in brief
Irish pull out…
Ireland's national culinary team has pulled out of the Scothot World Culinary Grand Prix, which concluded today in Glasgow, following warnings from the Irish Government not to travel to Britain during the foot and mouth outbreak.
..but IFE goes ahead
Organisers of the International Food and Drink Exhibition say the show will go ahead in spite of the foot and mouth outbreak. It will be held at ExCel in London's Docklands between 25 and 28 March. Visit www.ife.co.uk or call 0870 7511 462 for details.
Card fraud on the up
Credit card fraud totalled £189.4m in 1999, and is expected to reach almost £300m in 2000 against a total credit card spend of £280b in the UK, claims a new report from Datamonitor. While fraud accounted for just 0.3% of transactions in 1999, this was 50% above the 0.2% level recorded from 1995 to 1998.
Compass contract
Compass Group's Roux Fine Dining has won a three-year contract worth £1.5m in annual turnover to provide client dining and hospitality services at Merrill Lynch's European HQ near St Paul's, London. The deal covers 28 private dining rooms, 80 internal meeting rooms, and the company's museum, auditorium and roof terrace.
Quadrant serves mint
Quadrant Catering is to provide full breakfast and lunchtime restaurant services for 1,100 staff at the Royal Mint in Cardiff, along with hospitality buffets and luncheons and 24-hour vending services.
