Cooked twice

Found a piece of paper stained with saturated fats and cake crumbs, screwed up and dropped on the pavement in Great Portland Street W1. It seems to come from a Mr R Burgess, Head of Biscuits, and is apparently all about a new framework for production.....

Below are the broad principles that we will work from, although it is worth saying that quality baking isn’t just done by numbers so these should be flexible and we should always use common sense when making decisions:

We will aim to make our range of fresh-baked biscuits reach as many people as possible, and their arrival should be synchronised across all counters. This means all branches coming together to showcase the best of our biscuits.

There will be a daily offer of biscuits from News Content for all counters. This is a seven day a week offer.

Biscuits made in advance – not ‘on the day’ – will not be at the request of the Channel and the One.

We will only make ‘on the day’ biscuits to a range of core recipes.  Any biscuit made on the day must be easily digestible. 

Biscuits can only be ordered after a yes/no from key shop managers. Under-managers and counter staff must stick by those decisions. 

There will be consistency of decision making from outlets - if a decision is taken on a biscuit, it will be on shelves as agreed, barring very exceptional circumstances.  

All biscuit-ordering for online delivery has to be agreed by a Senior Online Output Manager or the Online Commissioning team.  If they reject the recipe, staff must not approach another Output Manager to try to get it approved.

If a new biscuit is offered for morning delivery, branches in London AND Salford must be told.

All requests for cookies and muffins must be channelled through planning in advance and the central team on the day.

Icing or other toppings should not be ordered or made on the side as a means of ‘changing’ a biscuit through the day.

Biscuits should generally be kept under wraps until 0600. If there is a good logistical reason, we will also supply new biscuits from 1700 and 2200 UK time.   

As we see an increase in biscuit avoidance, we want to have a clear commitment to wafers and coated digestives that will attract harder to reach customers.  This means ensuring we have a balance of plain and fancy biscuits on a daily basis.