Member Spotlight: Biffen’s Kitchen

We caught up with surf-inspired street food truck Biffen’s Kitchen to find out what he loves most about working in the independent hospitality sector, the realities of running a seasonal business and what success looks like for him.

How did you get into hospitality?

Food has always been a passion of mine. It runs through the family blood, especially with my grandparents. They got me into cooking from a young age so I always had that appreciation.

I was no stranger to working in hospitality too – my Dad’s in sports catering, so I’ve worked with him serving at football grounds across the country and Trent Bridge which helped me learn a lot.

I studied marketing at university and was working in the marketing team for a ski company after graduating. Around this time I was interested in harnessing my passion for food so set up an instagram page, called Dogs Dinner, largely because it consisted of photos of my dog and my dinners. Good fun and tongue in cheek, but I realised it had potential to send the wrong message marketing wise – it might attract the wrong people. Hence the shift to Biffen’s Kitchen. I didn’t harbour hopes on it going anywhere, I just thought it was fun showing recipes online and engaging with a community.

On a trip to Croyde in 2018, where I would often go and surf, a friend told me about a campsite there called Ocean Pitch that had a food truck serving meals. Immediately I thought it would be really cool to set up an operation there that offers something other than burgers and chips. I slept on it that night and thought why not – what do I have to lose?

What is the Biffen’s Kitchen mission?

To me, Biffen’s Kitchen was all about combining my passion for travelling, surfing and eating. I love to travel and I’ve always based my travels around food – I wouldn’t go somewhere if I felt the food was going to be bad. Starting up Biffen’s, I’d not long been back from Morocco so it made sense to me to start with some Moroccan-inspired wraps and crucially, food that is linked to surfing.

The previous caterers at the pitch had been serving curries and burgers, so I think there was an advantage in offering the campers something fresh. I also felt, if people are staying here for a week or so, I don’t want to be serving the same things every night so explored some flexibility with the menu which was great to provide such diversity but quickly it became quite difficult to manage all these different cuisines. I learnt quickly that wasn’t sustainable and reduced the menu to our most popular items.

How important is presentation to make you stand out?

From the start I was mindful about serving dishes that look good, taste good but also are healthy for you. Surfers need plenty of nutrients and don’t want to just eat junk. So each dish we want to provide a hearty mix of protein and carbs, we have gluten free options and vegetarian versions – food to me is a shared experience, it’s all about eating together, so to be able to provide that and let everyone feel involved and eat something nice is something I value highly.

Composing colourful dishes that bring together the different elements we try to incorporate led us down the path of pickling some onions that came out incredibly pink and looked amazing in the dish, so we jokingly decided this was the perfect pun opportunity and dubbed them ‘pink onions’. They became super popular – to the point people come and buy them by the jar. It stamped our brand a little bit, and made our food very instagrammable.

I felt that was important, that if someone’s going to take a photo of our food, it should be insta-worthy, although I found this can be a bit of a vicious circle: Focusing on social media admittedly has played a huge part in growing the business and getting the word out there but it can end up absorbing too much of your time, so there’s a fine balance to strike with using it but not letting it use you.

I’ve got a decent following, but I don’t really chase it anymore like I used to – there was times where I’d message people on the page back instantly but I hadn’t replied to a family member for days. I’ve definitely toned this back and tried to achieve a better balance since, and a lot of my content is just raw and organic, rather than trying to present studio quality masterpieces that can sap hours and hours.

Talk us through the realities of running a seasonal business:

There’s obvious pros and cons to the seasonal nature of it, but ultimately it means you’ve got a fairly short trading window to make it work. There’s a lot of praying that the weather’s on your side, but at the same time you need to have time to enjoy yourself because there’s no point trying to reach an end destination when you can’t enjoy the journey.

Sometimes the short window can feel restrictive in terms of when you think up different ideas or things you want to implement in the business, but can’t because by the time it’s shaped up and ready the season is done. So I have thought about how we can expand into the winter too, which would typically involve moving towards footfall and doing pop-ups for example. I’ve done two winters so far, one predominantly to keep on two amazing members of staff and it’s been an interesting learning experience for the business.

Does the winter break reinvigorate you to go again when summer season kicks in?

A hundred percent. We did trade throughout one winter and it was great to just be rolling into the summer rather than getting back into that mode and starting up, but I was mentally exhausted already. Running a business means there’s a lot to constantly think about: the numbers, keeping staff happy, all the admin and compliance.

Whereas having the break, you’re giving yourself that all-important chance to recharge, not worry about the business every single day, so you’re raring to go and get back to it when the summer approaches. You feel fresh, full of new ideas, excited and that translates into the business.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in catering?

Do something you’re passionate about. You might be able to spot a gap in the market somewhere and see the potential, but if you’re not passionate about it it’s so hard to generate that momentum. Whereas if you care about what you’re doing, you’ll invest the hours and really commit to make it work.

Knowing your numbers is crucial and you have to keep the operation simple, so it’s actually manageable and realistic. For example, I know myself how much stress I can handle and that after a certain point I really struggle, so I keep that ceiling contained.

It’s always going to be a calculated risk but if you’ve got the passion and you’re willing to put the time in, you’ll make it work.

How important it is to keep the operation manageable for yourself?

You might have a really rogue idea to do snails or something like that and have all the necessary passion to execute it, but you have to understand the market as well – hence why my katsu Curry became so popular. Wagamamas had basically done all the marketing for me – I made the dish my own and ensure that it’s a quality experience each time: I use chicken thigh, which we deep fry and hot hold, so the speed of service is good but also this way allows the juices to sleep through. So you get a roast dinner flavour and people love it.

I guess that’s the exciting part of running your own food band, is there’s constant development. For example, we’re a completely nut-free van now. We used to use peanut butter in the mornings, but we’d often worry come the evening about cross-contamination. We had a customer in the first year of operating who wanted a Katsu curry, explained he’d got a severe nut allergy, we walked through our process and matrix and he was happy so had the dish. The whole time I was so worried and as a result we thought we’d make our lives a lot easier by getting rid of peanut butter. Of course then some customers missed it, so we looked into alternatives and ended up just making our own, entirely nut-free, with sunflower seeds and tahini.

The tahini gives it that peanut buttery texture and when you blitz it up, you get the crunch as well and people loved it.

Similarly we used to use a lot of avocado, and far too often they’d be rock hard or black and it was so frustrating. I was talking about the issue of avocados with my cousin who lives in the Dominican Republic and we came up with an idea for Avo No Cardo, which is a composition of brown beans, peas, some vegan mayo and some spinach powder – all of a sudden we have an avocado product that comes at a fraction of the price and is completely individual to us.

I’m happy to share my recipes online because my ethos from day one was, you’ll come to me to eat my food. But I want you to be able to make something at home that reminds you of your holiday.

How do you keep staff happy?

People often say the customer is the most important to any business, but I think it’s the staff, because if you look after your staff, they will look after the customers. Staff have always been my top priority, to the point actually I think I leant too far that side in the past – I was doing everything for them and realised I was actually hindering their development and the chance work provides to grow. One time we were booked to trade at a wedding and I went as an attendee with two staff members handling everything on their own and as much as that was an incredible experience it taught me that you’ve got to let go of the reins a little – you’ve got to trust your staff and build the confidence so they feel they can run it on their own.

Naturally I’m so mindful of the work life balance for staff too, which isn’t always easy in hospitality and with us being seasonal, that means a lot of long hard trading days. Simply put, I think if you look after your staff, they will look after you. Sometimes this won’t be the case but you’ve got to prepared to let people go and move on yourself – if you have great staff that you love, you’ve got to accept that you can’t keep them forever. As much as they’re part of my journey and my business, I’m a part of theirs, which is a lovely thing. I’ve had staff in the past with their own aspirations in hospitality so it’s great to help facilitate their development and see someone’s growth.

What is special about being an independent?

Having the freedom to follow your passion. To guide yourself on the things you love. I think that’s what I’ve, like I said, I kind of combined my food with surfing and outdoors. And yeah, I think. Yeah, that enjoyment of freedom. But there there’s the kind of counter argument to say. You are then still the graft you have to put in to get there, it doesn’t come easy.

Independents keep the High Street flowing. If there’s no High Street, there’s no health to a town or a city, and we can see it first hand up in North Devon. There are places that are thriving because they’ve got great independents on the High Street. Great independents means great people. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but I really bind to people. I’m a bit of a sucker for it sometimes. When you meet people and you can see it’s their passion, you really want to support them. And not strictly by going in and spend money in that shop, but you tell people, you spread the word and inadvertently become a bit of their marketing.

What does success look like for you?

The success of my business is to give me enjoyment in my job and free time. I’m a believer in if you focus on something, you’ve got the right products and the right personality to convey to people, the money will come. And I’m not talking big bucks – I just mean enough to live by your means and enjoy what you do.

This business has given me time to go surfing, to see family, to travel and I consider that a success. Granted, it’s taken six years to get to that point but I’m grateful, considering that time includes Covid and everything that came with that.

What are your plans for the future?

I would like to explore trading year-round a bit more and scoping out new opportunities. When I first started this business, I had a dream to do some ski inspired street food, so to combine the two and have a pop-up in the Alps somewhere would be incredible. But then I think, if I work hard in the summer, I could just go to the Alps and ski without having to work in the winter – so there’s a trade-off.

There’s always going to be that battle between your head and your heart with running a business. Costs of operating have fluctuated a lot so you think in order to remain profitable, do you offer smaller portions, source cheaper ingredients or put prices up? I think a lot of people are naturally averse to increasing the cost to customer, but I always think the worst thing you can do is compromise on quality. It’s quality that people come to you for and know you for.

If people love your food, they will come for it and they will pay for it. They might not have a drink or a side with it, but they will support you.

Which song would you pick to be the soundtrack of Biffen’s Kitchen?

Bill Withers – Lovely Day. Music is a huge part of Biffen’s Kitchen. If there’s no music in the van, there’s no soul, there’s no food. It’s mad when that Bluetooth cuts out and the guys we look at each other like ‘oh no!’. It’s a simple thing, but when we have music on it makes people queuing happy too.

Lovely Day was the song I played having just opened the hatch for the first ever time, looking out at the sun and the sea. So I made it my thing, a bit of a ritual, now every morning I play that song.