Crazy & Co.

Catering, Equipment, Event Planning, Fun Story

Environmentally Friendly Catering

5 October 2022

A few year back, about 15 to be precise. We launched an initiative to become the most environmentally friendly funfair operator on the circuit. We switched to running on bio diesel. Swapped all of our catering consumables to bio friendly alternatives. Started switching to the then, new technology of LED lighting. Even looked at adding solar panels and a mini wind turbine to our helter skelter to run the lights. We even purchased a set of Swedish designed compost tumblers to dispose of our food waste.

Armed with the glow of the righteous, we set about marketing our new environmentally friendly catering services, and took pains to explain in detail what we were doing. And it went down a storm. People loved it. BUT, and it was a big BUT.

The reply we got when sending quotes in for our services was along the lines of;

“Wow, what you guys are doing is fabulous, we really love it, hope you keep it up, unfortunately the non environmentally friendly operators are just a little bit cheaper than you, so I am afraid we will have to go with them!”

It quickly became apparent that we were going to end up as the most environmentally friendly bankrupt funfair operators out there.

Back To The Drawing Board

In truth, we pretty much went back to operating like everyone else. The fact was that saving the world was just too expensive at that time. If no one else was going to do it, putting ourselves out of business wasn’t really a sound business plan. You didn’t need an MBA from Harvard to suss that one.

So, what has that got to do with the price of bacon?

Well, we think the time is right to re launch our aims. The environment is suddenly a mainstream topic. It beginning to reach the stage where being enviro conscious is no longer the exception, rather you are expected to take it into account.

It does help that items such as drinks cups and plates etc are dropping in price for the biodegradable versions. So mush so that there is now only a slight premium in using them. Most items, such as cutlery ,plates, bowls, cups etc are widely available in various ‘plastics’ made from plant matter, or sugar cane.

The one hold out is bloody straws, the awful paper things we have been saddled with are useless. Three sucks of any liquid and the things collapse. So if you know of an alternative we would be happy to hear from you.

Keep checking back, as we will be launching a new environmentally friendly catering initiative in the coming months.

In The Meantime Check out our catering services.

0 comment

Catering, Food Trucks, Fun Story

Ice Cream Flavours With A Twist

2 October 2022

One of the world’s greatest treats. Ice cream ticks the boxes for everyone (well almost everyone, I am sure there are some strange people out there that don’t actually like it). Everyone has their favourite flavour, though officially in the UK vanilla is the number one choice.

However, there seems to be a concerted effort to cater for more, ahem, exotic tastes, everything from squid, to lobster, god forbid that someone should ever think of adding Brussels sprouts. Lets have a look at some of the wackier stuff that’s available;

Heinz Baked Beanz

Definitely not sure about this one, I love ice cream, I also happen to love Heinz Beanz, but both together, its like fitting a Maserati with a 2CV engine, technically still a car but meh.

Coco Pops Ice Cream

Aah, now this is better, coco pops good, ice cream good, coco pops ice cream double good. In fact why isn’t this a regular thing. Both this and the Beanz Cream were limited edition specials from a pop up ice cream store in Anya Hindmarch’s village, London.

Salty Liquorice

Not sure about this one, personally I hate liquorice, and I’m not struck on salty, so probably a big fat no from me. I sometimes think that a lot of these ‘black’ coloured desserts, are purely made because the colour makes them ‘different’.

Goat’s Cheese (and Beets and Spinach)

Goats Cheese, yum, beet, perhaps, spinach yuck! There seems to be a regular move towards creating ice cream from savoury flavours. Some work some don’t, so I will reserve judgement until I actually get to try this one.

Jagermeister Ice Cream

Now this is one we have tried, we were hired a few years ago to provide a photo booth and ice cream cart, with the cart dispensing Jager flavoured ice cream. TBH, it isn’t a flavour I would probably have picked, but on trying it, I found it to be a thumbs up.

Whisky And Prune Ice Cream

I think this is another where the Maserati/2CV analogy would hold up. Whisky good, prunes, not so much. In fact they are right up there alongside Brussels sprouts as the food of the devil.

Hire Ice Cream Carts

If you are looking for an ice cream cart for your wedding or event, we can supply a range of different options, from the traditional flavours through to some for the modern favourites such as Orea’s, Bounty, triple choc etc.

Or if you are a corporate client we can put together a fun food truck package to dispense your own ice cream for a sales promotion of event.

0 comment

Catering, Equipment, Food Trucks, Fun Story

Food Trucks For Hire

28 September 2022

During the lock down, like many businesses we found our regular business model changing. We have always provided a large number of catering services, but usually what we called fun catering, doughnuts, waffles that sort of thing. A number of our regular corporate clients started asking us for things like burgers, noodles, pasta pots, more of a main course sort of thing. We swiftly set all of that up, initially in a range of street food style satalls. Perfect as they could be set up inside or out. However we also came to realise that many of the clients wanted more than just the food, they wanted something of an impact from the serving vehicle. To this end we are in the process of adding a range of fun and quirky food trucks for hire.

Citroen Hy Catering Van

Based on the vintage Citroen HY van range, but built on a trailer chassis using modern materials this is a fabulous looking food truck for any occasion, perfect for high output corporate jobs, but equally at home at a high end wedding.

Vintage Horse Trailer

A fully refurbished, vintage Sinclair horse box, with a stunning black and copper paint scheme, and finished in a high end Sapele hardwood this fits many country themes and can be fitted with any of our range of catering options.

Citroen Acadiane Van

The newest member of our fleet, another vintage Citroen design, based on the iconic 2CV car, but with a van body. Designed for many of our smaller food offerings such as coffee, doughnuts etc. This also works well with our our other Citroen food trucks hire.

Only Fools And Horses 3 Wheeled Van

Del Boy Van, One quirky food truck for hire for weddings parties events — Del Boy Catering Van hire weddings parties events

Probably our quirkiest food van, based on the legendary Del Boy Trotter’s 3 wheeled van, again designed to take smaller offerings, this is a real head turner at any event.

Mini Camper Van Food Truck

Next is a mini camper van replica. Great for summer parties and beach themed events. Perfect for drinks offerings, but equally suited to food offerings. Check out our food trucks for hire and add a touch of fun to your party or event.

Traditional Ice Cream Trike

Back to the simplest vehicle of all, a tricycle. Bought initially fo ice cream jobs, it is adaptable for many desserts such as strawberries and cream, waffles, poffertjes etc.

2 Comments

Catering, Equipment, Event Planning

New Equipment / Box Trailers

24 September 2022

Like many businesses, we changed course during the Covid pandemic. Only slightly admittedly, in fact more of a subtle swerve. I always used to say that we provided fun catering rather than full meals or the like. During the lockdown though a number of our biggest clients started asking for burgers and fries, Chinese noodles, rice pots and the like.

Not a problem, we can do that. What did crop up as a concern though was the fact that providing 900 burgers, meant we were having to transport far more stock than what we used to do with say candy floss, which at most would be a big tub of sugar. 900 buns take up a considerable amount of room.

So what to do, the obvious choice was buy bigger vans, trouble is, parking is a nightmare in places like London when you have a little van, so something long wheel base would be a nightmare. The other option was to acquire some box trailers. These could be used for things like stock, freezers, additional catering equipment etc. And when we didn’t need them could be left at base and we were back to our usual small vans.

Debon C500

The first of our new Debon C500 trailers has just arrived and been collected from the dealers. Pictured below this gives us a decent amount of additional carrying capacity, both in space and weight terms. It also looks the part being a modern construction, so will look great parked up at events.

The first thing we did on taking delivery, was to get it straight into our graphics people to have it lettered. Now this is a new thing for us. In the past because of the amount of jobs we did for other events companies we shied away from having the vans personalised. But with some young blood on the management team we have rethought that position and will be making sure our new Crazy & Co. brand is front and centre whenever possible.

Ziggy & Our New Branding

Pictured below is the current design for the trailer. Ziggy our zebra logo is prominent, along with details of what we do. Our web and social media, and a quirky saying for those following us to laugh about. The branding will be rolled out on our new equipment, and also gradually added to our existing fleet.

Debon Trailer With Advertising Branding — Proposed Lettering

Resources : Graphics by HGGraphics

Trailer : Debon Trailers

0 comment

Catering, Equipment, Event Planning, Food Trucks, Fun Story

Food Trucks From CRAZY & Co.

22 September 2022

Our Horsebox Food Truck before And After

Vintage Horsebox

Next up in our new range of food trucks is our converted horse box. We looked at a wide range of converted horse trailers, but were never 100% happy with the design. We happened by chance upon a maker called Sinclair, long defunct, but their trailers were different as they had a curved front panel rather than the usual triangular style.

After much searching we located one at the other end of the country, a brief conversation and we were told that it is perfect, ready for the road.

Cue and early morning trip to Bournemouth. On arrival, the rather vacant sounding young man informed us that actually the lights don’t work. Hmm, so not quite road worthy then. Luckily I had the foresight to throw a lighboard in.

However upon examining the trailer we discovered that it had four different sized wheels.

“Tell you what mate, I’ll ring the boss and tell her about the trailer and let you know”

Check out our other food trucks.

Knutsford

Luckily I had a back up plan, I had found another trailer at Knutsford, only about 100 miles out of our way on the return trip lol, and this one was described as ‘mint’.

We duly arrived at Knutsford. The trailer was far from mint, but it was suitable for what we wanted. We struck a deal, coupled up and discovered that a short on the trailer lights had blew the lights on the van. That turned into a whole other saga as changing the fuse necessitated a full strip down of the dash to reach the bloody thing.

But I digress, we set off home sans lights. On the way we did receive a text message from the first seller asking when we would be returning for the first trailer. FFS, we left there 7 hours ago.

Not Quite Mint, But Useable or What We Wanted

The Initial Strip Down

After careful consideration we decided that rather than doing what most people seem to do, a quick coat of brush paint and throw some counters in, we decided to make it something nice.

So we started with a complete strip down to the bare frames, leaving my other half to retort, all you have actually bought is a bloody frame!

Taking it back to bare metal we primed everything with rustcoat, then coated the entire frame with black Raptor, one of our favourite products. This gives a hard wearing textured finish that protects everything and covers amazingly well.

New Flooring

One of the concerns the health inspector had was that the original floor would contain years of horse urine soaked into the wood. No probs, as we stripped and burned the original wood flooring and binned the rubber coating.

A new wood floor was fitted, two coats of stain to seal it, then a new rubber coating.

Big Decision, Wooden Cladding

One of the major decisions was how we were going to finish the exterior. The original wood was a high grade hardwood, but because all the screws and bolts were seized in, we pretty much destroyed it taking it off. A trip to our local wood guys yard and a look through his collection of woods saw us settling on Sapele. A tropical hardwood that is related to mahogany, and is a fabulous colour, ranging from red to golden brown.

We used a soak in wood treatment on all the panels, then a number of coats of satin varnish, as we didn’t want an overly glossy look to the trailer.

We also settled on a satin black for the fibreglass roof and aluminium corner panels. Again, we wanted a less shiny look, though I admit the satin clearcoat was a nightmare to spray without it looking patchy. In the end after numerous attempts I gave up. But curiously, after a couple of weeks the patches disappeared and a uniform coating appeared????

Front Panels

The front corner panels were steel, they were overly heavy and badly rusted, so we replaced them with three mm aluminium. In retrospect two mm might have been sufficient as the three really took some bending.

Making It Different

We wanted a different look to the usual horse trailers, and I freely admit that we had seen an American horse trailer that we loved, so we used that for inspiration. One of the things we added to achieve this different look was a number of windows, both to let light into the trailer, and to add some visual appeal.

On To The Interior

Finally we got started with the interior. A number of steel frames were built in situ, with sapele front panels added and temporary countertops in MDF. A water tank, water heater and waste system, single and three phase electrics and a cooking fume extraction system. Also in common with our other food trucks we added a 42 inch display for menus and such.

The interior corners we added alternating sapele and idigbo strips to add some visual effect.

Another Of Our Food Trucks Almost Finished

Our programmable light panel.

We added decorative copper panels to the exterior and additional windows to the front. Just waiting on the production of our top sign at this point.

Horse Box Catering Trailer, another of our food trucks

Sign finished and fitted

0 comment

Catering, Equipment, Fun Story

Citroen 2CV Deux Chevaux

13 September 2022

Over the years, Citroen, the French Automobile manufacturer has stood out for doing things its own way. It has designed and utilised a number of systems for its cars different to anyone else. WIth it’s DS model in 1955 it gave the world a quirky hydraulic suspension system, swivelling headlights, a single spoke steering wheel, all wrapped up in a quirky streamlined body. Withs its 2CV, it gave something else.

One quirky car, the Citroen DS — Citroen DS

A Legend Is Born

Post war France, like many nations was struggling with austerity, rebuilding, the after effects of that cataclysmic conflict. At the time in the Gallic nation, most people were still using horses and carts. The roads in most of the country were rural and unpaved.

Citroën Vice-President Pierre Boulanger wanted to design a vehicle that would be suitable for the many French farmers. Legend has it that the car he came up with was designed to allow a farmer to cross a ploughed field with a basket full of eggs, without them breaking.

Whether that was true or just an apocryphal story is open to debate. Either way the car features an unusual suspension set up, with a single horizontally mounted spring connected to both front and back wheels via shock absorbers, also mounted horizontally.

Suspension Diagram for 2CV — 2CV Suspension

The Tin Snail

The novel suspension system was wrapped up in a simple tin body, corrugated for strength, whilst keeping the weight down, the car had a full length canvas roof, and has received a number of less than flattering names. An Umbrella On Wheels, The Duck, Tin Snail. Powering this new Citroen, was an air cooled, two cylinder boxer engine. Initially around 375 with a stunning 9HP. This was increased first to 425cc with 12.5 HP and then to 602 and 32 horses.

2CV Air Cooled 2 Cylinder Boxer Engine — The Mighty 2CV Engine

To keep costs down it came with no locks on the doors, a single taillight and no heating or ventilation system. Subject to much derision by the motoring press at launch, Citroen was flooded with customer orders, indeed at one point a second hand 2CV was more expensive than a new one due to the waiting list.

3.8 Million

The motoring press got it wrong. Citroen sold 3.8 million of these little quirky cars, and it kept selling for over 40 years.

The car gradually became more ‘luxurious’ over the years, receiving upgrades such as wing mirrors, and two headlights. There was even a 4×4 version called the Sahara. True to form whilst everyone else in the automobile universe added a transfer box to split power between the front and back wheels, Citroen added a second engine in the boot to drive the back wheels. The car could run on front or back engines, or both, with two keys and starter buttons in the cabin, but a single linked gearstick, and two petrol tanks, one under each front seat, with holes in the doors for the filler caps.

Sahara Rear Engine — Rear Engine In A Sahara

Citroen Fourgonnette

Now you might wonder why a blog about a catering company has an article on a primitive French car? It’s simple really, the French didn’t just make the 2CV as a car, they also made a van version called the Fourgonnette. This was rapidly adopted by everyone from the local florist, to the French Post Office.

It has also been adopted by us. Well, not technically a 2CV van, but rather an Acadiane van. Basically this is a 2CV running gear and engine, with a slightly modernised cabin added. So instead of the single round headlights, you get a more modern streamlined wing mounted light. It is also slightly more powerful, and is based on the Dyane car, itself basically a facelifted 2CV.

This, like the rest of our fleet of food trucks, will be designed for multi use. From an espresso coffee bar, to a frozen yoghurt dispensary. Over the coming weeks we will post some more details as it is fitted out ready for launch.

0 comment

Catering, Equipment, Food Trucks, News

CRAZY & Co. Food Trucks

25 August 2022

Citroen HY Van

Gone are the days when people were happy to book a ‘burger van’ for their event. Nowadays it isn’t enough for the food to be first class, the serving unit has to look good too. Everyone from the bride to the company director wants something ‘Instagrammable’ as social media continues it’s relentless takeover of the world, so food trucks seem to be the way to go.

To this end we have commissioned and have added, or are adding, a number of fun and quirky vehicles to our portfolio of food trucks.

The first of these is the venerable Citroen HY van. Only it isn’t. We looked carefully at where we operate, which is pretty much nationwide. The Citroen HY vans were last produced in `1981, making the youngest of them 41 years old. Not bad to nip to a local event or two, but a bit taxing for charging up and down the highways and byeways of this green and pleasant land. The size of them also means they are too heavy for our fleet of car transport trailers, so initially we were a bit stuck.

Then we happened upon a Spanish manufacturer, that was creating fabulous copies of the HY, but built upon a trailer chassis, and made from fibreglass and stainless steel, so pretty rot proof.

We ordered one in the middle of last summer, but with the six month waiting list, it turned up in the winter and then had a round a three month fit out period before we actually launched it.

Construction

Some images of the construction phase below. In truth more of a fit out phase, as the actual structure was provided pre made to us.

This one we engaged Fairtrade Fabrications to fit out for us. A protracted build period ended up, with a fabulous piece of kit. We are a bit limited in signage and theming as what we do is different everyday, so it makes it harder to add signs and such, though it looks like it will be appearing at a Christmas Fayre for a protracted period this winter, so that is liable to see a full branding effort.

Finished Van

Check out our other food trucks at CRAZY & Co. Food Trucks.

0 comment

Catering

Savoury Crepes

6 April 2022

Sports commentator and broadcaster Ian ‘Moose’ Abrahams has recently broke twitter with his latest weird food fetish tweet, about the filling he likes in his savoury crepes.

In the many years that we have been experienced crepe makers we have found that Nutella and strawberries or lemon and sugar are the top choices for sweet fillings and recently having offered savoury option cheese and ham or a tomato and pesto being the top choices there. Now the fillings are all down to personal choice and were not judging here however the twitter trolls have been out in full force judging poor Abrahams for having one particular savoury filling in his crepes.

TUNA!!! Is the culprit of the twitter agg! So someone out there –perhaps some warped and weird cook – is out there cooking crepes and filling them with tinned tuna chunks and people like Abrahams is loving it.

I mean as I said before we don’t judge here and tuna chunks are nice aren’t they? But many of the social media population don’t agree. The Sports Commentator has attracted a lot of attention for sharing his love on savory crepes on twitter. Many people are angry, many concerned and many are relieved that they can finally admit the same.

One tweet read ‘Ian mate you need locking up for this’ whilst another quoted “That’s the sort of thing a stoned student would eat. What’s for second course? Porridge with cheese spread?”

Check Out Some Savoury Crepe Recipes

0 comment

Catering, Event Planning, funfair events

When The Fair Comes To Town

30 March 2022

Have you ever wondered about when the fair comes town. It suddenly appear on your doorstep, almost overnight in many cases?

The funfair owner just gets up one day and decides to come and set up in the park across from your house right?

Erm, no, not exactly. Most events are planned months in advance. Indeed many fairs follow a regular date, in some cases stretching back hundreds of years. They tend to be the culmination of much planning, regular meetings, inspections and so on.

We were responsible for a few years for the fairground supplied in conjunction with the summer festival at Gainsborough. I had happened across the event whilst passing through the town one summer day. I contacted the organisers about attending with some attractions at the following years event. This was politely declined, and I tried again the following year with a similar result. Out of the blue I received an email asking if I would like to supply a couple of candy floss and Popc o rn stalls. So cue a meeting with the relevant people, a deal was agreed and I was asked to supply all of my safety documentation.

A few weeks later, again out of the blue, the organisers asked if I would be interested in supplying a full range of attractions. This meant another meeting and plans being discussed. This proceeded quite well, until it was pointed out that the council couldn’t agree this with us directly, it had to be put out to tender to a minimum of 3 operators.

All 3 of us submitted tenders, and eventually we were notified that we had been successful.

More Meetings

After receiving the green light, we submitted details of the actual line up we proposed along with safety documentation. Then the council Health & Safety team contacted us asking for an onsite meeting. Cue another trip to Gainsborough to talk through their concerns.

Full steam ahead now, or so we thought. Until we were informed that part of the car park could not be occupied. It turns out that a local solicitors needed 24hr access to their building. So this meant a rewrite of the plan, and some modification to the line up we were bringing.

The day before the event, we had to be in Gainsborough to oversee the setting up and siting of rides. We were obviously there for the day of the event. Also the day after to ensure we had cleaned the site up and caused no damage. Oh, and the organisers wanted a debriefing meeting to discuss any issues that had come up.

So you can see, far from just rolling up, we had not only to deal with numerous organisations and individuals at the planning stage. We also had to travel to Gainsborough a number of times, for in the end what was a 1 day event.

When the fair comes to town, its the result of a lot of hard work, before the rides even turn up.

0 comment

Catering, Fun Story

New Service / Exotic Burgers

14 March 2022

Take a walk on the wild side. Not your usual beef (now we have nothing against beef, and are very partial to a good juicy beef burger, but beef is a bit, erm vanilla). We now have a range of exotic wild meat burgers.

During the after Christmas part of the year, when our work load drops rapidly for a couple of months. We use the time for maintaining and refreshing our equipment. Improving what we do, and adding new lines to our services.

With the new found spirit of democracy permeating the business. We now hold group sessions to actually discuss things. Truth be told, I still prefer the old system of benevolent dictatorship, but I am co-operating at the minute.

In the interests of bringing you the tastiest burgers possible we undertook a series of ‘tastings’ to check out the potential contenders. Here is a round up of what the butcher told us, and what Emmerson and I thought of the meat.

Crocodile Burger

The Raw Ingredients Picture By Harrybalais

Now I admit, this one is unusual, I mean, usually its the crocodile doing the eating.

They Said; This one has the look and texture of chicken with a bit of a shellfish taste to it.

Jason Said; This one wasn’t bad, it was more chicken like than beef, but had a faint tang of prawns in the aftertaste. Not my favourite, but edible.

Emmerson Said; Not a big fan, too fishy tasting for me.

Ostrich Burger

A flock of Ostriches — Birds, Rather Big Ones

Just in case you don’t know, an Ostrich is a bird. Now I know this conjures up images of a robin or something. That’s about as far away as you can get from this bird. Its big. Bloody big in fact, upto 9ft tall in some cases. It is also bloody heavy, weighing as much as 2 adult humans. Oh, and its also bloody fast. Reaching 40m.p.h in bursts and being able to maintain about 35 m.p.h over long distance runs. Makes you wonder how they catch the bloody things.

This one is quite healthy. Well, for meat. It is a red meat (ha, bet you were expecting white like a chicken, which is also a bird). It is lower in fat than beef and high in protein. During the mad cow disease days, or Bovine spongiform encephalopathy to give it its true title (for the record I can actually pronounce that). There were a number of initiatives to replace beef with ostrich, but it seemed to fizzle out after a couple of years.

They Said: A great healthy alternative, low in fat, high in protein and taste delicious

Jason Said; Weird being red meat, cos you really expect a bird to be white. Not bad, similar to beef.

Emmerson Said; I liked this one, not too strong a taste, but different.

Kangaroo Burger

Another iconic animal, hailing from the land down under. I know we all tend to think of them as cute and cuddly, but an Aussie friend tells me they are a real pest. Oh, and they are definitely not cuddly, being heavily muscled and potentially quite dangerous. Personally I voted against this one as it would feel too much like eating Skippy. (If you don’t know who Skippy is, ask your mum, or possibly grandma).

They Said: This one is a very tender, heavily flavoured meat.

Jason Said: I liked this a lot, a strong taste that stood out.

Emmerson Said:The bold earthy flavour definitely puts a bounce in your taste buds.

Wild Boar Burger

This one is another animal, that if you haven’t seen one tends to get associated with a pig. These can be huge. Like, massively huge. Weighing upto around 330kg (about 4 average sized humans). These can be aggressive, are heavily muscled and bloody heavy. There are plenty of documented cases of people being killed by boars.

They Said : A nutty, sweet flavour, but lower in fat than pork.

Jason Said: Another flavoursome meat that stood out.

Emmerson Said: Eatable, but not my favourite.

Now we also have another entry to the menu that has been democratically voted on. I wish to go on record as being dead against this one. But sadly, not everyone is as sensitive and deeply caring as me. This one is the;

Zebra Burger

I think it smacks of cannibalism. We choose an anthropomorphic zebra for our company logo, then decide to eat him.

They Said; “This one has a subtle taste compared to the others”

Emmerson Said : the taste is similar to a beef burger but different , slightly disappointed the burger didn’t have the stripes in.

Jason Said : OH MY GOD! I can’t believe we just ate Ziggy!!!!

Buffalo

Weighing anything upto almost a ton. This is one big chunk of meat. Gawd knows how many burgers is walking around in this image.

They Said; A very health and tasty alternative to beef. The burger is high in nutrients such as protein.

Emmerson Said; Definite liked this, stronger than beef but very similar.

Jason Said; Loved this one, very beef tasting, but a stronger flavour.

If fancy a walk on the wild side and would like to book our Exotic Burgers Service, then check out our burger services.

0 comment

← Previous 1 … 7 8 9 … 15 Next →