13 lucky winners

Choosing the lucky 13 winners for the 13th Caterer & Hotelkeeper awards has been harder than for many years because of the huge number of developments taking place in the hospitality industry.

Whether you look at hotels, restaurants, pubs or the contract catering sector, the standard of innovation has been outstanding in the past 12 months. The industry is clearly a very exciting place to work and it is encouraging that this is becoming more widely understood and respected in the rest of society.

This year we have added a new award: the Pub Industry Award. The award reflects the growing readership Caterer & Hotelkeeper has in the pub sector and we are grateful to Van den Bergh Foodservice for coming in as sponsor for this category. We are also pleased to have the continued support of our other sponsors.

People often ask why it is that the Cateys hold such a special place in an industry that has so many different awards. I think the answer is that the high calibre of judges makes the winners very proud to be recognised.

The judges, who are all very busy people, give up a huge amount of time to research the nominations. For the second year running they have been aided by Deloitte & Touche Consulting, which has prepared comprehensive dossiers on the nominees.

As a result, you can be assured that this year's winners fully deserve the awards they received on Tuesday in the Great Room of London's Grosvenor House. And we can all be justifiably proud that this industry can produce such wonderful achievers.

GARY CROSSLEY

Editor,

Caterer & Hotelkeeper