The Caterer Blog

This week's Caterer includes an article looking at whether the hospitality industry can boast true ethnic diversity. The article has drawn an interesting emailed response from one reader, who points to numerous
"exemplars of success" - among them Cyrus Todiwala, 3663's Andy Kemp and Ken Hom. The correspondent's fear is that "such articles can create the impression that minorities have chips on their shoulders – great news for the bigots ... I think our industry, more than almost any other doesn’t see people in terms of race, colour or sex. What we see in people is passion commitment and ability."

Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? Has race ever been a factor in your career? Let us know your thoughts on diversity in the industry.

There's such fear around the issue of race that the hospitality sector has adopted an "everyone's the same" approach that's failing to see any true diversity in the boardroom.

Okay, that sounds deadly serious but hospitality has a race relations problem and the sooner it accepts it the sooner the industry can prosper from all the talent it's currently squandering.

I mean it's mad for an industry facing a seemingly never ending skills shortage not to be promoting more workers, regardless of background on merit, into management positions.

Given the massive diversity at entry level in the hospitality industry, which in the UK employs some two million people, I struggle to think of many members from minority backgrounds that aren't self made bosses such as Surinder Arora or Cyrus Todiwala at the top.

There's clearly a problem and research from consultancy and recruiter Chess Executive last year found just 2% of hospitality boardroom members came from minority backgrounds.