Comment/Opinion

Ambitious Scots businessman Bill Toner has seen highs and lows in a 30-plus year career in contract catering. He told an Arena networking lunch about his story and the lessons learned so far. Les Leonard reports In a colourful 30-year career Bill Toner had top roles with two of the UK contract catering sector’s largest companies - as managing director of Sodexo and chief executive of Aramark.

Caterplus managing director Paul Robottom says that any operator in the care sector – private or public - must remember that they are dealing with people’s lives, not just providing a meal. The personalisation agenda being carried through by the Government into the care community is designed to allow users to make their own decisions about how their care money is spent.

As businesses worldwide continue to feel the pinch, B&I catering operators are coming under pressure from clients. Bill Twigg of Midshire Catering urges the industry to get creative. While many clients still consider that it remains a significant part of their employee welfare package, there are as many clients who would claim that during a time when their own business performance is at the mercy of a global recession, they can find more productive use for any potential catering subsidy.

Catering is a valuable contributor to football club revenue, but potential growth is being stymied by draconian alcohol licensing rules and the stadia sector’s failure to adapt to changing consumer trends, says The Lindley Group’s CEO Adam Elliott. The rules on the sale and consumption of alcohol at football matches are ludicrous and often illogical. They are as hit and miss as the offside rule, they change more frequently and there are any number of interpretations and anomalies that vary from ground to ground and match to match.

Technology and the catering sector have so far been reluctant bed fellows, especially when you look at the way the retail sector has embraced it to introduce efficiencies and eradicate human error. But that situation is changing fast, according to Ed Bevan of epsys The arrival of e-procurement and the ability to utilise the web as a universal communication tool is having a real impact on buying practices in the cost sector.