Don’t panic! Don’t panic!

It’s all going according to plan, school meals that is. According to Jamie Oliver the fall in school meal uptake that is worrying many a caterer is par for the course and a temporary blip.

What was that saying about deckchairs and the titanic?

From one celebrity chef to another and Gordon Ramsay has been making headlines here for his performance over the pond.

The already legendary chef almost became the holder of the most Michelin stars in the world with the publication of the New York Red Guide and picked up Zagat’s best newcomer for his eponymous restaurant at the London hotel in the Big Apple.

Although AC/DC may have sung have a drink on me on their seminal 1980 album Back in Black, it seems us Brits are in fact drinking less alcohol since the advert of new licensing laws in England and Wales in 2005.

Although this is slightly tenuous as the new alcohol laws exclude Scotland, where the odd nip of whisky is imbued, the point is that predictions of New Year sales-like behaviour (i.e. apocalyptic carnage on the nation’s streets) simply hasn’t happened.

I’d recommend a celebratory drink but….

Staring them early the British Institute of Innkeeping has been taking the drinking message to schools – all above board I assure you – and Robert Breare’s Merchant Inns announced a joint venture with property magnate Sir John Ritblat [316609].

The Local Authority Caterers Association teamed up with the School Food Trust to launch a media campaign promoting school meals and their health benefits to teens (good luck) and the Government’s eagerly awaited Comprehensive Spending Review failed to get any message across at all about an Olympics marketing spending boost.

Well, I guess it’s a marathon not a sprint.

Caterers were told good kitchen management was key to cutting their environmental impact while a new survey found suppliers weren’t fully green yet.

Hotel du Vin came up with the unexpected news its was going into the pub business in Brighton and Robert Thompson, head chef at Winteringham Fields, Lincolnshire, is to swap Michelin-starred kitchens to join Waldo's, the fine-dining restaurant at the Cliveden hotel in Berkshire.

Going once, going twice, sold to the gentleman in the tall white hat…yes Caterersearch has auction fever and will be holding its first online auction in association with Hilditch on 19 October.

Needless to say there’s lots on offer…

By Chris Druce