BOASTS about low food miles are not exclusive to farm shops and swanky delis. Lay-by mobile snacks bars are also on trend when it comes to reducing carbon footprints.
"They're Chambers, from Arnold," says Pauline Williams when I compliment her on the quality of the bangers at Casey's Snack Bar.
These are not the usual transport caff fare – poor-quality, salty sausages that are deep-fried in a bid to disguise their lack of flavour.
No, these are meaty, rough-chopped specimens and two of them, each slit lengthways, make a perfect breakfast bap filling when whipped off the griddle by Pauline's tongs-toting husband Reg.
"And all our bread is from Adkins – we get everything we can from local sources," she adds while waiting for the next trucker to pull up for a sausage cob or a £4.95 breakfast in a tray with cup of tea.
Reg and Pauline Williams have bagged one of the best mobile catering pitches in Notts – the long, broad lay-by off the A612 between Bulcote and Lowdham.
You can pack a lot of 40-tonne rigs on the Tarmac and still leave room for tradesmen's vans and private cars.
"And we get a lot of private drivers on their way into work in Nottingham," says Pauline, 55. The theory is that chaps put up with a cereal or squirrel-food breakfast at home – but stop at Bulcote for something more interesting, probably with a squirt of brown sauce.
The Williamses are new to the lay-by, but not to catering. Reg, 59, from the picture-book Herefordshire village of Weobley, trained as a chef in the Welsh Victorian spa town of Llandrindod Wells while studying catering at Newtown College.
He and Pauline met in Newark, where they still live and together they worked for major outdoor catering firms like Express Cafes and MPM.
"We did Crufts, Burghley, the Southampton Boat Show, the royal wedding," says Pauline.
"At the royal wedding I made Page 3 of The Sun. You could just see me in a picture taken outside Buckingham Palace. We were serving salmon baguettes and proper coffee."
This year, the couple decided to go it alone with Casey's Snack Bar.
Casey? She is the Williamses' little granddaughter and she is reportedly thrilled to have a mobile catering operation named in her honour.
"It was the travelling – we wanted to do something closer to home," says Pauline.
With the old catering van moving out this summer, the couple sought the necessary permission from Newark and Sherwood District Council and invested in their trailer, which remains a work in progress: "We went to an auction in Sutton-in-Ashfield, bought it for £950 and then gutted it and did it up. We must have spent £3,500."
Inside there is just enough elbow room for two, plus counter griddle, two-bowl sink, chilled display cabinet – Coca-Cola, Tango, Picnic, Snickers – and a pair of refrigerators, one for raw meats, the other for salad vegetables and dairy produce. A check on the district council website shows that Casey's gets a top hygiene rating of five stars.
It's a dawn start for the couple, Mondays to Fridays. "I get up at 5am and we are here for 6.45," says Pauline. "The first job is to get the sausages on – they need 20 minutes and have to be ready for regulars soon after 7am."
The job does not involve towing the trailer from Newark every morning. It is secured overnight at a more convenient site closer to the pitch.
Drivers who are unfamiliar with A612 will be alerted by the roadside "Breakfast" flag and the Williamses have upped their chances of securing casual trade by emblazoning the Nottingham Forest badge and "Come On You Reds" to the side of the trailer. Actually there is nothing cynical about it – Reg and Pauline are passionate Forest fans and visit City Ground whenever they can.
The Williamses have made the site as attractive as possible, keeping the hedgerow shrubbery under control and providing a portable loo for customers' use.
"We've been here only since the summer but we've got some fantastic people," says Pauline over the insistent hum of the petrol generator behind the trailer.
"You get to know them and if you don't see one for a few days you ask, 'Where's Tank?' and other customers might tell you he's on a long run elsewhere."
Reg adds: "This site is handy for lorry drivers. It's a well known spot and the lay-by is big enough to get a lot of trucks in.
"Mobile catering used to have a bad reputation but hygiene regulations are now a lot tougher – and rightly – so the customer can be assured of good standards."
Casey's Snack Bar, A612, Bulcote, open 7am to 2pm Mondays – Fridays. Telephone orders: 07850 423828.
