7-Day's advent
Within three weeks of Tamworth-based 7-Day Catering taking over the staff catering at Hull's Robert McBride Ltd in May, numbers using the facility had quadrupled.
For the preceding two years, catering for the 400 on-site workers had been provided on a semi-domestic basis by a local caterer offering a basic breakfast and lunch menu using a small toaster, water boiler and table-top chip-fryer. Menus were limited and service "erratic", with only 25-30 customers interested.
McBride, which manufactures aerosols, went out to tender on its catering as part of an overall plan for improving its staff facilities. The tender process, which took onlyone month from start to finish, was managed by consultant Moss Tejo Cope, from Grantham. The list included Shaw Catering and a number of local caterers.
7-Day won the contract because of its innovative suggestions on marketing and menus. "We responded in a manner the client wanted," says Paul Newton, regional sales manager for the contract catering side of 7-Day. "Our proposal was simple to follow and our suggestions for increasing sales and usage fitted in with their philosophy."
Investment
McBride also appreciated 7-Day's offer to invest £3,000 toward the refurbishment and re-equipping of the kitchen. The original equipment had been owned by the outgoing caterer, which removed it when it left. "It was one of the stipulations of the contract that the equipment be upgraded," says Newton.
7-Day ran a temporary service for four days while the new kitchen was installed. It then opened with a 12-hour operation, starting at 7.30am with breakfast. Because the factory has a three-shift system, brunch is served all day and lunch twice - at midday and in the early evening. Whereas food was previously mainly frozen, 85% is now fresh and home-made and the menu has expanded dramatically.
As well as a full breakfast being available, the Breakfast Basket includes cereals and home-made scones and muffins. The lunch menu, which used to feature items such as chips or sandwiches, now has daily vegetarian and Healthy Option meals as well as a traditional dish.
As part of its marketing, 7-Day provides a description of main meals and lists calories, fat and dietary fibre information on its Healthy Option dishes on the weekly menu display. It has also raised the quality and packaging of sandwiches sold from vending machines, along the lines of Marks & Spencer.
Among its first promotions, 7-Day is running a competition to rename the restaurant, with results expected any day. Once this has been decided, new menus, tent cards, name-tags and signage will be introduced.
One of the most successful innovations has been the Take ‘n' Bake Fridays, when catering manager Philip Harding andhis team provide customers with pre-ordered take-away party food for the weekend. This has had an interesting development.
"Take-away within the factory is not allowed as safety rules forbid eating food anywhere but in the dining room," explains Newton. "Instead, there's a strong tradition of bringing packed lunches or going home to eat. Following the Take ‘n' Bake Fridays, we were asked to provide take-home cooked meals for weekly lunches, so we invested in a blast-chiller and now provide 12 meals a day on a regular basis and expect numbers to rise."
Higher spending
Spend per head has increased from an average of 60p to £1.30 and the aim is that 50% of workers on site will purchase something from the catering operation. This has a staff of three, two of whom were with the original caterer and stayed on after retraining with 7-Day.
The former caterer ran the unit as a franchise with no client cost. In contrast, 7-Day operates a fixed-price contract with an arrangement whereby, if it is under budget by the end of the year, 50% of the savings will be returned to the client. So far, it is above target for this unit.
