Year: 2019

Made it to #IFE2019 Well done Lori Hoinkes & Co!

Yesterday I was blown away with how foodservices have changed in the last 10 years. ALL exciting new products on show and all produced more responsibly than ever, to give us all hope for our planet.

My Top 5 Tastebud Ticklers were:

Last Friday night, I was privileged enough to attend the Umbrella Training Awards celebrating the efforts of fantastic young men and women; some of the future stars of our hospitality sector. I love events like these and believe Umbrella Training is a fantastic elite hospitality apprenticeship provider coordinating programmes in collaboration with prestigious hotels, restaurants, member clubs and food service management companies across England.

DESPERATELY SEEKING SUPPORT *** I love The Clink Charity, its training restaurants, its gardens. A recent Justice Data Lab Report says a Clink graduate is a WHOPPING 49.6% less likely to reoffend having been through training.

5 Things to Know:

1. Today there are circa. 84,000 prisoners in the UK; 80,000 men and 4,000 women.
2. 49%** of prisoners reoffend within one year of release.
3. If a sentence is less than 12 months, that figure rises to 66%**.
4. Reoffending costing the UK Taxpayer a total of £15bn a year.
5. THERE IS A HUGE SKILLS SHORTAGE IN HOSPITALITY AND YOU – AS AN EMPLOYER – CAN HELP!

Did you get down to the Casual Dining Show in London yesterday? If not, you’ve still got today to check it out.

5 of my F&B heroes are:

1. 1. 1. Raynor Foods’ biodegradable sandwich packaging which Tim Woods says “as far as we know we’re the first sandwich wholesaler to introduce a plastic free option”,
   1. Susan Vaughan’s tasty Herefordshire Craft Cider  in all its wonderful retro packaging loveliness,
   2. Yumpingo’s instant customer feedback …fantastic market-leading hospitality intelligence for contract caterers to use as part of their hospitality offer,
   3. Real Kombucha non-alcoholic fermentation juice – – and
   4. London-based Rude Health’s Tumeric Lattes.

Calling all UK caterers and restauranteurs: Caroline Benjamin from Food Allergy Aware reported in a Webinar today there are not enough companies out there promoting their food allergy policy on their websites. I’ve just completed an Institute of Hospitality ALLERGENS MADE SIMPLE Webinar and two things are key in 2019: COMMUNICATION AND TRAINING.How many of you have a food allergy policy separate from the food safety policy? If you don’t have a policy, go to the website and download an Allergy Matrix NOW; don’t wait until someone dies! Thank You for listening! www.fatc.co.uk

Delighted that TAF Catering Consultancy attended #ACEDINNER19 as new members last night. Gaye Bullard FIH kick started the evening’s proceedings with a fantastic opening and a very welcoming “ACE has been going for 80 years and is encouraging the next generation to learn the art of networking!”

The evening was a fabulous success, great fun and what a delicious menu by the salubrious Law Society and… a whopping £10,000 raised for charity and handed over to the quite amazing Wiggly Worm charity.

I was only recently introduced (figuratively speaking) to Simon Sinek by Carey, back in November 2018 – in the early days of TAF Catering Consultancy. What an introduction. It lead to me, in an almost obsessed stalker-like manor, desperately seeking Simon out on his next visit to the UK. Hey presto, it’s just 3 months later and I’m seated here in Central Hall, Westminster (London, UK) with around a thousand others just like me, waiting to be inspired to ACT, to CHANGE, to THINK DIFFERENTLY. Simon did not disappoint.

In a nutshell, his latest anecdotal talk was all about “Discovering The Infinite Game” in order for us to create a unique CODE for ourselves which he coined “5 Life Lessons”:

1. 1. 1. HAVE A JUST CAUSE | Create an ideal future state to give your work meaning / purpose
      2. TRUST IN YOUR TEAM | Create an environment where people can work to their best in a trusting team!
      3. HAVE A WORTH ADVERSARY | Create a rival, someone better than you; not to hate but to admire and respect, to allow you to stay on the game, on your game.
      4. BE EXISTENTIALLY FLEXIBLE | In a finite game, the game ends. In an infinite game, the players stop play. Create ways to ensure you, as a player, stay in the game? Find a better way to advance your cause.
      5. HAVE COURAGE TO LEAD | Challenge the system. Stand up & say ‘No!’. Be the first. Say “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Admit fallibility. Play to win.

I consider myself blessed I work in foodservices today. Last night was a particularly fine evening to remember, the Institute of Hospitality’s Fellows dinner. What an incredible collection of hospitality influencers gathered to celebrate the real stars of the foodservices cosmos, each other. Nowhere else can you stand shoulder-to-shoulder, whilst quaffing ‘n’ scoffing, with culinary giants comprising CEOs of contract caterers, consultants, hoteliers, restauranteurs and chefs. It’s events like last night that make me happy, grateful and keen to encourage more young people to come on board to be inspired by the people who fill my world every day.

In 2018, the subject of unnecessary disposable waste hit the headlines and instigated an unrivalled step change in our behaviours as consumers and across businesses.

Long have corporations been following a trend where waste management and recycling has been a prompted action; helping us choose sustainable over non-recyclable materials but few consumers truly understood that their daily caffeine fix was in fact one of the worst culprits with their cunning [waxed] interiors and extra sleeves to stop us burning our hands – or those tops, so nifty and convenient on our way to the office.

How very exciting, TAF Catering Consultancy gets a mention in the latest hot-to-trot second edition of magazine-about-town Curious Magazine.

Have you read the latest instalment from Custard Publishing? An interesting one for those chefs thinking of actually going for it this year, i.e. setting up their own restaurants: Does a restaurant after your name… help or hinder?