Employer: Elior UK
Total number of years spent within Hospitality?
5 years
What do you most enjoy about this industry?
I enjoy the people aspect; you meet people from different backgrounds and different thoughts and processes. What I like about relationships with chefs is, they are all passionate about what they do, and I respect that wholly. Food for me personally, from a family perspective was going to my grandmother’s house, every Sunday, and she showed her love through her food, and its exactly the same with chefs. From the produce, to the apron they wear, there is a lot of pride within our industry. People care about their jobs, and that is what you end up falling in love with.
What does a typical day look like for you?
My days vary, and can range from time spent with suppliers, working on joint business plans, on how they can gain spend, or how they are servicing the business needs. To working with suppliers, and internal stakeholders and coming up with solutions. One of the best things about my role is listening, you have to listen, more than you speak, and really understand what your suppliers are telling you, and then liaise with a lot of different departments, who look at things from a very different perspective. Last but not least, spend time with customers too.
Tell us something we might not know about the sector?
Contract catering in the UK, serves 1.6 billion meals per year, which shows how much impact, and influence the sector has, because if you can shape a meal or offering to this volume of people, you are also shaping mindsets, and so the impact of the decisions that we make is huge.
What has been the single most important piece of advice given to you?
Relationships are everything, from suppliers, to customer, they are everything. You have to invest the time, and be as transparent as you can. Transparency leads to trust.
Three dinner guests of your choice?
Muhammed Ali, Bo Jackson and Laurie Cunningham.
Last documentary watched and book read?
The documentary, that I am binging on at the moment is “Chefs table”, from it I am building a list of restaurants to visit, once were allowed back out!
Finish the sentence, the future in hospitality is……..
To be created, within the next few years everything is going to spin upside down. There will still be catering, and restaurants, but I think that the influence of technology and data will change things.