Letters

We need alternative methods of training

It has been interesting to observe the development of alternative training in this industry, such as Jamie Oliver's 15 restaurant, Cyrus Todiwala's Asian & Oriental School of Catering, Percy's and others.

These initiatives demonstrate that, with hard work by individuals, there can be real alternatives to existing training methods and systems. It is unfortunate that such initiatives will always bring out the critics.

What these projects attempt to do is create a realistic, modern and professional training environment where individuals can gain real skills in the pressure of a normal commercial operation. It was the essence of how the Chef & Restaurant School operated at Butlers Wharf and it proved highly successful until its forced closure.

Projects like this face a number of hurdles, such as raising the necessary capital, finding premises, developing training programmes and systems, and engaging staff with the skills not only to operate at the highest commercial levels but also possessing an ability to inspire and train others. Link this with the bureaucracy that exists in respect of NVQs and funding and you have a challenge that many would not wish to take on.

My own challenge now is to recreate such an approach in Buxton, where we are opening a much larger facility, combining a number of real restaurants and food outlets. The project has received wide support from industry and yet, given this, we still have our critics.

It is my hope in the future that we have a number of similar projects across the UK - independent operators and colleges that, by working together, will provide the quality our industry needs.

John Roberts, Dean of School, Tourism & Hospitality Management, University of Derby, Buxton, Derbyshire

A plea for the private sector, John? What do state-funded educationalists think about that? Ed.

Are booking agents necessary?

As a newcomer to hotel industry sales, I am baffled by the way we pander to booking agents. It would appear that we have forgotten who actually needs whom.

Recently I offered a new client a rate that was in line with that of our local competitors. It turned out, however, that the client used a large agency to book its rooms and was eligible for one of this agency's national discount programmes, for which my company had centrally agreed a national rate. Angry e-mails followed and I had to apologise to the agency.

We seem concerned that we do not upset the agent without any thought for clients or our business.

Agencies will argue that they save time and do all the negotiation for the client. But it must be time to question all the reasons why we hold the booking agent in such high regard, and at least make an attempt to remove these as barriers to booking direct.

We can survive without agents. If the airlines are capable of doing so, can we not follow suit? It would need only one of the heavyweight hotel companies to try, and we would all follow.

Name and address withheld

Terrible toll of factory farming

The worldwide intensification of factory farming will, as sure as day turns into night, exact its price on the environment, on poverty alleviation, animal welfare and on us.

In the past 20 years, meat production in developing countries has increased by 127%. While the affluent West has had the time and opportunity to reflect on the cruelties and human health issues raised by factory farming, and to campaign successfully for reform, people in developing countries quite understandably see meat as a symbol of a better quality of life.

But the human animal does not need to eat meat more than once or twice a week. We do so mainly because meat has been made cheap by vested interests and is more widely available than non-meat alternatives.

Regrettably, developing countries are now starting to acquire our tastes, habits and methods. Just as we are beginning to abandon factory farms, they are setting them up on a massive scale and with scant regard for Western sensibilities towards animal welfare. More than half of all hens in India are in battery cages. In China, there are six-storey-high factory pig farms housing as many as 250,000 animals.

Animals in factory farms are already eating 36% of the world's grain harvest, while 840 million people are still chronically hungry.

Moreover, it takes 100,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of beef. Economists are probably right when they predict that future wars will be about water, not oil.

There is also the effect that factory farming has on our health. Factory-farmed animals must have antibiotics to survive in overcrowded conditions, and infectious bacteria in these animals become increasingly resistant to these antibiotics. We eat the animals, together with their antibiotics, and become resistant ourselves. Many doctors believe that this threatens the very basic health of humankind.

But we cannot tell the recently poor that they should not eat meat as we do. We must accept, for now, that more meat will be produced in developing countries. But now, at this early stage of their industrial farming development, is most definitely the right time to campaign to influence their governments and to explain to them why factory farming is not the right solution to the demand for meat.

Michael Gottlieb, President, Restaurant Association

Officials are not always to blame for problems

Pete Prochaski considers his posting in Kazakhstan "the biggest supply headache" (Caterer, 16 January) but the way he describes government officials as "intransigent and bloody-minded", considering it wise to bribe them, probably explains why he has such headaches.

I served for 14 months in Tengiz [oilfield in mid-Kazakhstan] as a unit general manager in 1993-95. Conditions were wild (the temperature ranged from -50 to+50°C) but we fed 10,000 people three meals a day. Most ingredients came from Scotland by truck via Russia and into Kazakhstan.

In those days it took an average of 19 days to drive from Aberdeen to Tengiz, but we never lost a truck or had items stolen.

I would suggest Pete looks at his transport company and the reliability of his drivers and not criticise officials who, one should remember, earn only $30 a month when he is earning probably 10 times that a day.

Michael Glass, by e-mail

Turning the tables

Having run a long campaign against restaurateurs who refuse to serve tap water, I was interested in Peter Harden's comment (Caterer, 16 January) that customers who ask for tap water should not be made to feel like criminals. But would he disapprove of customers like me, who make such restaurateurs feel like criminals?

John Rickard, Woking, Surrey