Left: The new stadium for Tottenham Hotspur FC in London set the bar for catering in sports arenas
and work from there.” With 40 different meals on offer every day based on four themes ‒ France, Asia, Africa-Caribbean, and world cuisine ‒ the Olympic and Paralympic Village in Paris, catered by Sodexo Live!, is setting a strong example for other operators to follow. Danny Potter FCSI, director of Invito Design in the UK, is a veteran of stadia projects and has worked on big arenas including the Millennium Stadium in Wales and the new stadium for Tottenham Hotspurs FC in London. His team is currently working on a large number of sports arena projects in the UK and Europe and several in the Middle East, including in the booming Saudi Arabia. He says a stadium should have
something for everyone. “A great example is where you’ve got everything from a coffee shop to a chicken shop to a burger bar, all the way up to Michelin-standard cooking,” he says, comparing it to a good hotel resort experience. “We have production kitchens that are bigger than most. We’ve got beer systems that deliver extortionate amounts of beer and a large amount of money. We’ve got bars, we’ve got cafes, we’ve got everything in there. It’s no different to a resort hotel, and 10 times more,” he says. World cuisine may be in, but the classics
‒ think burgers, hot dogs and pizzas ‒ have certainly not gone out of style. “It’s more a question of ‘how can we do it better?’,” says Kristen Sedej FCSI, principal and owner of S20 Consultants, which has worked on more than 100 sports venues across the US. “Previously, a pizza stand in an arena might have hired out a third party to bring in, say, 50 pizzas, let them sit in a hot box and serve them from there. Now, they’re cooking them in front of you. It’s the same with burgers. Instead of cooking 100 burgers in a convection oven in a kitchen, wrapping them up and sending them up in hot boxes, you can actually watch someone make them right there.” Te increasing expectations from guests
have pushed levels up. Potter says quality of product is the one big trend that stands out and refers to venue management company ASM global. “In the last four years they’ve gone on a big drive on quality. I started working with them four or five years ago and it was all frozen burgers; everything was precooked frozen,” he says. “Now they’ve developed their own burger and I would say this is probably one of the best burgers in a European stadium. It’s a completely fresh product.” Tis, of course, brings its own challenges. “How we cook it? Ideally on a plancha but we can’t be putting planchas
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PARIS 2024 CLIMATE
COMMITMENTS
2x more plant-based food on the plate for 2x less CO2
Aiming for 100% certified food, including 80% French origin products, 25% within 250km of the venues and 30% organic products
Halve the amount of single-use plastic in the consumption phase
Limit food waste and recycle 100% of uneaten food
Ensure 100% second life for used equipment and infrastructure
A minimum of 10% of the catering staff on all sites to be from professional integration programs
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WORLDWIDE
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