Petty Officer Andrew Bailey
Winner of the Armed Services Award

 

On joining HMS Tireless, PO 'Bill' Bailey was faced with the immediate challenge of an underperforming section, producing food to the minimum standard. This, combined with a significant financial deficit and high stock discrepancy ratio, led to a poor assessment at the boat's previous Base Inspection (BI).

 

Quality of food is close to the heart of all submariners, especially during the gruelling conditions of a long deployment. PO Bailey worked closely with the Galley staff . Starting with the basics, he emphasised the need to take pride in what is served and stressed the use of fresh produce where possible. The improvement in the daily fare was recognised instantly and was greatly appreciated by the whole crew.

 

He achieved this whilst transforming a negative catering balance of £1,300 to just £250 and reducing the stocktaking discrepancy ratio to less than 3%. In six months in the post, he exceeded all expectations achieving a strong assessment at the next BI.

 

A natural leader, he was selected ahead of more experienced candidates for the roles of departmental coordinator, departmental training coordinator and senior rates' mess vice president. He has led his team with vigour, innovation and discipline. The departmental training routines he established were recognised by Flag Officer Sea Training as 'best practice' and have subsequently been incorporated into future training for the Submarine Fleet.

 

His innovation, leadership and commitment to food quality at Tireless has both added to operational capability and increased the standing of its logistics department.

 

 

Manchester Fayre is the in-house school meal provider for Manchester City Council. The company caters for more than 150 nursery, primary, special and secondary schools across the city, serving around 32,000 meals a day.

 

Under the leadership of Head of Catering & Town Hall Services Steve Southern, the catering team's aim is to address the health inequalities that exist in the city.

 

The catering service provides school meals that are value for money and strive to improve the health of Manchester's future generation. Manchester Fayre is committed to ensuring all pupils have access to a healthy nutritious and freshly prepared school meal.

 

This is facilitated by its extensive bespoke training and personal development programme covering all legislative developments and vocational subjects such as health and nutrition.

 

This comprehensive training programme has aided the company in addressing the current economic downturn as investment in staff is returned through mentoring, leadership skills and multi-skilling.

 

Manchester's school meals market contains many inner city schools with a range of diverse catering facilities. These include private contract grammar schools, Food 4 Life schools, schools with multi-ethnicity pupils and schools located in areas of high deprivation.

 

The company developed Fresh Fayre, a concept that offers pupils freshly prepared, healthy and nutritious meals with more choice and a self-serve facility.

 

The new concept has been introduced to 80% of schools with an average meal uptake of between 13 and 15%.

 

At St Chrysostom's Primary School in East Manchester, school meal uptake has increased from 50 to 63.5% since its introduction. And in its second week at Crosslee School, uptake in pupils having school meals increased by 14.1%.

 

 

Two years ago, as head of hotel services, Graham was enlisted by this charity to improve the on-site catering operation. The previous department was producing what has been described as average food with little regard to customer focus and involvement.

 

Upon accepting the task, Graham's aim was for the catering department to become the national leader in: locally sourced and organic food for patients and staff ; food prepared and cooked as close to the patients as possible and involving patients and staff in creating a greater understanding and ownership of the health benefits of good food.

 

Annual food spend targets have been set and will be reviewed every six months. Among current targets, 20% of the total food spend must be organic or ethically traded; 50% of food must be locally sourced from Northamptonshire or surrounding counties and 25% or less of its total food spend must be within 75 miles of the hospital.

 

The grand opening last May attracted organisational support from the Soil Association, Sustain and Good Food on the Public Plate plus many other suppliers.

 

 

Cambridgeshire Catering and Cleaning Services (CCS) had a £1m deficit two years ago following Jamie Oliver's controversial television series on the state of school meals but is expected to break even this year during a difficult trading period. Meal numbers had plummeted in primary and secondary schools after the series with a massive financial impact.

 

Richard Ware took the position of head of service for the company in November 2007 following the retirement of his predecessor. An effective marketing strategy was desperately needed. Richard brought lots of experience and knowledge to his new role.

 

He created a marketing strategy that would eliminate the deficit and provide a secure financial future for the company. Main objectives included increasing meals by 10 a day for three years at every school in the authority. He also needed to provide marketing support for schools individually as opposed to using a blanket approach for all of them.

 

Richard wanted to use a combination of traditional marketing and new, digital techniques to increase awareness of CCS's websites and give more information to parents and students. Parents can now go online and offer suggestions for future menus. Pupils are also using the website as part of lessons to learn more about food.

 

 

After two years of hard work from Virgin Trains, the entire First Class on board food offer has been refreshed. Work on the menu began in early 2007.

 

It was launched in January and is sourced entirely from British produce to the extent that it can be traced from farm to plate. Traditional English sausages, Welsh and Scottish beef and British cheese are all from sources that the company says are able to confirm provenance.

 

Virgin wanted to offer its customers the finest products with the new menu, as well as sustainability, provenance and quality. It says it researched the 'ideal menu', spent months finding the highest quality ingredients from the highest quality products and ensured that everything it used could be traced and authenticated through the entire food chain.

 

For example, pork sausages from outdoor reared pigs made with fresh herbs and natural casings form part of the breakfast on all Pendolino trains to and from London Euston. Virgin has worked closely with staff to develop menus that can be prepared and served in the limited confines of a train.

 

 

Glynis joined Wigan Council 30 years ago and had worked at Wigan Town Hall for 18 years. In 2006, Government changes in food standards for school meals led to a major downturn in the number of Wigan pupils taking lunchtime meals.

 

The council created a catering department, MetroFresh, to reverse the decline in school meal numbers. While school meals were being taken care of, Glynis launched her own campaign to bring the healthier lifestyle agenda to the heart of the council and introduce healthier options to the corporate market.

 

She achieved this by tapping into MetroFresh's commitment to providing healthier ingredients and menus. As well as traditional fayre, council workers were offered a range of nutritionally balanced food options. Glynis trained her small team of six cooks and kitchen assistants to prepare the food and also to encourage visiting diners to make the switch.

 

Then came the task of changing the eating environment. The old canteen area has been completely revitalised thanks to Glynis and is now under the new guise of The Town Hall Bistro, providing a modern and fresh venue to showcase the new menus.

 

She has engaged with the business community to raise awareness of the council's corporate meals service and continues to promote healthier eating to community audiences. Glynis has also introduced regular promotional days, which include exercise and healthy living demonstrations.

 

Glynis continues to lead a campaign to reduce the obesity levels of across the wider Wigan community where one in five residents are overweight and risking illness as a result.

 

 

Since the Department of Health launched the Improving Nutritional Care Action Plan in January 2008, the catering services team at Dorset County Council has worked tirelessly to ensure developments in all of its priorities.

 

The team ensured that the message of the link between nutrition and good health was conveyed to all those involved in the care services within Dorset.

 

They held an Appetite for Ageing conference that was well supported. With 165 attendees and selling out months in advance, the conference was innovative and thought to be the first of its kind to be held by a local authority.

 

The catering services team have also been working with the National Association of Care Catering and the National Patients Safety Association to develop the European Alliance's 10 Characteristics of Good Nutritional Care for Hospitals to be relevant to all care settings. Once agreed, appropriate tool kits will be produced to form the basis for all future guidance on nutritional care within the sector.

 

When it came to encouraging the provision of access to relevant training on the importance of nutrition, rather than wait for the Nutritional Summit Deliverance Board to provide training, the team took the initiative. Despite the restraint of local authority finance, they presented a persuasive argument on its importance and received funding, enabling them to develop nutritional training for all staff involved in care.

 

As the unit manager of the staff restaurant at Quadrant, Tyneside Council's new headquarters, Steph and her team operate the restaurant and provide its civic catering.

 

Opened in 2007, her challenge was to open the new catering facility for 950 staff members. It had to be managed at nil cost and there was a lack of belief that the new catering services could deliver as previous facilities were seen as poor and outdated. Customer uptake was low and menu fatigue was apparent from previous consumer feedback. There was also a risk of potential outsourcing.

 

The team had to convince their customers that they could deliver. The operation also had to reflect set financial targets in a bid to break even. Food costs had to be determined to achieve gross profit while ensuring the best value and affordable prices.

 

Steph had a key role to play in offering a comfortable central hub area for colleagues to relax in as well as have informal meetings over a cup of coffee.

 

The restaurant opened with a team of six and has gone up to 15, reflecting the increase in business since December 2007. Steph also supported the promotion of Fairtrade products to achieve the key criteria for Fairtrade status for the borough. She has introduced fresh menu ideas for civic hospitality and a chef's theatre at lunchtime, which is proving popular. Current sales show customer uptake has increased by 36% and the restaurant enjoys a turnover of £325,000.

 

 

Jane has worked in the university sector for eight years. Having revitalised the catering operations at the University of East London and Queen Mary's, she joined Imperial College in 2006 as head of catering and conferencing.

 

Imperial was voted the ninth best university in the world but its catering service was far from exemplary. Jane inherited a department that produced a £500,000 deficit on a turnover of £6.7m in the year she joined. The team also had poor morale and was failing to deliver to students, staff and clients.

 

Since then, Jane has completely turned the catering service around to create a modern, customer-focused and dynamic team.

 

The overall operation broke even in the last financial year with a turnover of £9m, a 34% increase since Jane arrived. She has also reduced the supplier list from 130 to a manageable 30. As well as a substantial increase in the use of outlets and internal hospitality by students and staff , there has also been a surge in conference business. She has also coped with Royal visits, a staff party for 4,000 to mark the university's centenary and the opening night party for Cirque Du Soleil.

 

So trusted and respected is Jane by the academic community that three previously outsourced operations have been brought back in-house.

 

The university has entrusted her with £5m capital to refurbish some of its outdated facilities and build some additional outlets. She plans to make more in-house developments with a convenience store and café/bar set to open in October. The main kitchen will also be revitalised for the start of the next academic year. 

Jane is leading on all these projects and is still able to manage her day-to-day workload and motivate her staff with constant encouragement. Last year, she won the Rector's award for Leadership and Management. The initial nomination came from Jane's team, surely a testament to her managerial abilities.

 

 

Since joining the House of Commons two years ago, Mark has been described by his peers as ambitious, competitive and a highly dedicated culinary expert with a personable and professional manner. His team of 80 say he is the most inspiring chef they have ever worked with.

 

He takes great pride in his pursuit of excellence in all areas of his repertoire, his mentoring of aspiring chefs and his sharing of skills and knowledge in all levels of his brigade.

 

Mark's credibility is enhanced by his impressive record of achievement in culinary competitions, his involvement in the World Culinary Olympics being amongst the most notable. A member of the Craft Guild of Chefs, he represented Great Britain at the 2008 World Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany.

 

A leader by example, Mark places great emphasis on his mentoring of talented young individuals and his ongoing commitment and support to encourage young people to fulfil their potential. Mark is always adding to his extensive knowledge of food, constantly challenging convention and pushing the boundaries of product innovation, food preparation and menu content. Mark is currently responsible for all culinary and back-of-house services in the House of Commons, managing five kitchens in the Palace of Westminster and kitchens in three other buildings on the

parliamentary estate.

 

He is in charge of the production of around 8,000 meals a day in three restaurants for MPs; hospitality in the Palace of Westminster; a brasserie for MPs' hospitality in Portcullis House; the Members' Tea Room; four self-service restaurants for MPs, staff and civil servants; a café bar, restaurant and hospitality service for journalists and media representatives and catering for an average of between 65 and 70 private functions a week including official entertaining in the State Apartment for The Speaker.

 

Mark manages annual budgets including around £2.5m for food and £100,000 for equipment. Despite the pressure on food costs from unprecedented levels of inflation in 2008, Mark is on target to increase food gross profit for the company by more than £250,000 this year with the introduction of new menus.

 

 

BaxterStorey is one of the UK's leading independent foodservice providers for business and the fifth largest supplier of its kind in the UK. With more than 300 clients it has 5,000 members of staff working across 500 sites. In 2008, the company turned over £210m delivering services to clients across the UK including Barclays Bank, Marks & Spencer, Oracle, Siemens, Slaughter & May and Virgin Atlantic.

 

The company operates in a market that for the last five years has been almost at a standstill. Despite this and in the face of a slowing economy, BaxterStorey has consistently seen a year on year growth of 17%.

 

As well as attracting high levels of new business, the company also enjoys client retention rates of 97%.

 

With a clear vision, BaxterStorey's team simply wants to be the best at what they do by consistently delivering quality food using locally sourced ingredients served by highly skilled and motivated staff.

 

When using 100% recycled paper and reducing usage in 2007, the company saved 2.4 tonnes of CO2. In the same year, 95% of all fresh produce was supplied by regional suppliers.

 

Kevin was called in by joint managing director Noel Mahony as the best suited operator to step in and take over from the previous operations manager for its contract with 3G. This involved working closely with its daily and senior clients as well as BaxterStorey's chief executive Alastair Storey. A re-brand and launch of the facility was completed within three days, resulting in the retention of the contract.

 

He has been effective in maintaining client relationships, resulting in the retention of some high profile clients for a significant period. These clients include: Bacardi Martini with a 10-year contract; City Technology, also with a 10-year contract and Southern Water with an eight-year contract. He has also been awarded a major contract to operate the Merrill Lynch location in Camberley, which was their new Disaster Recovery Centre.

 

It could increase its staff levels to 800 within two hours. As part of the award, he had to compile a detailed business continuity plan for the senior clients in London. This has been tested twice since it was first implemented.

 

Kevin also maintains a first class relationship with the sales team and is frequently being called upon as one of their preferred presentation team members when tendering new contracts. He consistently delivers financial targets and profit margins for the business. His effective management ensures every location delivers the minimum pass mark of 85% on company European Safety Bureau audits by at least 5%, with three locations sitting in the company top 10.

 

 

At the age of 22, Kate McIntosh joined Chester Boyd, a leading event catering division of Charlton House. From sales co-ordinator, she was subsequently promoted to senior sales co-ordinator, team leader and then to her current role as sales manager.

 

At 27, Kate has developed exceptional sales skills and her peers and colleagues recognise her as an enthusiastic, versatile and honest individual.

 

Under Kate's management, the company's sales conversion rate now averages at 38.9%, an increase of more than 12% in the last 18 months. Responsible for a team of five, Kate drives the entire sales process and ensures that the average response time for enquiries is within two hours.

 

During her time at Chester Boyd, Kate has introduced a number of new initiatives including an official sales and induction programme for all new starters; Personal Development Plans for all sales co-ordinators; competitor analysis and the monitoring of competitor movement; amended cancellation terms and conditions to match current economic climate. She has also revised the company's invoice procedure to make the service more efficient and client focused rather than procedure focused.

 

Kate was also a finalist in the Acorn Scholarship Awards last year. Although she has a degree in Leisure Management and constantly endeavours to improve and refine the business, Kate is currently undertaking a Leadership and Management course with Learn Purple. At the moment, Kate is creating summer packages tailored for Chester Boyd's clientele, driving green initiative documentation and working on tenders for new business. 

 

Siobhan's colleagues say she has transformed BaxterStorey's Deutsche Bank contract from a pedestrian, dull environment to a vibrant, modern eatery that has proven to be a big hit with its customers and clients. She has driven footfall and sales volumes up which, as a result, has driven down the subsidy from £845,000 to £442,000 in a year. Her five-year goal is to drive subsidy down to nil.

 

BaxterStorey was awarded the contract to provide staff catering services to the bank across its city estates in 2007. To help achieve this, both groups agreed an investment package of more than £1m for the staff facilities. Last year, Siobhan was appointed the bank's district manager. Her first challenge was to win over the new client team who between them had more than 50 years of catering expertise.

 

Early on in her role, Siobhan introduced a series of training modules within her management team focusing on local and seasonal produce. The company's client team were impressed with the changes to the food style, content and variety. The food cost training was beginning to pay off with a vast improvement in the gross profit percentage. Sales were improving, running more than 30% better than target.

 

During the redevelopment, she played a pivotal role in managing the designers, builders and BaxterStorey's clients. She overcame the difficult task of gaining the confidence of the company's client team, ensuring the retention of the business. Now she is responsible for 70 catering staff covering five areas delivering restaurant, deli and café services to up to 9,000 customers a day.

 

 

Imago @ Loughborough is the university department responsible for the campus' catering and accommodation operations and serves the needs of 13,000 students and 3,000 staff members. It produces in excess of 50,000 meals a week for most of the year.

 

The company's environmental and sustainability co-ordinator Chris Steele is responsible for much of the service's sustainability schemes as well as waste monitoring and waste minimisation processes.

 

Operations support manager Nik Hunt has developed a culture of resource sustainability and waste minimisation among staff and students. The company has involved the campus community, the local council and its suppliers to deliver a package of activities to reduce Imago's burden on the environment as well as creating opportunities to support developments in the community and beyond. This includes the Residential Energy League that reduces electrical consumption for 5,000 bedrooms in a year and Raindrops for Life, a water initiative that provides investment and technology in areas of India with scarce rainfall.

 

Imago even has its own recycled bicycle shop named Cogz. Each year, tens of bikes are abandoned on campus and were previously disposed of as scrap. Now, Imago can take the discarded bikes and where possible re-condition and sell them back to the students and staff . They are also rented out to visitors.

 

 

In 1997, chefs Paul Heathcote and Gary Bates came together to create Heathcotes Outside, now one of four divisions within the Lindley Group.

 

Since its inception, the company has offered its services to some of the northwest's leading sporting venues including Chester and Bangor racecourses and Anfield, Warrington Wolves and Deepdale football stadia.

 

Heathcotes was awarded a £20million, five-year contract in 2007 to provide the in-house food and beverage service for the prestigious and then, new Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool (ACC Liverpool).

 

The contract covers events hosted across two separate areas: the Liverpool Echo Arena, with a capacity of 11,000 and; the BT Convention Centre, including an auditorium accommodating up to 1,350 delegates. The ability to overcome the complexities of catering for events with varying requirements back to back and sometimes even simultaneously pays testament to Heathcotes' event management skills.

 

Last year, for instance, it managed all aspects of the public and VIP catering for the second night of pop band Oasis' sell out concert at the arena. On the same night, it provided a bar service, pre-dinner reception and table service for a formal three course meal for 500 guests attending the UEFA Hall of Fame Awards ceremony in the adjacent BT Convention Centre.

 

This company is a growing force in the stadia and sporting venue market. Its portfolio is steadily increasing, its latest contract being a five-year deal with Newcastle FC, announced last November and others including Hampden Park as well as Ascot and Epsom Downs racecourses.

 

Of all its contracts, its Everton FC partnership best demonstrates Sodexo's expertise and pedigree. Part of the reason why the collaboration works between these two is because they each have the same goal of growing catering sales and profit.

 

Everton FC appreciates the high standards of service, professionalism and flexible can-do attitude that Sodexo provides. Sodexo's core team includes 20 managers. On match-days, staff are supported by up to 500 additional members, around 300 of which are temporary. The company has an in depth experience preparing the right food for the right event, providing support facilities and menu design for groups from two to 10,000.

 

Due to the volume of corporate meetings booked through its business, Sodexo is increasingly providing a conference sales and operations service for its client, charged with filling spaces and serving clients throughout the year. This enables it to provide innovative new menus to target new buyers while ensuring it keeps its local market happy with traditional fare.

Many thanks to all our sponsors:
Apetito
Brakes
Cadbury UK
Coca Cola Enterprises Ltd
Convotherm
Dr Oetker Food-Service
Iwave Automated Foodservice Solutions
Electrolux Professional
Fretwell-Downing Hospitality
GlaxoSmithKline
Hobart UK
Love Joes
Meiko UK
MKN UK
Nestle Professional
Premier Foods
Pritchitts
Purple Foodservice Solutions Limited