Throughout the pandemic, it has been vital for us to stay ahead of the game and our strong relationships with our clients have never been more important. We have seen some positive changes in our sites that have had to remain open as they form part of essential work, such as distribution centres, media providers or those involved in elite sports. As these industries have powered through the tough times, we have adapted our operations and successfully collaborated with our clients to ensure we provide a safe but exciting offer.
We’ve had to re-think the way we do things, sometimes at very short notice, introducing evening services, extended hours and moving from a 5 day week to a 7 day week operation. All to adapt to our clients diversified and newly introduced shift patterns and Covid safe ways of working. This has meant extended shifts, meaning we have been able to retain some great people and offer a hot food service and fresh barista coffee even at 11pm at night!
Our foodies have been so positive throughout the changes. Their flexibility and forward thinking, continually changing and introducing creative ways to offer customers a slice of normality when they visit us, even if the space looks different with one way routes and protective screens. With ever changing Covid rules, we have successfully delivered extensive coronavirus risk assessment training to all our foodies. This ensures that they feel safe being in the workplace, they are confident on returning to work after being away, how to deal with the changes. It’s imperative that they understand how to operate a Covid secure unit.
Where hospitality and internal meetings have continued, we have worked hard to develop Covid secure hospitality options. Whether it is an individual bento style salad box being delivered individually to offices, so that a team can share a lunch meeting online, or our flexibility on the style of service such as buffet hospitality lunches moving to individual grazing boards, our chefs and managers are adapting to the challenge! No request is too big for our teams, and we thrive on delivering a great service and great food. We hope that it will not be too long until we can welcome everyone back to the sites, see familiar faces and continue creating a great food service experience!
Bee Armstong, Operations Manager