Culinera offers better-quality food for schools

The Cateys have been something of a good omen for Pass over the years. As well as being part of the Searcys team that won two Foodservice Cateys in 2019, he had met his partner Emma Wood, who is also a director of the business, at the same event two years earlier.

Many ‘fall' into hospitality, but Pass grew up hearing about the industry from several family members working across various levels in the sector and had watched some of his heroes win their own Cateys. "I remember looking up to people like William Baxter, Mike Smith, Nick Howe and Rick Holroyd," he recalls.

The benefit of contract catering

Pass says the contract catering sector has unique characteristics. "This opportunity to go into other people's locations, create food for them and be such a pivotal part of their day is really fascinating. From a business perspective it's genius, because if you want to open up a restaurant, you've got to sign leases, buy all the kitchen equipment, and the commercial risk is entirely down to you. I'm not saying it isn't for Culinera, but you get the ability to be much more creative because your focus is on adding value for the customer."

After six months working in BaxterStorey's human resources department while deciding whether to go to university, Pass ended up at Caterlink as a sales administrator. He worked there for seven years, climbing the ranks into business development, before spending more than two years at Searcys.

"I knew how to sell but I had no clue how to run a business," he says. "What I learned at Searcys was how to establish a brand. A lot of contract caterers are brandless and there's a reason for that, because obviously the client's premises are the forefront. But what I realised working at Searcys was that there was a missing area for contract catering in having a really strong brand, because some clients don't want a bespoke restaurant identity."

After a decade working for foodservice providers, Pass wanted to strike out on his own. On a holiday to Mallorca in June 2019, he and Wood wrote the business plan for Culinera. Their vision was to challenge the domination of the education sector by large catering companies and to create a brand that stood for authenticity, honesty and true partnership. The name was inspired by wanting to "create a new culinary era".

Pass saw a gap in the market for an independent caterer offering better-quality food at a slightly higher price point for schools willing to pay a bit more for a better product.

"It's a bit like wine – people say, don't buy the cheapest bottle, buy the second or third cheapest bottle, because it's much better. I'd say that's very similar to Culinera. Our tariff is more expensive than the average school caterer, but our food is restaurant quality," he says. The average spend per person at Culinera is £2.50.

Looking for financial backers for his start-up idea, Pass met a few angel investors and agreed an investment for an almost equal split of the business. However, after handing in his notice at Searcys, he realised he wasn't happy with the investment terms. On the suggestion of a family member, he decided to politely decline the angel investor's offer and remortgage his house instead to fund the launch of Culinera in January 2020.

Setting up a business as Covid hits

In March, he got a call from a primary school that Culinera had bid for and was hoping would be its first contract catering win. It wasn't good news. Gutted but determined, Pass managed to convince the school to let him meet with the board of governors to address their concerns with a detailed risk assessment. It paid off, and they changed their minds.

Then the pandemic hit. "We inherited two team members... I had sleepless nights about paying for these people when there was no income," he recalls.

And that wasn't all of it. "My whole family circle got made redundant in the space of a week, and suddenly it got very scary, because the people that were there to help me if I needed help suddenly weren't there and, in fact, they needed help."

Thankfully, the furlough scheme was introduced. "I cried in my kitchen I was so relieved! I thought I was going to lose everything," he says, adding that the pandemic also brought the fledgling business opportunities, as schools wanted to pick up the phone and speak directly to a decision-maker.

"That slower pace of life and not seeing our friends every weekend also meant that Emma and I could spend time working on the best induction, improving our marketing plan, our recipes, working with the chefs to come up with new concepts," he says.

Pass, Wood and the family initially worked on tenders, picking up five school contracts in the first year. As recently as last year, Pass was still overseeing sales, finance and operations.

"I don't think people understand how hard it is to start a business," he says. "The support I've had from Emma and my family has allowed me to do Culinera. The sacrifices we've made – I've missed family funerals, weddings. A lot of people out there look at Alastair Storey and all of these big companies and forget the sacrifice to get to that point is huge, and it's bloody hard work."

Culinera's school catering contracts

Over the past three years, the business has taken on 27 school catering contracts (25% of them are primary schools, 75% secondary) and 250 employees, and expects to turn over £15m in the next year. Culinera has also invested in a central support team, recruiting a group executive chef, operations director and a dedicated people director. All systems – payroll, finance, procurement – remain in-house.

The plan was to start off with more primary schools, but Pass credits the success of its first secondary school contract – Hertswood Academy in Hertfordshire – for spurring its growth in the segment.

"Primary schools are a real challenge at the moment because there's just not enough funding; it's a very difficult model to operate," he explains. "Secondary schools, because it's a tariff model, we can create fantastic food and our model works. We'll grow in both areas, but I see us growing stronger in our secondary school offer because it's our sweet spot."

The company doesn't yet have any contracts with independent schools, but it's an area he's keen to grow into with the hope of signing the first this year.

When taking on a new contract, Culinera's approach wouldn't look out of place among some of the City caterers – high street-inspired brands, salad bars, grab and go, digital signage and meal ordering systems – while its sixth-form cafés are reminiscent of a Gail's bakery.

Pass says: "We don't come into a school saying everything is bespoke – it's just not scalable behaviour. Are you really going to have a marketing manager making bespoke marketing plans for every single school? The margins aren't there.

"Our approach is to do something once and do it fantastically. Yes, our menus can be tweaked, but our branding and marketing are all the same, and that means we can make it the best. When we do a themed day, it's the best themed day."

He is proud that Culinera is committed to not using any processed food or packet mixes, which means they're often recruiting team members before they even start in a new contract's kitchens to ensure they are adequately staffed to cook from scratch and meet anticipated growth in sales. Sales have more than doubled, in some cases tripled, at several of the group's contracts.

Typically a Culinera chef will be onsite at a school for up to a few months at the start of a contract, which is as much about sharing Culinera's values as it is about establishing its operational standards.

Recruitment hasn't been an issue, perhaps due to Culinera's size, which allows individuals more flexibility to make changes and have more of an impact across the business. However, Pass acknowledges the sector-wide skills shortage. "Schools are training people to go and work for Google and Facebook, they're not training them to work in hospitality."

Culinera is trying to offset this by offering students cookery lessons and work experience, but Pass is keen to see further collective action. "We need to do a lot of work lobbying the government to put food back in the classroom."

He points out: "We're here because we want to be the best part of that child's day. And sometimes, given where we are with the cost of living crisis, it might be their only hot meal."

It's become even more personal for him recently – at the time of writing, he and Wood were expecting their first child.

He says: "We very often make difficult decisions in our contracts that make us work harder and potentially cost us money, but from a mid-term perspective I know that it's the right thing to do, and it's paid off. We've got very happy clients, sales are stronger than ever, and we've always beaten our sales budgets.

"Although we're not making as much gross profit, we're still successful financially because we're simply getting more people eating. The business model is high risk, but much more rewarding for everyone involved."

Small business in a big pond

The agility of being a smaller business can be a strength in a sector dominated by big players. At the same time, Culinera's average delivery is quite large because secondary schools are big, making it more attractive to suppliers and keeping pricing competitive.

Until recently they've sought to keep contracts close in the home counties, although widening that geographical scope is on the cards as the business grows. "We would love to operate quite a strong presence in the south," Pass says. "As we grow, and if we've got the right support, there's a terrific industry in the north as well. It's all about growing and making sure we've got the right support to do that. If a phenomenal grammar school came up in Leeds now, we wouldn't go for it, but if in three years' time we had a great support network, who knows?"

Pass believes the model is scalable. He's looking to grow but he doesn't have a particular target in mind. If the company grew to a size that was stopping it from being successful, that would be too big, he says. For him, it's about establishing a strong infrastructure, standards and operating procedures to support sustainable growth. If everybody has a clear understanding of what good looks like, then quality needn't be compromised, he says, quoting high-street chain Leon as an example.

Just don't tell him he's in the business of ‘canteens' and ‘dinner ladies' – these words aren't in the Culinera dictionary. Having sought to bring restaurant-quality chefs into the business, Pass refers to school dining rooms as restaurants. Similarly, he finds the term ‘dinner ladies' disrespectful to staff members who are often working at a commis chef level.

Where the business goes next is unlikely to involve a sale or acquisition – Pass says he's more interested in growing into other sectors. "Selling is off the cards, certainly for the next 10 years, because why would I? I love what I do, I get to do the things that I love, and I get to have the reward of emails from our clients saying ‘that was fantastic'. I don't think there is a better job out there than being self-employed."

Names and numbers

Founder Thomas Pass

Director Emma Wood

Operations director Rob Freeman

Account director Steve Barwick-Biggs

Business development director Jordan Dunant

Development chef Tom Humphries

Employees 250

School contracts 27

Meals served per day Around 25,000

Turnover Over the next 12 months, Culinera is expected to turn over £15m

Timeline

January 2020 Pass remortgages his home to fund the launch of Culinera.

March 2020 Culinera lands its first school contract – Great Kingshill Combined School in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire – just before the Covid-19 pandemic forces the closure of UK schools. The business picks up five contracts in its first year.

January 2023 Culinera hits turnover of £8m.

July 2023 Culinera wins the Newcomer Award at the Cateys.