Benugo starts 2009 with two lucrative contract wins

Benugo, the café and deli operator, has started the year with two contract wins, including the company's first outside of London, estimated to be multi-million pound in combined turnover value.

The company, which became part of BaxterStorey-owner Wilson Storey Halliday Group last year, has won deals at the Ashmolean museum of art and archaeology in Oxford and the Dell café in London’s Hyde Park.

The Ashmolean, the UK’s oldest public museum founded in 1683, closed last month for a £60m-plus refurbishment, which is being overseen by architect by Rick Mather. Once reopened this November, the museum will have 39 new galleries, a new education centre, conservation studios and the city’s first rooftop café.

Benugo will also provide hospitality services at the site, previously run by Elior's Digby Trout, as part of a ten-year deal.

The Dell, formerly run by Company of Cooks, will be rebranded as Serpentine Bar & Kitchen, in-keeping with Benugo’s existing restaurant brand, which operates at the British Film Institute.

The nine-year Dell deal will see Benugo running a 120-seat restaurant in the grade-two listed building when the site reopens after a makeover in the spring. Subject to planning permission, the revitalised space will feature a wood-fired oven as a centre piece, as well as ample outdoor dining space.

Benugo co-founder Hugo Warner said: "These locations give us the opportunity to do something wonderful, which is why we pitch for business like this."

Last summer Benugo won the £3m deal to cater at London’s natural history museum. It currently caters at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Museum of Childhood and Museum of London and has retail cafes across London, including a recently opened unit at St Pancras International.

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By Chris Druce

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