MET CATERER DAVE HANGS UP HIS OVEN GLOVES

4th May 2007, 10:29am

Princess Diana's funeral, The Queen's Silver Jubilee, Notting Hill Carnival and the G8 Summit are just a few of the high profile events covered by Dave Parker, the head of special events catering at the Metropolitan Police Service who retires this month.

Dave, who leaves the Met after 31 years' service, has overseen the feeding of operational police officers and staff for hundreds of local, national and international events during his time in the Catering Department.

Last year alone his team served up more than 750,000 hot meals and snacks to their hungry customers. Their record for operational feeding was the Anti-Hunting Bill march where he and his team served 3,000 people in one sitting - one meal every four seconds.

He says this was the most challenging catering operation of his career. His catering manager at Battersea wore roller skates to navigate his way around the quarter-mile long area of marquees, while at the same time in Shoreditch the Special Events Team was serving breakfast to 2,000 officers and the Commissioner.

"Over my 25 years in this role I have worked with some of the most professional, dedicated and hard-working catering staff in the business. They and my police colleagueshave made my job easy and rewarding."

He began his career in the Met as a catering officer in 1976 after serving in the armed forces where he was the personal chef to a General.

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