In the nick of Tyne

IN GEORDIE land, the weekend starts on Thursday, a day earlier than in the rest of the country, and continues until the cold light of Monday breaks across the River Tyne. Newcastle-upon-Tyne has long been sold as a city for serious party-people but, as Bob Dylan once warned: "The times they are a-changin'."

Newcastle city centre is chock-a-block with shops and offices. A massive clean-up of the River Tyne, and a £170m riverside redevelopment, Newcastle Quayside, have transformed the area into a treasure trove of pubs, restaurants and hotels. The next stage, repackaging Tyneside into a cultural destination for tourists and businesses, is well under way, with a knock-on benefit expected for caterers.

By next year, Gateshead Quays, a 45-acre derelict site on the south bank of the Tyne, will mirror its upmarket neighbour, and pedestrians and cyclists will be able to cross the £18.6m Millennium Bridge linking the two riverfronts.

On the Gateshead side, visitors will be able to linger in the £46m Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, the largest centre for visual arts outside London. And music lovers will be able to sample jazz, folk and classical music in the £60m, 2,000-seat Music Centre overlooking the Tyne Bridge.

This spells contract catering opportunities. Two facilities are planned and the Baltic will be looking for a specialist caterer to take on the running of them.

The first outlet, the Riverside restaurant, is due to open in late 2000 and will be a split-level facility, with a ground-floor café including the option of outside seating and an upper-floor brasserie. The 70-seat café will be fast-service to encourage volume and will target a low- to medium-spend market, but will close in the evenings during the winter. The upstairs 100- to 120-seat brasserie is expected to be café-bar-style. Unlike the café, it will be open all day into the evening.

The second outlet, the Rooftop restaurant, will open in 2001 and will have glass walls to make the most of the river view and cityscape. At lunchtime it will provide high-quality light refreshments for businessmen and tourists. In the evening it will position itself at the top end of the market as a destination restaurant.

The restaurants are expected to attract about 300,000 diners a year - 64,000 for the Rooftop restaurant and 240,000-plus for the Riverside facilities.

It's a rosy picture. For contract caterers serving the business and industry sector, however, the story is slightly different. "What you've got to remember is that the North-east is always in recession," says John Adamson, director of independent caterer Ramside Event Catering.

Graham Gilbert, divisional director at Gardner Merchant, agrees, adding that competition in the North-east has always been intense. Manufacturing industries dominate in Tyneside and the recent closures of major employers, such as the Siemens semiconductor factory outside Newcastle and Fujitsu down the A1 in Ayecliffe, have sent shivers down everyone's spines.

"The closures we have seen recently will continue for the next six months," says Gilbert. "New business is setting up, but it tends to be smaller and they do not necessarily want catering in-house."

Indeed, over the past few years many firms have been scaling down their in-house catering facilities and new business is reluctant to invest heavily in kitchen and dining facilities.

Eurest North East's managing director Mike Stangroom says that the key factor in the battle to win or retain contracts is demonstrating innovative solutions, especially to fight off competition from high-street outlets. Stangroom cites the introduction of "stopgap" shops offering a hot food option. Other solutions include Eurest's Café Ritazza and Upper Crust options.

Overall, Eurest contracts have increased, and existing clients such as Philips Components, pharmaceutical company Searle and Siemens Power Generation have renewed their contracts. New clients include fine chemical manufacturer ChiRex, and the Environment Agency in Newcastle, part of a national deal.

Strong competition

At Sutcliffe Food Services, general manager Lynne Brooks says that in the past six months its prime focus has been retention of business. An especially sweet contract win after having the business for nine years was Nestlé Rowntree, providing restaurant catering 24 hours a day for 700 shift workers. Sutcliffe fought off strong competition from Gardner Merchant, Eurest and other smaller firms.

Brooks agrees with Stangroom that the key is devising new concepts, as well as a strong team of committed staff. For instance, ideas such as a tapas bar with regular menu changes helped secure Sutcliffe the three-year contract to provide 24-hour catering for 1,400 staff at AA Insurance.

Other recent successful retendering bids include providing meals for 1,200 students at Emmanuel College in Gateshead. And at Home House prison in nearby Stockton the caterer feeds 960 inmates and runs the officers' mess and a shop that sources and packs goods ordered by inmates.

Although Granada Food Services has bought many of the smaller independent caterers, the area still supports small operations. One such acquisition (three years ago) was Ramside Catering Services, an industrial caterer holding 62 contracts with blue-chip firms including Electrolux, Black & Decker and Sanyo.

Despite selling off this chunk, Ramside's remaining divisions still qualify it as the largest privately owned caterer in the North-east. Adamson says that Ramside Event Catering's client portfolio is diverse. Annual race meeting tenders at Newbury and Sedgfield have been secured for the past four years. Some 4,000 hospitality meals are provided during the Northumberland Plate race meeting in Newcastle in June. In May 1999, it will run the bars and mobile catering for the city's Fish Quay Festival, which is expected to attract 25,000 visitors.

"There has been a slowdown in business over the past six months because of the recession, but we have still got plenty of good contracts in 1999," Adamson says.

And let's not forget the other major sporting attraction in the area - Newcastle United Football Club. The man determined to keep catering standards high, despite this season's poor match performances, is the general manager of Courtlands Sporting Hospitality, Robin Buchanan.

When the £40m new stand is completed in August 2000, Buchanan will be catering for 3,000 spectators on match days with a skeleton staff supported by casuals. The complex will offer a full range of dining and conference facilities over eight floors, in addition to the already refurbished Magpie restaurant.

At council-owned City Cuisine, catering and facilities manager Rudy Imhoff says that business is booming. Not only is the team providing 25,000 school meals a day, it is also providing meals on wheels for social services clients and catering for 80 workers in the Civic Centre, with conference and banqueting facilities for as many as 750 people.

Multi-service contracts

Gardner Merchant's Gilbert says that, since September 1998, the company has gained seven contracts in the North-east. According to him, one noticeable trend is a demand for multi-service contracts.

"Typically," he says, "in addition to the catering requirements, we are providing reception staff, grounds maintenance, general cleaning and even buildings maintenance as part of the total package."

And the prospects for 1999? "It will be challenging," he says, "but it will be about delivering quality services and extra options." n