6 | Hospitality Today | Oct/Nov 2015


BY APPOINTMENT TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN CATERER CH&CO CATERING LTD


The logistics of catering for very large and complex events – like a Guildhall banquet - could be highly challenging, and Jones remembered a colleague telling him “any job is possible if you break it down into manageable chunks, and have the right people in charge of each one”.


CH&Co provide food within corporate workplaces, and Toner emphasised how important it was that “what we offer has to be good” – people have a choice every lunchtime. He had learned the words ‘on trend’ recently, he joked, and it was important to keep innovating, to keep customers’ interest with new things - whether it happened to be ‘street food’, Korean, or whatever: “our enemy is Tupperware!” he said- CH&Co had to make its offering tempting enough to leave the Tupperware at home and pay for lunch. At the end of the day, Toner concluded, “the customer is King”.


Royal Warrant holder CH&Co merged with the HCM Group (Host Catermasters Group) in a deal which gives the new combined business CH&Co Group a turnover approaching £200m, and a team of 4,500 providing services to over 400 operations across the UK and Ireland.


The group announced the deal “against a backdrop of an increasingly competitive industry where consolidation is the perfect answer for mid- sized independents ready to take on the largest competitors”. Group CEO Bill Toner said “this merger enables both companies to combine their assets and talent and have the financial strength to compete even more vigorously. We are so much stronger together but although we’re now a bigger company, we’re still made up of a number of smaller, well-established, high calibre brands focussed on providing excellent food and service, and with a reputation for looking after clients and customers.


The Arena Christmas Event is on Monday 7th December, at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel, London. Click HERE for details.


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