The Caterer Blog

A strong performance - that was the general verdict from the 300 diners at London's Dorchester Hotel who watched Compass Group UK managing director Ian El-Mokadem grappling with Alastair Stewart's questions at today's Arena lunch.

Elmo, as he's known in business circles, had a few factors against him - not least the fact that most of the audience owned up to having worked for Compass at some time, so of course knew exactly how they would run the catering giant.

But despite that, El-Mokadem put in a confident performance after almost a year in the job.

Had the pleasure of meeting William Baxter and Alastair Storey of contract caterer Baxter Storey yesterday.

They were great company and fellow petrol heads - what is it with contract caterers and motorsport? - so we got on well.

Business can't be all bad as they revealed that while their work cars were Audis they both also have Aston Martins. I could tell they were equally impressed by my 100,000 mile N Reg Punto.

Our dining spot was Scott's in London's Mayfair, part of Richard Caring's empire, which includes the Ivy and Caprice (restaurant not model).

I was at the Association of Catering Excellence conference on sustainability yesterday, held at the impressive Bank Street offices in Canary Wharf, home to investment bank Lehman Brothers.

A slick event, which although only a day in length had plenty to digest on the issues of sustainability and corporate social responsibility, which let's be fair the latter of which isn't the most sexy subject on paper.

Commendably, well chosen speakers such as chefs Oliver Rowe and Michael Caines and the ever entertaining Geoff Ward helped make sense of an area of debate that tends to leave you with more questions than answers.

I will of course be writing a report in next week's Caterer - once I catch my breath - so look out for that. I'll leave you with conference chairman Chris Sheppardson's thoughts on the interesting times we live in (in contract catering).

Since I started reporting on the world of hospitality four or so years back it's always been self evident that, at a certain level, everyone knows everyone else in the business.

As a journalist this is both useful and frightening (better not piss anyone off too much).

However, after last week's Association of Catering Excellence conference on sustainability it seems I can add to the above that not only does everyone know everyone but you are also probably related to them!

Everyone likes to win stuff.

That's why we have the yearly nonsense of the Oscars, the banality of the Soap awards (most gormless twit) and the jewel in the crown of them all, the Cateys (be warned high-spirited penguins expected around Grosvenor House hotel in London next Tuesday).

And so to last week's ACE conference on sustainability, which fittingly for a catering conference had its Clean Kitchen Awards but alas no Jessica Alba, Naomi Watts or Salma Hayek in sight (although there was former track star Roger Black on hand to swoon over).

Contract caterer Aramark officially opened "the poshest basement in London" this week in the words of its consultant executive chef Gordon Ramsay (who had a limerick read to him by one barmy punter at the event).

The caterer's splendid new innovation centre at the London Underwriting Centre in the City is a collection of its "high street" offerings, technology and a demonstration kitchen put in place to showcase the range of options it has to offer customers as well as letting them "get stuck in" on the food side.

Featuring lots and lots of new sparkly equipment the innovative move has been driven by Aramark's passionate belief it has to become a customer focused rather than purchasing led entity to flourish in this brave new century. Sound stuff

It's always hard keeping up with high flyers but think how the bods at BaxterStorey must feel.

With Alastair Storey winning this year's Foodservice Caterer Award 2007 at the Catey's -damn good event that you can watch a Cateys taster of online - the contract caterer now has not one, not two but four former Catey winners on its board.

Yes Linda Halliday, Mike Smith and William Baxter have all received the hospitality industry's ultimate accolade in the past, so is it time for the rest of the bosses at the firm to pull their socks up? Maybe so.

"I guess it looks a bit shabby," joked Storey in a post-Cateys phone call. "Maybe I should remove the others from the board until they've got one, too."

The race for the Cateys 2008 starts here.

BaxterStorey profile>>

BaxterStorey at Scott's - a fishy tail?>>

Occasionally you have to pity those who work in the civil service, not for their lack of corporate perks or thankless working conditions, but for the fact that our taxes can no longer extend to supplying them with complimentary sugar for their coffee and tea.

So while you and I are paying more tax than we ever have in our working lives the poor employees at the Home Office in Croydon now have to pay for sugar if they take it in their hot beverages thanks to the latest initiative by caterers Charlton House.

Apparently light-fingered Home Office employees have been using and abusing the sugar supplies so much that a charge has been put on its head – although it is unclear what the price comparison is between brown and white.

Meanwhile an incentive to get staff to buy said hot drinks from the staff canteen, instead of the nearby coffee houses, has backfired.

I'm currently at the National Association of Care Caterers (NACC) annual conference in Birmingham.

Listening to the various speakers today covering everything from malnutrition amongst the elderly - which NACC chairman Sue Hawkins described as a national scandal that is costing the nation £7.3b a year and putting the stretched NHS under pressure through longer stays and treatment - to the failure of the system to support dementia suffers, it certainly puts things in perspective.

Hey, it's certainly not been all doom and gloom but you get the impression that with an ageing population the conference delegates - dedicated, passionate about what they do, underpaid and overworked - are facing a struggle at least as challenging as school meals reform.

Although there wasn't the fire of the LACA school meals conference I last attended at this very Hilton in July, there does appear to be movement at last with the Government seemingly engaged with the NACC and its peers to improve food standards for those in care.

We'll know more next month with the Government due to unveil its action plan during Meals on Wheels week. It might not sound like much but Hawkins told me it is if catering is to be seen as an integral part of the clinical process - as it undoubtedly is - because it's the first time all the various stakeholders involved in care for the elderly have worked in unison.

More in Caterer next week.

Although the creation of a new catering giant with the merger of BaxterStorey and Holroyd Howe simplifies the sector slightly, it’s still a challenge to stand out from the crowd.

So hats off to Harbour & Jones (H&J) who have been busy bees on the tendering front and showed real attention to detail on a recent bid.

Having had the client’s current provider described as similar to a high street cinema brand, such as Odeon, when what she was after was a service more akin to The Electric on London’s Portabella Road, the team new what they had to do.

Therefore as part of H&J’s presentation they hired The Electric and put on a film as part of their presentation, which is certainly one way to communicate your creativity.

Needless to say they won the contract.

Compass arm in multimillion-pound deal at Bank of England>>

Vodka Revolution wins Harbour & Jones new deal>>

Sodexo's done it, ISS Eaton is about to and In House Catering is considering it.

No, not hiring Lenny Henry to front a marketing campaign as in the case of Premier Inn, but rather repositioning their businesses and the message they send to the market.

Under new boss Simon Titchner, previously with Aramark, ISS Eaton looks set to enjoy an interesting year with a number of acquisitions on the cards and plans to unveil a new image latter this year.

Having been swallowed up by Danish cleaning and facilities giant ISS in 2004, the caterer’s new team feel their profile in the sector could be better and with the likes of a certain mobile phone operator newly on the books in their biggest deal to date certainly have something to shout about.

We’ve got a news analysis in this week’s Caterer and Hotelkeeper (7 February) on rebranding so take a look at the pros and cons for yourself.

Sodexho Alliance renamed Sodexo>>

It's time to drop the H bomb>>

There’s a lot of legwork involved in “going green” as a business but contract caterer Vacherin has gone a few steps further than most.

In this Thursday’s Caterer and Hotelkeeper (28 February) we have my latest Adopted Business update on the City based contract caterer.

The subject of the article is Vacherin’s efforts in the field of sustainable business practices and the challenges a small privately owned business faces.

Of course, everyone is concerned about carbon footprints these days – just look at the current vilification of bottled water – and as part of their green measurements Vacherin undertook an assessment of their own, working out the distance from one of their City clients to five different suppliers.

So what? Well the thing that made me chuckle was that they’d worked it out by cycling from the client to each supplier (less than 20 miles in distance as a round trip).

The food trolley appears set for a renaissance thanks to a new scheme from contract caterer Compass and Innocent smoothies.

Alas, here at Caterer Towers our own trolley service was nipped in the bud a few years back meaning us lazy journalist types now have to wander far further away from our desks to find a suitable bite to eat than before.

But Compass obviously senses an opportunity and is bringing back the trolley, now covered in grass in these green focused times, stacked with the drink of the present, the smoothie.

Trolleys are being trialled at around 50 sites and if a success will be rolled out (sorry).

Compass Group triumphs at Hotelympia>>

Compass Group>>

A year ago contract caterer Crown Group announced it was adopting a new name, Oriel Group, and rebranding two of its businesses to simplify things.

The plan was that following an announcement in June Oriel (one presumes not named after the American cookie) would come into force from July 2007.

At the time it also renamed two of its operating companies Crown Venue Catering and Crown Society Special Event Catering as Kudos Hospitality and Seasoned, respectively.

Oriel's sales and marketing director Jonathan Byrne told Caterer back in June last year that the rebrand would end the confusion surrounding Crown and "act as a springboard, moving us forward".

However it now seems the move might have turned into something more akin to a belly-flop.

In short Crown’s customers didn’t like the new name and had an attachment to Crown so although Kudos and Seasoned have stayed (along with the group’s other businesses including Missing Ingredients, London’s Flying Chef and two Michelin starred restaurant Midsummer House) Oriel was still-born and never came to pass.

Interestingly the U-turn wasn’t communicated with quite the enthusiasm or energy of the original Oriel announcement.

Crown Venue Catering awarded five-year deal at Manchester's GMEX and International Convention Centre>>

Crown Group wins a £50m deal for 75 leisure centres>>

Midsummer House Michelin-starred restaurant forced to take foie gras off the menu>>

Compass Group is a big, big company that touches most of our lives in someway day-to-day whether we realise it or not.

The caterer, which provides services in staff restaurants, hospitals and schools throught the UK recently landed a plum job to provide services at Heathrow's new Terminal 5 for British Airways's (BA) customers and airport owner BAA's staff.

No doubt it's making a better job of feeding people than BA and BAA are of flying them from the new terminal.

Compass, unlike many of the pub companies, is upbeat about its prospects for 2008, which makes for a refreshing change from all the doom and gloom about at present.

Anyway, some Compass facts:

Compass purchases more than 3 million litres of gravy per year - enough to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool
If you put the amount of Jaffa Cakes purchased each year by Compass Group end to end they would run further than the entire length of the Metropolitan Tube Line
During the St. Patrick’s day celebration period, Compass UK serves more than 700,000 pints of Guinness.
At the Wimbledon Tennis tournament, more than 18,000 bottles of champagne are sold during the two week period or the equivalent of 72,000 glasses.
Compass sells more than 8 million cases of cold drinks through its partners each year. That's around 4.5 drinks per second every day, every year fact fans.

Compass Group goes Fairtrade bananas>>

Contract caterer Graysons has unveiled more former Compass executives as part of its team and the origin of its company name.

With a slightly heavy heart I have to reveal that Wendy Richard is not a shareholder nor is Graysons a homage to the late, great John Inman a fellow star of Are You Being Served?

The hit BBC show was set in the fictional Grace Brothers department store and is the reason for this slightly laboured joke.

In fact Graysons financial backer former Compass chairman Sir Francis Mackay says the name, or a derivative of, was a City Livery catering brand from the days of Grand Metropolitan.

It effectively disappeared when Rank Group bought Mecca Leisure in 1990.

Speaking at the recent Arena Face to Face lunch Baxter Storey’s Alastair Storey made the case not to cut back on staff training and development as times get tougher.

"I believe the next two years to three years will be a lot harder. There’s always a temptation to make cuts and trim training, but if you’re serious about using fresh food you need to keep training all the time."

You can see our exclusive Arena video for a taste of the networking event and a glimpse of Storey in action.

The caterer was expertly quizzed by ITN journalist Alastair Storey on a number of areas, which I thought I’d jot down for your delectation.

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.

Ah school meals, the battleground for hearts and minds (both children and parents). Jamie Oliver, Turkey Twizzlers, you know the drill.

While there seems genuine optimism about the fate of the primary school meals service, providers and politicians are waiting eagerly to see the findings of next month's LACA/SFT school meals survey.

Surely national uptake at secondary level will have risen, having bottomed out at its lowest point since just after the Second World War last year. Surely?

But how about this to garner envious glances from all? John Betts Primary School in London's Hammersmith - demonstrating a laudable whole school approach - opted out of Local Authority control last year for school meals.

This was well meaning, as the school wanted to deliver a made on site, fresh-food lunch service, but not at all straightforward as John Betts didn't even have a school kitchen. Bugger.

The Olympic Games, that most venerable institution, is almost here again.

Soon we'll be drinking in the spirit and ideals of ancient Greece reborn anew in China.

Yes, there'll be much revelling at this showcase of the pursuit of excellence and the chance it provides for individuals to reserve their place in history, and no doubt the odd dropped baton or two.

And of course, we'll all be cheering on our plucky, poorly-resourced team GB, maybe even Dwain Chambers.

There'll be the drug scandals, naff mechandising and of course Tibet. Yes, it's all there in the mix and inevitably with the handing over of the torch at the closing ceremony thoughts of London 2012.

But before we get there, we'll have a chance to watch 14-year old diver Tom Daley compete in China as the second youngest-ever male Olympian to represent GB, and that, in part, will be thanks to Sodexo.

With food inflation featuring heavily in recent doom-and-gloom predictions for the UK economy, It seems, much like Eastenders, everyone's talking about it.

A Caterer investigation published today found that contract caterers are very much of the view that higher food prices are here to stay and must be confronted.

However one chief executive told me that they had had a few teeth-gnashing moments with clients who despite being well up-to-date on food inflation from the healthy news coverage it's been receiving, tend to react with puzzlement when told meal tarrifs in their restaurants need to rise.

Anyway, if you'd like to learn more about the subject, including expert advice on mitigating food price increases, we have just launched a dedicated Food Costs page rounding-up developments.

 Do let me know your thoughts, also.

As we all know golf ruins a perfectly good walk but for one rubbish player it also netted him a brand new car after a wonderfully flukey hole-in-one.

Errington - who up until this point had been slogging around the course averaging seven on each hole - hit a perfect shot on the par-three hole nine and thanks to a company deal with the National Hole in One Association won himself a £15,000 VW Golf.

The rub (of the green)? Following his feat Errington is now classed as a professional standard golfer and can no longer enter competitions as an amateur.

The solution? Errington has retired from the game and will no doubt be shortly driving off into the sunset in his new motor.

Sodexo in sponsorship deal with Olympic hopeful>>

Master thief architect of his own downfall>>

Sodexo names new healthcare director>>

Contract caterer Blue Apple's team at Motorola have won the second Association of Catering Excellence Clean Kitchen Awards.

The awards, run in conjunction with kitchen hygiene company Two Services, are in their second year and prove cleanliness is next only to Godliness.

Blue Apple beat seventeen rivals to the title with final judging undertaken by Geoff Ward from HMS, part of the National Britannia Group.

For their troubles the team received a cheque for £1,500 and a stainless steel plaque to commemorate their success.

Second place was Accent Catering's Devonshire House with Elior's Baker McKenzie third. Second place received a cheque for £1,000 and third place £750.

Blue Apple recently landed a deal to feed EasyJet's staff at its new headquarters in Luton, Bedfordshire.

Vacherin is ACE pub quiz champion>>

Vacherin chefs are ACE Ready Steady Cook! Winners>>