We work with many clients, particularly as we enter a post pandemic era, that have limited facilities and would like to deliver a full foodservice offer. Culturally, food is a huge part of a company. It can reflect their ethos and values and plays an important role in bringing people together.
Since 2014 we have been ‘outsourcing’ our grab and go range to our own production kitchen. This is to say, that we take a large part of production away from the onsite team. This then frees them up to be more creative with the rest of their offer.
The team at the production kitchen are a bijou hub of new product development, recipe testing and tasting. The technology we use at site level has the intelligence to track what’s selling and what’s not. They have access to the same British suppliers that our venues have, which means 80% of the offer is from British farms and lots of it local to the kitchen in south east London.
The production kitchen team have been working solidly throughout the pandemic and we have evolved our offer from what you’d expect from a grab & go offer i.e. sandwiches, wraps, baguettes, salads, sushi, fruit, yoghurt & dessert pots. We also offer hot grab & go items such as freshly made sausage rolls. The biggest benefit to our clients, as their services and budgets evolve, is our service innovation to provide a hot food service which can be transported in hot boxes and served as if it was prepared on site.
In recent times, this has also meant that we can tailor services, streamlining onsite team labour and minimising costs to clients. In a lot of cases, clients are not currently sure of headcount come the magic date of June 21st. No-one is sure of anything and that is understandable.
The perfect work around is a catering partner with an established production kitchen. The perfect hybrid offer is a contract caterer with a production kitchen, experienced at managing onsite staff and what is becoming increasingly important, understanding that our clients need a flexible solution to food volumes and onsite staffing.
Really, our production kitchen is an extension of a client’s facilities, without the central cost hitting their budget. With the added benefit of working with an experienced contract caterer who understands that in the current climate, our clients do not just need trays of food dropped off and left in a loading bay. It needs to go through all the due diligence controls and then it needs to be displayed with all the care and attention needed to safely offer hardworking teams a great food experience and to make being at the office a great experience.