Artizian thinks big

Let's talk about positive thinking. The idea is that using the power of the mind allows us to brush aside obstacles and achieve far greater things - our performance is held back only by ourselves.

The explosion in popularity of courses that teach us to capture this positive energy - there are more yoga classes at my local gym than there are circuit training sessions - is a result, in part, of the stresses in the modern workplace.

We at Caterer know this from personal experience. Journalists and production staff recently took part in a team-building and motivation day which culminated in some of us smashing blocks of wood with our hands.

When I met Alison Robinson, the managing director and founder of Artizian, I was reminded of our training day and knew she would approve. She gets all her managers to read Unstoppable People by Adrian Gilpin and firmly believes that if you set your mind to something you can achieve it. And who is to doubt her? Last year her fledgling company, which has been up and running for seven years, was catapulted into the limelight by being listed number 83 in the Sunday Times list of 100 fastest-growing unquoted companies in the UK.

The company had already showed it was one to watch when Robinson and her team landed their biggest contract at the London Bridge headquarters of accountancy firm Ernst & Young in July last year.

To win it, Artizian beat off some well-established players, including Restaurant Associates, Compass's directors' dining arm. So how did the Reading-based company, which has 19 contracts in London and the Home Counties, suddenly break into the big league and win the £2.7m turnover contract?

According to Robinson, it stems from rethinking the business in the winter of 2002. "We went through a consolidation in November 2002 - we analysed the company and examined where we were and where we wanted to get to.

"We had grown steadily over a number of years, but the main difficulty experienced by any growing company is consistency and this was an area where we fell down."

Since then, achieving consistency in production has been one of the company's aims and new structures have been developed to help it get there. A few new faces have become part of the team - with illustrious titles such as minister of fun, minister of excellence and minister of calm.

It all sounds rather wacky, but Robinson explains the thinking. Each of the roles is filled by someone who is seen to be a leader and standard-bearer in their field. According to Robinson, they not only understand their work area, but can lead Artizian's staff to bigger and better things.

"We started off a couple of years ago with a "minister of fun" whose job was to create a fun environment. One of the things I wanted when I set up the company was for people to be happy in their jobs, because we all have to work long hours."

In reality, the ministers serve more traditional roles than their titles suggest. Pauline Vallance, the minister of calm, holds a position which bears all the hallmarks of a human resources manager, while the minister of excellence, Martin Dibben, fulfils a similar role to that of an executive chef.

But Robinson insists that they are different from traditional roles. She could have hired specialists in those areas, but instead wanted people that believed in the Artizian way of doing things.

As well as having managers that can lead and develop its staff, the company has sought to redress the problem of consistency by having centres of excellence as well. At these sites, new staff shadow their new positions and learn the standards of service that are expected of them, without the pressures of learning the job at the same time.

Robinson says Artizian's greatest challenge is to look at its strategic position and move it forward. The company is also promoting a culture of change: as if to prove it, Robinson is about to trial a four-day working week from the beginning of this month for the staff working at the company's HQ.

"It is about giving our staff the opportunity to do things that they genuinely don't have time to do," she says.

She believes the firm gets as much from part-timers as full-timers. Both Judith Owen, the minister of fun, and Vallance are part-timers, and so Robinson doesn't expect a cut in the working week to reduce productivity. "It is something I have always wanted to do and something I believe in."

It's not just head office staff that benefit from the company's approach; others do too, Vallance explains. The company has introduced flexible working patterns, so if staff have put in extra time they can reclaim it when they need to, whether it is to spend time at home or to catch up on things in their personal life.

"They have earned that time and have a right to it and should be able to claim it. This allows them to deal with their work life a lot better because something in their private life isn't interrupting them. It is about making us a more attractive employer - I think we are achieving that," she says.

This doesn't mean that the company isn't prepared to pull rank, and it takes things such as training very seriously - every quarter it is compulsory for staff to participate in a training and development day on a Saturday, which involves team-building exercises as well as communication and image consultancy.

"We get a few gripes about it," Robinson concedes. "But a lot of the staff have the chance to do things they wouldn't normally do and afterwards they tell us ‘that was great'."

Vallance says that this helps the company and its staff understand its goals and aims and improve consistency. "We really do believe it is a show we are putting on in the staff restaurants."

Robinson agrees. "Our performance is only as good as the last meal we served. I mean, we can have a fantastic service, but one bad day and we can forget it."

So will the show go on or will Artizian be swallowed up by one of the bigger players? According to Robinson, there is no chance of a takeover. "It is the start of a journey and there is a long way to go - we were never set up for a quick sell.

"We are a niche player and we will be looking at alternative markets to grow the company. We realise that contract catering doesn't generate high levels of profits, so we will be looking at developing revenues from complementary businesses. It's too early to say anything yet, but it will be quite different." In other words, watch this space! n

The Ministers
The minister of calm Pauline Vallance says her role is to help managers manage their staff and give employees the right tools to do their job and ensure they are treated fairly. "My job is to keep up with legislation - not react to it, but be ahead of it. For example, when the legislation on paternity and maternity rights came in, I was three months ahead and had already trained our managers." She enthuses that by being proactive and staying "ahead of the game" she can keep her charges calm, or should that be karma!

The minister of excellence Martin Dibben, who was once food and beverage manager at Buckingham Palace, sums up his role succinctly: "It's the whole presentation - starting with the food, to what is served, to how it is served, to what the person who is serving the food is wearing."

The minister of fun and development Judith Owen is a consultant to Artizian. Her role is to introduce the "wow factor" and to ensure that staff are enjoying their jobs and at the same time developing new skills. She is in charge of running staff induction and training and quarterly team training days - which are compulsory, despite being held on a Saturday.

Food the Artizian way The company insists it thinks outside the box and does things differently, but what does this mean? Alison Robinson believes it is the company's alternative and holistic approach that separates it from other companies. It is probably easier to spot this difference in some of Artizian's ideas about food, which it says can be used to improve your body and mind and achieve your goals.

Robinson believes that healthy foods, and food combinations that promote health are a massive growth area. "You are what you eat. I have always firmly believed in that. I gave up coffee 12 years ago, because I had too many peaks and troughs in the day, and the difference was amazing."

She adds that all the latest statistics from the Government suggest that food intolerances are on the increase and there will be a growing need to give customers more thorough details about the food they are eating.

Martin Dibben explains: "We want to ensure that customers know what is in the food - we always have what you would call a naked salad bar, which is simple salad ingredients, which the customer can combine themselves."

However, the idea doesn't stop there and can be taken to the next level, Dibben says. "The next step is to educate people about combinations - combining foods, such as ginger in meals to give customers an energy boost."

At Ernst & Young, the caterer offers things such as super soups and super salads that are mood foods and have health-giving properties.

"For example, during the winter white onion soup might be on the menu to help people boost their immune system and fight colds and flu better," Dibben says.

Artizian's flagship contract Ernst & Young's new offices are on the south bank of the River Thames, just off London Bridge. The building houses 3,200 staff and Artizian employs 60 staff at the contract, managed by Roy Westwood and Anita Dhillon.

The site includes an in-house branded caf‚-bar called Mocha Coffee, which also serves freshly made smoothies and juices. There is also a deli sandwich bar called the Cinnamon Deli and a modern staff restaurant called the Mulberry.

All pre-made meals and drinks are made on site, including the grab'n'go sandwiches, salads, smoothies and fruit juices sold in the Mulberry Restaurant.

The restaurant, which is open from 7.30am to 2.30pm, serves 1,300 covers during that time. About 65% of Ernst & Young employees staying in the building for lunch use the restaurant and spend about £3.25 per head.

Its menu changes daily and customers have a choice of jacket potatoes (both normal spuds and sweet potatoes), home-made pizzas, a live-cooking grill counter, a soup counter, a self-service area, with different themed days (Wednesday is curry day), a salad bar, a yogurt bar and a choice of hot or cold desserts.

Presentation is important. Even the fruit is stacked neatly in pyramid towers, to give the right impression.

The other service point is the Cinnamon Deli, which operates from 11am to 3pm and serves about 380 people a day. Each customer spends about £3.50.

Additionally, Artizian serves 850 people in the Mocha coffee bar (80% is coffee sales), which opens from 7.30am to 5pm. Together the three areas serve 80 made-to-order smoothies per day and 70 that are pre-made on site. It also sells 250 freshly squeezed/pressed fruit juices a day.

The caterer also runs the food and butler service for the directors' dining operation, which operates in 14 private rooms overlooking the Thames on the ninth floor. The menus have five options for lunch and eight for evening meals - they change weekly, but the chef will make special menus for those that request them.

Artizian hopes to increase the turnover of the contract by opening a bar on the ground floor - if it can get a licence. The building has a great decked area outside by the Thames, which would be suitable for barbecues in the summer. Other potential plans include giving Ernst & Young staff the chance to hire out private dining rooms for dinner over the weekend.

Winning Ernst & YounG Ernst & Young's new shiny office building at London Bridge is an impressive structure that has magnificent views across the River Thames to the Tower of London or the now-iconic gherkin.

The contract caterer poured its heart and soul into winning the contract, Alison Robinson says. "But we were conscious not to let it impact on our current business - we didn't let our area managers get involved and we stopped selling while we concentrated on the tender."

Chris Stern of Stern Consultancy says it was a tough decision for the accountancy firm, but it was Artizian's high-risk approach that swung it in its favour.

"The management at Ernst & Young looked at moving into this brand-new office as the beginning of a new era for the company and they wanted a very different approach," Stern says. "Really it was only Artizian that offered them that - they employed a high-risk strategy, but it worked for them."

However, it was still a tough call for the firm to risk its catering with a small independent that might not have the capability to deliver the service. After winning the deal, Artizian had just eight weeks to tool up for the contract and that included hiring 60 staff. For the bigger contractors the logistics would have been easier to deal with, but as the company's operations director, Jason Snowdon, explains, the caterer was up to the task.

"Our approach was to advertise on a Monday for interviews the following day. We needed staff who were ready to work." They then had a first and second interview and if they passed they would meet their department manager and have their position signed off. On the same day they would sign their contract and get directions to the location for their induction the next day. In just two to three weeks the company filled its staff requirements.

The process really worked, Robinson says. "We had some great feedback from people who didn't get a job, but who really appreciated the way we ran the interviews. We recognised that a lot of potential staff wanted a decision straightaway, so they could continue looking for another job, if they were unsuccessful."