If your menu is not celebrating the seasons then you are missing a trick argues Garden Centre and Catering Consultant Doug Stewart.

Delighting customers by adding seasonality to your food offer can be much easier than it may appear.

For example, even the traditional ham salad can be brought into summer with, for example, a salpicon (or "hodgepodge/medley") of pineapple and mint served on the side.

As well as adding seasonality the use of these delicious embellishments to our menus, be they the addition of a parmesan crisp or a hodgepodge of finely diced pineapple with fine ribbons of mint running through it add a unique specialness to our offer.

And with High Street Coffee Shops snapping at our heels, specialness is what it is all about.

Doug can be contacted through his website, www.waringstewartassociates.co.uk