Sodexho wins £290m-turnover army deal

Contract caterer Sodexho will be serving up food to British squaddies for the next 30 years, after winning through to the final round of a £4b Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project.

Sodexho Defence Services has been named as the supply partner to defence contractor Aspire Defence, which is the provisional preferred bidder for the Ministry of Defence's 30-year Allenby-Connaught PFI project.

The project will see the design, overhaul and construction of a whole range of Ministry of Defence (MoD) facilities at Aldershot in Hampshire and around Salisbury Plain.

The Sodexho element of the deal will turn over some £290m over the life of the contract.

Sodexho's role will be to provide catering, mess management and cleaning for about 18,000 military and civilian staff.

The sites covered will be the garrisons at Aldershot and, around Salisbury Plain, at Bulford, Tidworth, Lugershall, Netheravon, Larkhill and Warminster.

The company has been providing services for the Aldershot garrison for the past six years, but not under a PFI contract.

While the contract is not yet signed, under the PFI process being named as preferred bidder means there is no one else in the running.

There is also no firm start date set for the contract, but PFI deals of this size can take as long as a year from preferred bidder status being announced to completion.

Sodexho Defence Services executive director Andy Leach said: "Project Allenby-Connaught is set to replace the Aldershot contract and allows us the opportunity to build on our experience at Aldershot by transferring skills across the remaining garrisons."

by Nic Paton