Spotlight on Liz Murphy

Liz runs I Cook You Serve, a family catering business, providing healthy pre-prepared meals or anyone who won’t cook/can’t cook! They also provide buffets as well as being trained in nutritional therapy.

How did you get to be where you are today?

The idea for the business dates back 20 years ago. I looked around and realised that there was not a business like I Cook You Serve that supplied what I needed at that time. I come from hospitality. I didn't go to university. I had an absolute blast working up and down the country. In pubs and restaurants, and casinos, and all sorts of places. It was brilliant. It was just really good fun and learnt everything from the beginning and end of customer service, pubs, restaurants, cooking. The business is based on that expertise. At the time the business started all that was available were “ping” meals, takeaways and deep fried food. I was a busy young family, working full time. I didn't want to compromise my time with my daughter Shannon, who was three or four at the time. Having picked her up from nursery, time with her was precious. To sacrifice that time and then go into the kitchen and make a nutritious meal for the family was a step too far. So that's how the business started creating preprepared meals ready to cook.

You live with what's available, life transpired that I found myself as a single parent, I had two further children at that point. It was time to just get this idea off the ground? I needed something that would work with the family. I was not prepared to sacrifice time spent with the kids. I was quite “donkeyish”, a bit of a mule! There were things that I was not going to move on. I needed something that would fit and I Cook You Serve fitted perfectly. I'd thought it through from beginning to end. So I picked up a knife and I picked up an onion, I picked up a recipe. I apologetically handed out leaflets to the school playground. Everybody jumped on it. Everybody supported me. There wasn't a big corporate job that I left; I really respect people that have done that - they take that leap of faith and I think that's amazing. But that wasn't my story. I just had to get this done until somebody told me I couldn't do it anymore. Nobody's told me that! So I've continued and the business has grown and developed to what it is today. I'm terribly, terribly proud of it. And I challenge anyone to tell me that I can't do it now!

How have things changed over the last 10 years? Is food provision got better?

So much better. I'm so happy to see that everybody is a little bit better educated. Back 20 years ago, there weren't food delivery services with ingredients to your door, there weren't recipe cards with everything all measured out. I think these are great tools for people to eat well. In the end, that's what we celebrate the most - everybody deserves to eat well, and eat good food. Not have to compromise with the slurry that's packaged up quite frequently. Labelling is better now. Laws have come into play where we have to label better what’s in the food that we're producing. Not just food manufacturers like myself, also supermarkets, so that people can make better decisions on what they're putting into their body. I'm always happy to see a development on tha,t so that people are a bit more empowered, and could be better educated; which means they can eat better and make better choices.

So your daughter is now part of the business?

Yes she joined three years ago. She stepped out of university and straight into the business; she absolutely transformed it. An incredible addition to the I Cook You Serve family.

A natural progression within the business for my own personal development was to understand why eating the rainbow of colours of food was a good thing to do. I knew it was a good thing. We all know it's a good thing to eat colourful, fresh ingredients. I wanted to know why. I took a nutritional therapy course. Shannon was home on holiday from Uni at that particular time, and like she didn't have enough to do, she looked over my shoulder and said “that looks quite good, I might do that too”.

So we both did it together. It was lovely. It had absolutely nothing to do with her degree, it was just another thing for her to just do. She got her teeth it. It was personal development for me but for Shannon it became an aspect of the business that she could head. And that's how she came in, with that in mind. That is in fact happened but in addition to that, she does the whole business element of I Cook You Serve. I remain in the kitchen, which is my area of expertise! Shannon remains at the keyboard and at the end of an email as first contact as everything that is business related, that is completely Shannon's department.

We bounce off each other perfectly. We celebrate each other. Our business meetings are really good fun, short and to the point. Decisions get made really quickly. It's absolutely brilliant. She’s transformed the business.

What’s your “why”?

For me - and I may sound like an angry middle-aged woman - it's the continual frustration, and the non-compromise on food, on what was out there when my business started, wasn't good enough. Although the business has started now, the more you know, the more you come to understand how food comes about, and where it comes from; the less accepting you are. It's just not good enough that we have all these fruit and vegetables imported from across the globe with all the air miles and everything that goes with it. If we just ate more simply, it would be much better for everybody.

The other “why” is being flexible. I like the flexibility of our menu changing every week. I celebrate being able to do that. It is the freedom really - so that's my why. I'm free to enjoy what I'm doing. My passion is in the kitchen. And, whilst I'm in there, Shannon's generally doing all the rest of it that makes a business a business: keeping the communication open, keeping everything going for our clients.

What distinguishes you from your competitors?

There are four things really. We serve fresh, not frozen. There's nothing wrong with frozen, but ours is fresh. That gives the client the flexibility to do with that food, what they choose to - either serve it there and then or just pop it in the freezer to eat later.

It's ready to eat and reheat. The menu changes every week as well- that is quite fundamental. It's exciting as we can capture national days or other celebrations and we are not stuck to a seasonal menu that may only change every 3 or 4 months. The fourth thing is that it's a family business and everything around the business is Northampton central. Everyone that touches or has anything to do with our business is generally Northampton based and we all do a little happy dance when an order comes in. We write our regular blogs keeping readers up to date with food health and nutrition advice. I celebrate the competition, there's plenty for everyone. And in the end, as long as everybody's eating well, that's what is important.

What has been your biggest challenge that you have faced as a business owner?

Time, or lack thereof. I used to think there are 24 hours in a day and there are seven days in a week. Unless you're using all of them, then you do not get the excuse of not having enough time. Amazing things have been done by all sorts of talented people with the same amount of time. What challenges I have faced, first and foremost without a doubt, is balancing time priorities. Having a young family, changes that happened within the family; such as when they go to a different school, you're managing the house and you're managing the family – all these things need to be balanced alongside running a business. Throw some old parents to the mix as well and that it can all stop on a heartbeat with a single phone call. That has been a real massive challenge, just managing time. Because we've gone through that, we understand what it's like for our clients and for clients that have those same pressures. I’ve done the working full-time bit. I've done the stay-at-home bit. I've done the hospital calls. It's really hard. Probably because, I'm not great at relinquishing responsibility for things.

What would be your one top tip for small businesses?

Ask for help. Just recognise it really that you don’t have to do things on your own. As I'm older now I see the value in getting a good group of people around you, and that they want you to succeed. The most supportive people around us in our business, want our success as much as we do. Likewise, we want to see success in other people. Beyond that, I would say have an element of some personal development, identify something that you can tap into, that will get you through the tough days. If you can find something that will just get you back up fighting fit again that is beneficial. For me, that's Taekwondo. It just gets me through hard days. I tap back into that energy, I tap back into that philosophy, that way of thinking. Find something that isn't necessarily related to your business, that is completely separate so you can leave your “stuff” at the door. It could be swimming, it could be ballroom dancing, anything that works for you.

Watch the interview

This is an extract of a video interview – to watch the full session, visit: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_ ZKJeWSgY