Eurest rents space to cater for staff in business park

Business caterer Eurest is to rent space at a 50-acre business park in Leeds, where it will provide catering to staff who work at the site.

It is the first time Eurest, a division of Compass Group, has taken out a tenancy at a business park, although it already operates stand-alone units in high-street and retail-park locations.

The move is another example of the increasingly commercial environment that business and industry caterers find themselves in.

The new operation is at Leeds Valley Park, owned by office and business park developer Akeler. Eurest will run a store and a 40-seat coffee shop in the park's "amenities suite".

Sodexho already rents space at the Arlington Business Centre, also in Leeds, and the trend is set to grow, according to Jonathan Doughty, of Coverpoint Catering Consultancy. "It makes a lot of sense, because most office tenants don't want to give up space to catering facilities," he said.

"At the same time, if the contractor can get exclusive rights, he gets access to a very large number of customers without a proportional increase in overheads."

There are currently 600 employees working at Leeds Valley Park. At full capacity, there would be more than 5,000. As occupancy of the park grows, Eurest plans to introduce a delivery service to companies at the outer reaches of the site.

But Chris Stern, of consultant Chris Stern Associates, struck a note of caution. "I think single sites on business parks are difficult to make work, because people treat it very differently from an in-house facility," he said.

"Once you step out of the office building you're competing with everyone. People can just get in their cars and go to Tesco's."