What happened to the hospital food scheme?
The Jamie Oliver campaign for better funding for school dinners, and getting nutrition in and junk out, is unquestionably the most successful positive focus on catering the industry has ever had. But while it might be the most successful food campaign ever, there is a parallel which gives me a nagging doubt about it all.
The Better Hospital Food Programme, while never as high-profile in the media as the current school dinners issue, also had ingredient-funding, nutrition and food quality as core objectives, but the Government, it seems, lost interest in it.
The Loyd Grossman-led team of development chefs, of which I was a member, has been stood down when there is still much work to be done, and hospital chefs
I have talked to are still waiting for the promised increased funding for ingredients. The young and obese in schools are the focus of politicians now, rather than the sick and malnourished in hospitals.
Politicians have made wonderful promises over more funding for school meals, just as they did with hospital food. And we all know about politicians and promises.
John Benson-Smith, Chef-patron, Hazlewood Castle, Tadcaster, Yorkshire
Power breakfast sets the tone for culinary futures
Last month, the HCIMA hosted a highly successful Power Breakfast Skills and Qualifications Debate at the House of Commons, as part of the Springboard Festival 2005.
Leading hospitality industry practitioners, educationalists, and trade and professional body chief executives met to discuss the skills and vocational education needs of the industry.
The overriding conclusion was that there was an urgent need for continuing top-level discussions, driven by People 1st, to strengthen the partnership between the industry, education and the Government. Although Springboard UK has done an excellent job in promoting the industry to potential recruits, the Power Breakfast participants believed that there was still more to be done.
There was overwhelming agreement that school children should benefit from food being used as a vehicle for learning from the earliest possible age. This was vital for enhancing the perception of the industry as a career of first choice.
The debate also addressed further and higher education, and the participants' shared belief in the importance of even greater cohesion and support between the industry, education and the Government over hospitality industry qualifications.
The discussions touched on a number of issues, including: young people's perceptions of the industry; falling recruitment to further and higher education colleges and universities; the qualifications framework; apprenticeship plans; foundation degrees; the role of the college training restaurant; the potential need for a licence to practice; the role of EU immigrants in the industry; and the need to reduce staff turnover.
The importance of the debate was apparent to all concerned. With the Government's target of 25% growth by 2010, set out in its new tourism strategy, the industry will face a huge recruitment drive to fill the anticipated 500,000 vacancies. So it is imperative we continue to hold top-level discussions on skills and qualifications to provide a comprehensive framework.
Philippe Rossiter
Chief executive, HCIMA, Sutton, Surrey
NestlŽ puts weight behind better school meals
As a leading supplier to the food service industry, NestlŽ FoodServices supports the Government's decision to increase spending on school meals. We believe providing children with nutritionally balanced meals is of prime importance, and are committed to providing the industry with culinary aids to help achieve this.
In line with this, we are working with caterers to ensure they have the necessary tools to develop healthier menus, while ensuring products are simple to prepare, to save pressurised dinnerladies' valuable time in the kitchen.
We are also working to reformulate our products so that we can provide schools with a wider range of low-salt, low-fat culinary aids. And we have overhauled our packaging and included easy-to-read nutritional information and key information on allergens.
Helping schools to provide healthier meals to children will be key to improving the health of the nation. We are committed to playing our part and look forward to working with contract caterers and schools to help them achieve this.
Susan Gregory
NestlŽ FoodServices, Croydon, Surrey
BOXTEXT: The critical difference between review and rant
A letter to The Times, copied by the author to Caterer
To: Robert Thomson, Editor,
The Times, London
Dear Mr Thomson
I am astonished, dismayed indeed, that Mr Giles Coren is the "restaurant critic" on your Saturday Magazine. As is most amply demonstrated by his piece on the Paternoster Chophouse in the 9 April edition, he is clearly no more knowledgeable about the restaurant business than any casual customer.
Does he really think it unreasonable to decline to serve guests their first course while they make up their minds what they would like to eat for the main course, thus holding up the table, the kitchen and the staff for this whim? His spurious and unmannerly questions of the waiter may persuade him that he is wittily a connoisseur of food, but demonstrate only his lack of any sort of breeding.
As for his boorish mockery of his waiter - "the little French bastard", "a bona fide old-school snooty Parisian tosser", "your benighted race, Frenchy" - I would expect The Times to be ashamed to print such pathetic racial slurs. This language is uncalled for and unbefitting, whatever the standard of service or quality of food.
He may think that he enlarges his readership by such pandering to the less-savoury sections of our society. All he actually does, I would like to hope, is to earn our contempt. His prejudiced comments and spiteful pen have nothing to do with an informative and constructive restaurant review.
I have not been to Mr Conran's restaurant, but I am on the whole much more impressed by the many French people who serve their often-churlish English customers in London than by their often illtrained British counterparts.
If I were to encounter poor service in any restaurant, I would address my complaint to the manager, rather than rush into crude mockery in a well-known publication. And if Mr Coren thinks that he is excused by his supposed mastery of the English language, let him think again: "Convenient for who?" indeed. I wonder if his French is any better than his English.
I will also copy this letter to
Mr Coren.
Regis Crepy
The Great House,
Market Place, Lavenham, Suffolk CO10 9QZ
BOXHEAD: our back pages stories from the caterer vaults
BOXTEXT: 1961
The Caterer and Hotel Keeper,
16 December
As a result of a new policy of integrating personnel, which the firm calls "everyone is on the staff" policy, the traditional division of works and staff canteens has been abolished at the factory of Adrema Ltd, East Acton. A new first-floor canteen was opened at the factory last week. All employees are now called "staff" and there is no differentiation between factory workers and office staff.
One of the rules of the canteen is that all users must appear without work coats or overalls. This, the firm claims, has resulted in a complete integration of office and works
staff.
The seating capacity is 250. It has a pleasing decor of light green, with red-topped laminated plastic tables. The introduction of a bar, for the first time, will enable the staff to enjoy a drink with their lunch.
1924
The Caterer and Hotel-keeper's Gazette, 15 August
Many items of kitchen equipment which used to be considered luxuries are more and more considered to be necessities. This is especially so in the case of refrigerating machinery. In their handsome and very finely illustrated new catalogue, Messrs Sulzer Bros point out that, unless cold storage is available, the uncertain and varying amounts of visitors, influenced by weather and other accidental circumstances, and also
the difficulties of transportation
to remote places, may render
efficient catering at health resorts, sanatoria, etc, very difficult and troublesome.
As a matter of fact, very few, if any, hotels are without some kind of refrigeration. The comparative novelty, which is gradually becoming a commonplace, is the installation of a refrigeration plant which does away with the necessity of having ice delivered.
The new catalogue describes the three kinds of refrigerating agents - ammonia, carbonic acid and sulphurous acid.
1883
The Caterer and Hotel Proprietor's Gazette, 15 October
In some shops, preserved tomato sauce made in France can be bought, and this will be found very good if it is really of Gallic origin - a fact easily ascertained by opening a bottle and tasting it. If it tastes of tomatoes, it is a good tomato sauce; if the compound is very acid and hot to the mouth - in other words, if vinegar and cayenne predominate - then it is the British form, to be avoided.
BOXHEAD: reader'S letter 1938
