Steve Schaffer

Name: Steve Schaffer

Date of birth: 2/7/66

Job title: Catering operations manager for Pubmaster

Location: Ipswich

What was your first job in hospitality?
Commis chef at the Mirabelle restaurant in London.

How did you get from there to your current job?
I got my first job in 1985 when I left Westminster College. I worked my way up to chef de partie, then left in 1987 to go to Cincinnati in the USA, where I became head chef of a small French restaurant called Le Petit France.

In 1988, I moved again, this time to the Caribbean, to become first chef at the Hyatt Grand Cayman. In 1989, I returned to Britain, to East London, where I opened a patisserie called Schaffer's. I sold the business in 1991 and joined Brake Bros as a salesman, eventually rising to national account executive. From there, I moved in 1997 to Booker Foodservice, now 3663, in a similar role.

In 1999, I was tempted back to the operators' side of hospitality to join Pubmaster as a regional manager. In April 2002, I was appointed the company's first national catering operations manager.

What does the job involve?
The catering operations manager has a strategic role within Pubmaster, looking at the catering offering across the whole company. Specifically, I am there to improve tenant and regional manager awareness of the food and catering market.

On a daily basis, I come up with menu ideas, and produce bulletins and information for tenants. The eventual idea is to compile a recipe database that any tenant can access at any time.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
It's a new role so I suppose the most enjoyable part of the job is coming up with exactly how it's going to work and thinking up new strategies, concepts and ideas.

What do you most dislike about it?
Again, it's a new role, so every pub wants a piece of you and wants you to come and sort out their catering, but my role is much more strategic than that and I'm looking at catering as a whole.

What attributes do you need to do your job?
You need to have had a regional manager's role so you can understand what the pubs need. You also, obviously, need to have had a catering background.

What's your next move?
I've only just got this job so I'll be here for a while yet, but I suppose I'd like some sort of catering directorship eventually.

What's your ultimate goal?
I'd like to have my own business again eventually, I think. Some sort of bistro/restaurant, but whether I'll cook in it, I just don't know.