Letters
Get back to basics and put the customer first
A friend who worked with me many years ago at J Lyons visited me over the holiday period. We talked a lot about the differences between our businesses in the UK and USA, and also the service element in our two countries.
I had to agree with him that service is no longer the most important element in some companies' policies on this side of the Atlantic. We were trained to give the best service possible to the customer - a message you remember throughout your career. My friend and I agreed that over the last few years the superstar chef has taken the stage as the main ingredient in most businesses. But however how good your chef may be, without front-of-house service the chef might as well be a frozen packet and a microwave.
In 2003 I stayed in more than 20 hotels with three-star status or more in the UK and Europe, and most of them disappointed me by serving hot breakfast on cold plates. On many occasions it seemed the staff felt they were doing me a favour.
I accept that front-of-house staff to some companies are a cost factor and the cheaper the better. But it takes little time for managers and directors to teach staff how to be civil and look after the needs of their customers.
Superstar chefs are fine in the right place but we need to get back to the basics and put the customer first. They are the reason we're here, so we should do all we can to look after them and offer service that's second to none.
G WRIGHT, ALTON, HANTS
Caterers must speak with one voice on recruitment
An unskilled workforce is like a plague to the catering industry. In the past a lot of companies employed almost anyone as long as they had legs and a head. Nowadays we're trying to select candidates, but when it comes to the lower end of the scale you still can't be too choosy, or you'll end up with nobody to work with.
In many cases the pay for general assistants or kitchen porters is less than £5. In my opinion hard-working individuals in contract catering should be getting at least £5 an hour. Managers often squeeze staffing levels and wages when bidding for a contract in order to win the deal. As caterers we can ask the client for more cash for the staff as we speak on behalf of hundreds, and in some cases thousands.
Somehow we need to attract staff, so maybe if we all speak with one big voice, someone will listen to us.
YORAM ODENTZ, CATERING MANAGER, UNIVERSAL SODEXHO, ABERDEEN
Students are cooking real food for real customers
While I welcome the article "Class actions" (Caterer, 4 December, page 26) in that it highlights the different status of catering colleges abroad and the problems with funding in UK, I take exception to the uninformed remarks from Prue Leith about students being taught in classrooms for pretend customers.
Has she visited a catering college in the last 15 years? Has she heard of NVQ and the requirement for realistic working environments with real food being cooked and served to real customers?
Catering colleges operate kitchens and restaurants on a par and often better than many in the industry. Most catering students also have part-time and/or weekend jobs and know all about long and antisocial hours.
Statements such as this only serve to further alienate the parents of prospective students.
JOHN TAYLOR, SENIOR CHEF LECTURER, BURTON COLLEGE, BURTON UPON TRENT, STAFFORDSHIRE
Schools must teach kids about sensible eating
The arguments raised in the press over the past few months concerning the growing and almost endemic problems of obesity in children hit a nonsensical note with reports in the Sunday papers that Cadbury Schweppes had "thrown responsibility for the nation's increasing waistlines at restaurants".
The thinking appears to be that declaring the calorie count for each dish on menus will help to solve the problem, but it's just a case of passing the buck. What grieves me every time I read these indictments is that we're missing the point.
For a variety of well documented reasons, including working women, single parents, etc, etc, the past couple of generations have not had the opportunity to learn about food and cooking from their parents - and there's no provision in schools either.
Consequently no amount of information about calories, fat content, sensible healthy eating, etc, will have any effect until today's children understand what all this means in terms of sensible nutrition while at the same time - and this is very important - they enjoy eating, which doesn't mean burger buns with fatty meat, over-salty crisps or sugar-laden chocolate eaten "on the hoof".
Schools can play a vital part in reversing this trend. But there must be a political willingness. Through the Academy of Culinary Arts' work with our own schools project, the Adopt A School Trust, and the received responses, we know that we make a difference to the lives of the children involved. Learning about food and cooking opens up a whole new way of thinking, of understanding where food comes from, how it shapes us and our future and the world around us.
It teaches about our countryside and the skills of animal husbandry and plant cultivation and the journey from field to plate. It highlights the values of sustainability and the environment. In the light of the ever-increasing health and obesity problem, practical cookery helps us to understand why we eat and the effects various foods have on us, both physiologically and psychologically.
Learning about food can also be about team-building and inspiring others to fulfil their potential. Food holds communities together. It integrates with many of the subjects already key to the school curriculum, such as history, geography, English, international linguistics, mathematics, science, and politics. It teaches us to understand each other's cultural and taste differences as a vital part of social behaviour; and finally it's intrinsic to our national economy.
SARA JAYNE-STANES, DIRECTOR, ACADEMY OF CULINARY ARTS
