Pen Productions, the south London-based caterer and events organiser responsible for the Vodafone summer ball, has appointed Gemma Blow executive chef.
Blow will head a core team of 20 chefs, devise new menus, source supplies, and oversee the design and refurbishment of the company's new kitchens in Wandsworth.
The 22-year-old chef was the winner of the first Ramsay Scholarship in 2001. She began her career as a 15-year-old in the Gables restaurant in her home town of Harlow, Essex, before moving to London to work at City Rhodes and the Greenhouse, then taking a role as senior chef de partie at the Square in Mayfair, London, under two-Michelin-starred chef Philip Howard.
For the past two years, Pen Productions has catered at Vodafone's summer ball, an event attended by 13,000 guests, which takes six months to plan. It has also produced after-show parties for film premieres, including Chicago and Judge Dredd.
Blow said: "I am really looking forward to transferring my skills in precision catering to catering on a much larger scale. The sheer scale of things we do here means that some of our orders may be the only ones that a particular supplier can fulfil that week."
Blow was thrown in at the deep end when she helped out at last month's Vodafone ball at Highclere Castle in Berkshire.
Pen's managing director, Julian Dyer, said the biggest challenge of catering for 13,000 people was the high number of agency staff needed. "There were 600 agency staff serving and 175 chefs. You can't test them all," he said.
Organising break rotas was problematic, too. Dyer added: "It's funny - everyone wanted to have their break when Robbie Williams was playing."
By Ben Walker
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 31 July - 6 August 2003