing this for our international customers so it’s basically a sticker that says ‘reusable pads’ with our company name,” explains Alison.
“We pre-printed the stickers and stuck them on envelopes, so it took a bit of admin, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s been a few months of growth and change, but it’s looking fine.”
If you run a business and haven’t yet checked what you need to do to carry on trading with the EU, the time is now: see the checklist at gov.uk/ transition.
AS A chef, food stylist and cookbook writer, Rosie Reynolds’ job often depends on getting great food ready as fast as possible.
“Chefs and kitchen professionals have always used shortcuts to create great food,” said Rosie.
“But home cooks have not always been allowed the same privilege and are often made to feel guilty about using certain tricks and ingredients.
“However, there are some things that I’ll always do when I’m cooking, which make my life easier and save me time.”
Here Rosie shares her favourite shortcuts and creative solutions so you can whip up your favourite recipes in no time at all. 1 Gather everything you need before you start cooking such as equipment, ingredients and a clean dish towel. 2 Have a large bowl or a plastic bag nearby for food waste, to keep your workstation clean and clutter-free. 3 Fill the sink with hot soapy water to keep your hands clean and to speedily wash up bowls and equipment for quick reuse. 4 Make sure you have a clean cloth to hand for wiping, along with some paper towels for patting, drying and draining foods, which helps to cook them more quickly. 5 Start your cooking sessions by putting on the kettle. This will mean you can make up stock from cubes quickly, rinse out tins to add the liquid to sauces and stews, or get pasta on the boil much quicker. 6 Boiling something? Popping a lid on the pan will speed up the cooking process. 7 Take your meat and eggs out of the fridge around 30 minutes before you want to start cooking or baking. Meat needs to be at room temperature before going in the oven, and it will prevent eggs curdling your cake mix or being undercooked if they are boiled. 8 Sharp knives will speed things up in the kitchen, a speed peeler will thinly and evenly slice, and a good pair of kitchen scissors will snip precisely. 9 Make dressing in the salad bowl you’re serving it in, then you won’t have an extra bowl to wash up. 10 Don’t spend time scrubbing pans. To wash away stuck-on grime, use a little laundry washing powder as the detergent breaks down grease effectively and quickly. 11 Make double of your favourite pasta sauces, eat half and freeze half in individual portions in freezer bags then pop into a sink of warm water to defrost before cooking next time. 12 You can cook pasta in advance. Once cooked, cool under cold running water, drain and drizzle with a little oil then cover and chill until ready to use. It will then heat through in two to three minutes. 13 Before you start cooking, read the recipe from beginning to end to help you get everything in order so you know what’s coming up. 14 Have everything prepped before you start cooking, such as slicing veg or whisking eggs or grating cheese. This will mean you can add things at the right time and prevent some ingredients being overcooked and others being undercooked. 15 To prevent your chopping board wobbling around, place a piece of folded damp kitchen towel underneath it. It will help you chop faster. 16 Keep some longlife packaged food, such as pre-cooked rice, frozen mashed potato, instant noodles, your favourite chilli sauce and pickles, which you can turn into a quick snack or easy meal any time of day or night with a few odds and ends from the fridge. 17 Invest in good food storage containers to help keep your fridge and freezer neat and tidy and your food at its best. It will save you wasting time when you’re looking for ingredients. 18 Speed up cooking vegetables. Put them in the microwave with a drop of cold water, cover and cook in three-minute intervals until done to your liking. 19 Use a food processor to quickly chop veg and herbs instead of a knife. 20 A good microplanestyle grater – long, with fine grating teeth – speeds up the time it takes to grate cheese and veg. ● The Shortcut Cook by Rosie Reynolds (Hardie Grant, £15) is out now.