football phenomenon
A NEW eating-out experience is making its presence felt in the catering arena. It is already nibbling away at trade from pubs, fast food outlets and restaurants. Even top-class hotels are not exempt from this new source of competition.
The phenomenon is football. After languishing at the bottom of the catering league for decades, football clubs across the country are now starting to take hospitality events seriously.
In the Premier league, top clubs are setting up seven-day-a-week restaurants open to the public and offering extensive all-year banqueting and conference facilities. With the exception of bedrooms, many can now compete with anything high street or top-class hotels have to offer.
market upgrade
Massive investments have been made during the past five years, upgrading or creating new catering facilities, and many projects are still in the pipeline. Food suppliers, catering equipment distributors, contract caterers and catering staff at all levels are piling into the market.
Douglas Green, marketing director of the Football Association's publication FC, has been monitoring catering developments. "Clubs are now realising they have a huge revenue-earner on their hands by improving and developing catering across the board. The hospitality side has always fared better. Now clubs are seeing the value of providing better facilities and service to supporters," he confirms.
Supporters' tales about hot pies with ice-cold centres, greasy hot-dogs inside mouldy buns and pasties with contents looking like pet-food have not been pure exaggeration. Stadia catering's grim reputation has undoubtedly shaped the culture of supporters arriving late, leaving on the whistle, staying in the stand at half-time and eating outside the grounds. But that is all set to change.
This switch in attitude towards catering has come about after the Hillsborough tragedy - the 1989 FA Cup semi-final in which 95 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on collapsing terraces. Hillsborough's effect on British football has been profound, some commentators even likening its impact to that of President Kennedy's death on US politics.
Lord Chief Justice Taylor's ensuing report made 76 recommendations to improve safety and customer care at football grounds. The most sweeping change is the replacement of terracing with all-seater stands - next month is the deadline for implementation. So far, football clubs have spent an estimated £350m-£400m on improvements.
Premier league clubs, particularly those with the most resources, have made the largest investments and have funds earmarked for further refurbishment. For example, Arsenal's renovations have topped £16.7m; Aston Villa's have cost £15.5m; Blackburn Rovers' £17.1m; and Chelsea's £7.7m.
Customer care
Hospitality boxes, restaurants, function rooms, food courts and smart, efficiently planned kiosks in concourses have gone in with the new all-seater stands. Part of the objective is to meet the Taylor recommendation for improving customer care, but the principal expectation is that revenue generated by these facilities will substantially help recoup overall investments. Ticket sales alone cannot service the cost of new stands and in most clubs seating means reduced crowd capacity.
But breathing new life into catering requires more than new facilities: football has peculiarities unmatched elsewhere. On average, clubs play 25-30 matches a season, which means catering operations are potentially idle for about 335 days a year. Half-time is the peak selling period to supporters, but as it's a brief 10-15 minute slot, only a fraction of the crowd can ever be reached.
Given these challenges, it's easy to see why catering has been low on clubs' agenda until now. Traditionally, most of it has been run by a contractor or by the club on an occasional or part-time basis. Without catering staff permanently on site, maintaining quality and improving services has been a constant challenge for clubs and operators.
The development of year-round, non-match catering such as conferences, corporate entertainment and private functions of all kinds is seen by clubs taking the catering lead as the key to overcoming football's inherent drawbacks, taking up the slack on under-used facilities and boost catering revenues. The establishment of a permanent on-site catering team will mean standards are raised and maintained - benefiting the entire operation, from match-day hospitality through to supporters' catering.
Attempts are being made to improve quality and service. The aim is to reach a greater proportion of the crowd before and during matches.
Glasgow Rangers' operation at Ibrox is widely regarded by many clubs as setting the standard for both hospitality and supporter catering. Its catering manager, Peter Kingstone, goes so far as describing it as "a five-star hotel without bedrooms".
When David Murray, chairman of Scottish hotel and property group Murray International Holdings, took over the club he invested heavily in catering as part of a £12.5m site redevelopment five years ago. It now has 60 hospitality boxes, 11 function, conference and banqueting rooms, and a restaurant open to the public seven days a week except on match days.
The stadium has 40 kiosks, including an eight-kiosk food court. The entire operation is run in-house by Rangers Catering and has a permanent staff of 60, including a sales executive promoting non-match functions, supplemented by 450 part-timers on match days.
Kingstone has strenuously developed non-match functions and corporate hospitality. "Both these areas are high revenue earners with high profit margins. For match-day corporate hospitality we charge £125-£150 per head on which we make about £100," says Kingstone. Turnover last year was £3.1m, 60% of it coming from these two areas.
match-day volumes
On match days an average 1,200 lunches are served across all outlets, while the public restaurant does around 1,200 meals a month. In December 1993 the club served 15,000 meals during the Christmas period.
To handle match-day volumes, the club uses cook-chill for advance preparation, the system forming part of a £1.3m investment in catering facilities. Large mobile hot cupboards transport food down the long corridors to the hospitality boxes.
Scottish equipment supplier Scobie McIntosh designed the system, plus the food court and kiosks which serve pies, burgers, steaks, and Oriental savouries.
Each kiosk has its own beverage station and four cash points and is designed to serve 20 people in one minute. Cooking equipment includes rotary pizza ovens providing continuous service and grills for steak sandwiches. To speed customer service, supporters are issued with small, disposable polystyrene trays. "Instead of two people queuing to buy for three people, which is what normally happens, the tray enables one person to buy items for up to four people and carry them safely back to the stand," says Kingstone.
Supporters are encouraged into the food areas by TV monitors which relay the match live and show recorded games and sports beforehand. The kiosks take more than £30,000 a match. Kingstone reckons to serve 45-50% of Ranger's average 43,600 gate, and to achieve an average spend of up to 90p a head.
He attributes the success of Rangers' Catering to David Murray's far-sightedness. "Our chairman has operated hotels and restaurants, so understands catering and sees the sense in making this investment and running it in-house.
"But generally clubs don't want to get involved in catering," says Kingstone. "Many are caught in a dilemma because of the investment - do they spend money on catering equipment or players? - and turn to contract caterers that may contribute to the equipment."
At the other end of the spectrum is London's West Ham United, a Premier league club which has only just started to redevelop its catering. Last year it switched from a part-time contractor on match days to a full-time operation run by contract caterer Gardner Merchant. The aim is to develop non-match functions as well as make all-round improvements.
The club is in the throes of redevelopment and has so far spent £7.3m on the Bobby Moore stand, which opened this spring, plus ground renovations. When three further stands are refurbished it will have a projected all-seat capacity of 24,500.
The Bobby Moore stand has 20 hospitality boxes, each seating 10, served by a main production kitchen, plus two bars, an executive club and four large kiosks on two concourses. The existing stands, one of which is being rebuilt, have three lounges and function rooms, served by two kitchens, plus 26 kiosks.
Gardner Merchant has put in a full-time team of two under client account executive Sue Merry who has high expectations for non-match catering in the coming season. "We did quite well in our first season and we think there's considerable potential in local business," she says.
Gardner Merchant has spent £30,000 refurbishing 26 existing kiosks. "What we have done is raise hygiene standards, re-equip where necessary and improve presentation. We have also spent £4,000 on kiosk signage.
"Food quality has also been improved, but we have kept prices the same. We have introduced hot dogs and successfully piloted microwaveable burgers in a box, in addition to pies, sausage rolls, pasties and drinks," says Merry.
Spend per head has been increased from 44p to 56p. In the Bobby Moore stand, the product range has been broadened. It now includes pie and mash served with "liquor" (traditional east London sauce) in polystyrene containers plus a range of sausages in buns.
In other clubs, strenuous efforts are being made to extend supporters' tastes. At the Tottenham Hotspur ground in north London, where the catering operation has been run by Letherby & Christopher since 1981, regional manager Peter Nichols has introduced themed kiosks. It serves Oriental fast food such as satay, spring rolls, samosas and chicken tikka alongside hot dogs and pies.
Nichols says: "I did a survey before we introduced them, and they wanted to stick with hot dogs and burgers, but I decided to experiment. When they opened, people were amazed, but they've gone down very well." Average spend per head is 65p. Kiosks offer a maximum eight items to achieve a target service speed of 10 seconds per customer.
Possibly the most radical development in supporters' catering opens next season at Coventry City. The club's new food court will be served by a large central production kitchen which will despatch cooked and assembled fast food items through chutes linked to kiosks. Central heating in the concourse will encourage supporters to linger on cold match days.
The catering system has been devised by Lindley Catering, football's largest contractor, serving 24 clubs, which runs the facility. n
A seminar on improving catering and retailing in football stadia is to be run in October by the Football Association's publication FC. For further details tel: 071-624 5800.
