Contract caterers have all sorts of demands placed on them but negotiating a funeral procession isn't normally one of them.
Yes, clients want to be green but at no extra cost; the offer must compete with the high street but often match the best in-fine dining for directors also; and it's got to be keenly priced, of course; but funeral cortèges, that's a bit different.
Still, in one of the best, and let's be fair justified, excuses for running late I've heard this year Frank Bothwell managing director of Oxfordshire based contract caterer Thomas Franks came up tops earlier this week.
Bothwell called up ahead of our meeting this week to let me know "he was running late", on the usually rather uneventful drive to Reed Towers, home of Caterer and Hotelkeeper, in not-much-ado Sutton, Surrey.
Why? Well the unfortunate caterer had left the famed and feared M25 and run, not literally, into a gypsy funeral procession, which you'll have to concede is a bit more exotic than missing your train.
The deceased gypsy in question must have been someone of note (gypsy king?) as he had a procession of five flat-bed trucks and more flowers that the Chelsea Flowers show festooned about the convoy.
Thomas Franks, which won its first contract in 2005, has been busy with a number of new deals taking its contract haul to 30. See Caterer and Hotelkeeper and Caterersearch next week for more.
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