We’ve come a long way from the days when sous vide cooking was the fiercely guarded secret of Michelin-starred chefs. Now we see it mentioned on food TV programmes, hear chefs wax lyrical about the benefits and even attend dinner parties where the host has prepared some of the food using it. But how did this shift in the way keen home cooks prepare food come to be?
Alex Shannon was one of the first people to bring sous vide equipment to the British public through his company Sous Vide Tools. Starting off by selling direct to chefs, it wasn’t long until he realised there was no real way for home cooks to get their hands on this high-tech kit. ‘I’d always been in the catering equipment industry and had a strong interest in food, but the first time I came across sous vide was in 2009 in Italy,’ he says. ‘I got a sample and soon realised how much interest and potential there was in these machines. So I took the plunge, started Sous Vide Tools and that was my first product.’
At first, Alex found it pretty tough to convince chefs to buy sous vide machines. While some already knew about it, those that didn’t really know how it worked were cautious. ‘Chefs get trained in classical techniques but not sous vide, so we needed to show them how much it could help them,’ explains Alex. ‘It wasn’t until Chris Holland joined the team as a consultant (now chef-director) that we started to realise how important it was to educate people on how to use sous vide equipment. Chris had been using sous vide for years beforehand, and when he started coming to demonstrations it really took off.’
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Sous Vide Tools: how it all began