The former boss of Golden Tulip UK, Peter Roberts, has come up with a cunning plan – forming a hotel site finding company and signing a deal with Whitbread, the business that snapped up his former company for £44m last month for more sites for its Premier Inn. Neat.

Roberts may also be interested to hear that ever resourceful arch Premier Inn rival Travelodge is offering a £25m bounty for tip offs from the public about potential sites for its own budget buildings. Say no more.

Development sites aside, Raymond Blanc is backing the winners of his show The Restaurant, Jeremy and Jane Hooper, in their debut venture Eight in the Country in Thame, Oxfordshire. [316729].

One restaurant business that has had a nightmare year but is looking to the future with optimism is FishWorks. Although the operation is now in a better shape it couldn’t prevent losses for the year ballooning.

On a different scale the London Development Agency has launched a “green” pilot scheme.

Of course there are winners and losers in any race but the prospect of cutting VisitBritain’s already anaemic budget in the run up to the London Olympics in 2012 seems faintly scandalous. We’ll see.

From one set of mean beans we have a winner in now privately owned Caffè Nero, which seems to be going form strength to strength with sales and profit soaring.

Entering a new chapter is the restaurant collection A-Z Restaurants, which has become simply London Fine Dining Group.

The Young Chef, Young Waiter winners were revealed this week and noodle chain Wagamama reportedly abandoned plans to list on the stock market due to the current credit crunch.

The Government launched a tasty new school meals campaign and contract caterer Charlton House set up a new division to focus on public catering. Yummy.

Also, tickets are now available for the Excellence in Food and Drink Awards lunch, which will be held at the Dorchester hotel on 23 November, priced at £100 plus VAT.

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 today (19 October).

Needless to say there’s lots on offer…

By Chris Druce, online news editor