Horeston’s Finest Fish and Chips are a classic, family-run fish and chip shop in Nuneaton, a market town in the heart of North Warwickshire. Owner Alex Lambrou had been using the pen and paper method for his hygiene records for years, and had become disillusioned with it after being bogged down with unnecessary files and binders. Horeston’s is a highly regarded, busy takeaway so the team operate on extremely tight time schedules every day they are open. We spoke to Alex about how his transition to leafe has freed up time and reduced stress for himself and his staff members.

Alex started off by saying he initially wanted to digitise all his hygiene paperwork “To take away the paperwork element which is outdated and inaccurate”. He also specifically wanted to explore the “Possibility to have the right records all in one place”. He found leafe after browsing the app store. He tried other digital options but mentioned to us that none of them were as user friendly. Which is a relief because that is the core reason why we created leafe in the first place!

When we spoke to Alex about the philosophy behind leafe, we found that he really shared our vision which was really satisfying coming from someone so experienced in the industry. He said “All management systems are computerised these days, it’s about time the hospitality industry followed suit, really”. Virtually all other industries have digitised their compliance, why is hospitality still in the dark ages?

After asking Alex how he was finding using leafe, he said it was “user friendly. We haven’t got time to be messing around [with unnecessary paperwork] so it ticked all the boxes. Using the book is painful and laborious, leafe saves us a massive amount of time. Time is the one thing you can’t give a kitchen team enough of. Time is such a precious commodity in this industry. Leafe is a big timesaver because its all there - you can do it all in 2-3 minutes without having to mess around with different files”

At the end of the day, however, the end goal for everyone is to get a positive rating from hygiene inspectors. When we brought this up with Alex, it was clear he has no problem keeping his kitchen spotless, but when EHO came knocking “they would look around the shop and say ‘yeah that’s all clean and tidy…now where’s all your paperwork?’ And you can just show them all of it on leafe, in one place”

“Download leafe - it’s brilliant!”