Sharing the limelight

"It's a bit like playing beside a famous footballer - it's good for the morale." Baxter & Platts sales director Mike Smith sums up the impact of bringing in a celebrity chef to work alongside the company's contract catering team.

Just as a non-league player will derive inspiration - and a huge thrill - out of matching skills with a multi-million-pound soccer star, Smith reckons their cooks, who churn out thousands of lunches in hundreds of staff canteens around the country, will enjoy the opportunity the company is about to give them of working alongside Nigel Haworth, chef-proprietor of the one-Michelin-starred Northcote Manor, near Blackburn.

Haworth was "signed up" by Baxter & Platts (B&P) last August and became the latest in a growing number of high-profile chefs to form a consultancy partnership with a contract catering firm. Other examples include Gary Rhodes's link-up with Gardner Merchant, Pierre Koffmann's partnership with Everson Hewett and Anton Mosimann's work with PPP Healthcare.

higher profile

And while Compass Group-owned Eurest has consultancy agreements with Albert Roux and Prue Leith on a national basis, Eurest's north-west division is seeking a higher profile locally by working with John Benson-Smith, chef-proprietor of Hazlewood Castle in Yorkshire (see panel).

"We brought Benson-Smith on board to improve food standards in the units, develop our chefs' skills and raise their capability," says Eurest north-west operations director Stephen Quinn.

Each deal between a chef and contract caterer is structured very differently, but the motives behind the partnerships are common to all. The contract caterer scores on several counts. First, there is the kudos gained from association with a well-known chef, which can only help when tendering for new contracts. Second, staff within the contract catering company are given a lift by the chance to meet and learn from a highly skilled chef who has made it to the top of their profession.

This is certainly the case at B&P, says Smith. "It is motivational for our chefs. They feel good about being involved with Nigel, and it shows that B&P is serious about developing them."

Introducing the cooks within contract catering units to cutting-edge techniques is a particular benefit, adds Smith. "Nigel has a keen understanding of trends and recent innovations. While our guys are also close to the market-place, Nigel has a greater expertise in that specific field."

Smith adds that existing clients are reassured by the fact that their contract caterer is prepared to invest in the training and development of its cooks.

He maintains that this is the primary reason why B&P is working with Haworth. "Certainly there is an advantage from a sales perspective, but the predominant reason is to enhance services for our existing clients. While Nigel may assist us in the sales process, that is not fundamental to his involvement with B&P. It is to send out messages to our clients that we are trying to improve services for them."

Nevertheless, Smith agrees that shortly after signing up as a consultant last summer, Haworth played a key role in ensuring that B&P secured the £2.5m contract to feed 1,400 staff at Bank Paribas in London.

It is still early days in the relationship, but Smith envisages that, as well as getting involved in chef development, Haworth could be used to spearhead a relaunch of the hospitality offer for one of the company's corporate clients.

"Nigel would be involved in the innovation in terms of menu; train in some of the new ideas for the chefs; and do a hospitality tasting for the senior management," says Smith. "The fact that Nigel is a signature chef isn't necessarily the most important thing for our clients. What they want is to continually have high-class, innovative catering."

well rewarded

Put bluntly, the short answer to why Haworth, like other celebrity chefs, is prepared to give time to advising B&P is money. Chefs are well rewarded for their time, says Haworth, who stops short of revealing his own fee.

Contract caterers have to pay anything between £500 and £1,500 a day. "You have got the skills and the knowledge that these companies want, and you are actually paid very well. And sometimes restaurateurs need to supplement their income."

But aside from the financial rewards, Haworth adds that consultancy work benefits chefs in raising their profile, and it has the added advantage of giving them experience outside the rarefied world of a top-rated restaurant.

"When you are a chef or a cook working in a place for 10 or 20 years - as I find, having been working here for 16 years - you have got to expand your mind. If you don't expand your mind, you become stagnant."

His agreement with B&P is limited to a maximum of one day every two months. "I don't want to be out of the kitchen too much, otherwise my work here gets absolutely turned on end. I have to keep a balance."

In all cases, Haworth says, it is important to bear in mind the constraints that the contract catering team at an individual unit are working under. He cannot breeze in and make suggestions that require an army of chefs and sous chefs to put into practice.

working practices

"There might only be two or three chefs in a unit that is serving 600 or 1,000 meals a day. But, however many there are, you have to look at their working practices and how they organise themselves. Whether it is making a sandwich or a tournedos of beef or a breast of pheasant, it is the organisation to get from A to B which is important, and I think that is how we can help."

The cost of any changes recommended by Haworth must also be taken into consideration, though he says himself he cannot get too heavily involved in the financial side of the business. "These places are not necessarily looking to make a profit but must break even. Though you are looking at different margins to work on, at the end of the day you have still got to produce the food so that you don't make a loss."

Haworth stresses the importance of offering constructive advice. "My role is to help them to develop in a more modern way. But you have got to be careful.

"It is quite easy for people like me to walk into a kitchen and just pooh-pooh everything, but you just can't go down with big boots on. The skill is to go in and work with these people and ask how they are doing things and look at how we can make the product better." n