What a year at Cooking Towers!

after it had been snagged, the site was geographically centred around the members and allowed the most interactive listing for members and suppliers, our belief was that supplier databases have done their day Google had put pay to that, we wanted something that would link to all the major social networking platforms but also allow clients to link to their site via RSS and their own content images and video, our belief is people no longer search for the news and products it finds them, so through activity content reaches them. As the site was being built an idea to celebrate those loyal lieutenants many of whom worked as wing men for many of the featured chefs began to take place as the Heroes of the Hotplates so often the dedicated chefs behind the names. Britain's Got Talent young talented chefs, often, just under the radar of the traditional press in our opinion needed to be celebrated and championed so we are. The Staff Canteen Meets, a small featured chef without the video, but up close and personal interview. Menu Watch - we wanted to understand the thought process on what went into a menu, the costing, the seasons and more. Pastry Chefs, and here, we must say sorry - this was only every going to quarterly feature but we need to develop this still further and we will. We've celebrated Hotel Chefs, who all too often, get overlooked in the now restaurant dominated chef arena, Chefs who have moved and built careers successfully out of the whites are also featured. We covered 30,000 miles by road; who knows how many by air. We've visited Scotland, Wales, T'north - ever conscious not to be London-centric, as whilst it's a great city full of amazing chefs, we have an amazing country full of great chefs so let's celebrate them all. A year where we've been invited to attend so many events, and whilst flattered we are now turning them down, not because we are ungrateful or don't want to help, but we believe the value is not in The Staff Canteen covering an event, taking images and adding them as The Staff Canteen, but encouraging those that compete to create their own profiles and add images and for them to encourage debate through the community around their content. When the end users add content their ownership of that content has a far greater value and buy-in from their peer group because there becomes a common connection, or at least that's our view. We've turned down the opportunities to endorse products - it's not what we believe is important but what the chefs believe, that's where power lies with the end users. You can't buy your way to the top of the supplier list, but you can through being the most liked or most viewed (both driven by the users), we don't create debate or topics on The Staff Canteen for commercial gain - why would we? How can a debate be objective when you've been paid, debate is organic and driven by the members not by us. The Ten Question Videos, well, if you don't get it now you never will! Chefs are real people; they are just very dedicated to the profession and those we feature often more so. The 10 questions was never to mock but to show them as humans as real people. We broke the 5,000 members mark and passed 30,000 forum posts - amazing milestones, even when we launched four years ago forums were becoming an old fashion communication tool. Twitter has become such an amazing platform even Facebook is threatened, and whilst yes our forum debate may not be the central focus of the site what an information resource, and with over 1,000 visits a day, over 1,100 recipes added and over 4,000 images - we've never been busy across the site. So what next? Well we know we can't stand still and have made a huge investment into future projects. We need to offer chefs better and quicker access to the site; we need to give them an opportunity that we hope will make The Canteen ubiquitous to every chefs daily routine. Some of our developments should have made the site already - they haven't, but will soon and some simply have not worked, more on developments from us soon (we hope!) There will be changes next year to some of features but again more on that later... Trust me, when I say that just delivering 12-Featured Chefs is a full time job in itself, that's without everything else and I think it's a true testimony to where The Staff Canteen is currently with Raymond Blanc OBE, Rene Redzepi and Alain Roux appearing as Featured Chefs in succession - each belong to or are themselves global brands in their own right, so to afford us their valuable time, I hope, shows how far we've come but also I hope highlights how professionally done our Featured Chef is? We have appointed a Sales Manager who we hope will drive success for us, so that we can continue to improve and deliver more great content, travel further a field with our cameras, as well as to more UK chefs. 2012 will see The Staff Canteen take to the road, so please come and say hello, we are delighted to support many great chef events, competitions and conferences and where we do we'll have a stand so please come and say hello. There's not a day goes by where I don't want to push The Staff Canteen over a cliff, but I don't and the more chefs I meet the more I think we are doing the right thing and will continue to do so. It's been an amazing year, to all our members' thank you, to everyone that's visited again thanks, as long as you keep coming back in your tens of thousands each month we will keep doing what we do. Thank you from Chef 1 and all at Cooking Towers