The TAF Catering Consultancy commented in this week’s online Facilitate Magazine, following the consultancy’s first post COVID-19 socially-distanced conference on 21st October 2020.
In the report entitled TAFTALKS2020 REPORT: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO FOODSERVICES FOR FACILITIES (AND CATERING FOR THE POST COVID-19 CUSTOMER), TAF details its journey through lockdown.
TAF Celebrates our 2nd birthday today and, as we always say, if it weren’t for:
For these two reasons, we are so happy to celebrate that we’re in business in 2020.
In addition to this, we are in the midst of unprecedented and challenging times post COVID-19, but are intent on staying true to our company values to LISTEN, COLLABORATE & DELIVER solutions to our clients.
Despite the challenging circumstances around the pandemic, those in facilities and foodservices continue to inspire us and work tirelessly to innovate around the clear and apparent obstacles, with there being no precedent and no clear indication of the what lies ahead. Each day being a moveable feast.
With unsettling, turbulent times behind and ahead of us and return-to-work timelines remaining uncertain, with companies and sectors operating under different timelines, there is a feeling of the UK wanting to return to a different kind of workplace.
This is where the TAF Catering Consultancy can support those in facilities, around their workplace feeding scenarios.
In the last two months alone, we have engaged 40 caterers in 40 days so know where the industry’s best practice lies. We believe in a new kind of inspirational, can-do attitude, specialist expertise and flexible approach that is, as we speak, shaping foodservice facilities post COVID-19, to facilitate both the UK’s physical and economic recovery.
If you are a corporate client organisation with people in the workplace to feed at the office (or at home), and you need fresh, forward-thinking, app-savvy, sustainability-focused and disruptive innovations to support you, contact us to project manage your catering consultancy needs.
Here’s to a whole new world of foodservices post COVID-19!
TRACEY FAIRCLOUGH | Consultant & Managing Director
On 21st October 2020, the TAF Catering Consultancy presents a phenomenal insight into how UK workplaces can change their habits around foodservices to a transformed post COVID-19 employee who needs 24/7 feeding (in the office or at home).
TAF has observed COVID-19 unfolding since March and the impact on corporate workplace foodservices.
Our disruptive catering consultancy has networked with 40 caterers, large and small, and many corporate organisations, responsible for feeding anywhere from 800 to 3000 employees, pre-COVID-19.
We’ve amassed data (from MINTEL’s “The Future of Eating Out | Impact of COVID-19” Report), insight and best practice. We now share our view of the world of foodservices to support corporate organisations, and UK economy, manage the changing landscape post COVID-19.
COVID-19 has accelerated the evolution of innovation around foodservices to deliver food and drink to employees at work or the office and at home differently.
TAF’s report presents a unique insight into how the market has changed, how employees have transformed and what innovations should inspire a new foodservice era.
According to Simon Sinek, author of “Start With Why?”, we face a new era of radical uncertainty and disruption brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as well as climate change, financial crises, terrorism, Brexit, demographic changes in the labour market and rapid transformation from digital technology.
Simon says COVID-19 is a black swan event: an unpredictable event beyond what is typically expected of a situation with potentially severe consequences, being extremely rare and having a severe impact. An event forcing companies and entire industries to rethink their global supply chain models.
TAF focuses on the customer (or workplace foodservice employee) and explores what’s going in their mind today to:
TAF argues:
Our disruptive catering consultancy presents our industry-defining report at the industry’s first known socially-distanced face-to-face round table events on 21st October 2020 to corporate clients, among some of the biggest organisations on the planet.
We invite the corporate world to start thinking, engaging, sourcing, cooking, serving and performing differently in a post COVID-19 World of Corporate Catering!
DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE REPORT HERE
For your post COVID-19 workplace catering consultancy needs, please do not hesitate to contact contact us.
#facilities #workplacesolutions #businessandindustry #foodservices#cateringconsultancy
Create NEW habits around your workplace foodservices to a transformed post COVID-19 employee who needs 24/7 feeding. Download TAF’s report in 3 DAYS to kick-start a new way of thinking!
Follow us NOW…to start thinking, engaging, sourcing, cooking, serving and performing differently!
#facilities #workplace-feeding #businessandindustry #foodservices #cateringconsultancy
TAF’s Managing Director Tracey Fairclough comments on the future of contract catering in a key article today in Facilitate Magazine, discussing how business models are evolving around three key areas: central production kitchens (CPUs), Cafes and technologies. She elaborates on the concept as follows:
“CPUs being the medium through which foodservice providers can prepare freshly prepared food, snacks and meals, with reduced on-site catering teams supported by a single behind-the-scenes labour structure in a remote kitchen delivering into sites”.
“Cafes being the channels to generate additional revenue from high street ready-built kitchen facilities (from high street retailers, no longer trading)”.
“Technologies being the driving force behind the latest cashless, on-line, cloud pre-order customer payment solutions that deliver data behind the purchases and solutions that provide food for different users, different dining occasions, and different locations around sites that save labour, save waste and deliver healthy, tasty and safe feeding solutions”.
Touching on the 3 most significant changes to catering models, Tracey Fairclough identifies:
READ HERE to see who else commented the same piece to show you how the contract catering models are evolving, as of October 2020: Facilitate Magazine, October 2020
If you are a corporate client organisation with a workplace staff restaurant planning a phased reopening and need some fresh, forward-thinking, app-savvy, sustainability-focused assistance, contact us to project manage your catering consultancy needs.
#workplace #contractcatering #contractcaterers #returntowork #foodservices #foodservice #workplacecatering #facilitiesmanagement
Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts | WINSTON CHURCHILL
September has proven to be yet another challenging month for workplace hospitality, particularly in light of the policy developments announced in the last few weeks, which make the “return to work” timeline more uncertain.
At TAF Catering Consultancy, we strongly believe that with every challenge comes an opportunity. For this reason, this month we’ve been engaging with all caterers in our network to find out the latest in terms of innovation: new catering models, ongoing technological developments and more agile ways of working that are at the core of the evolution of foodservices right now.
We were inspired by the caterers’ resilience, determination and commitment to adapt and evolve to offer the best solutions to their clients, feeding the people that matter the most to them.
We are confident that the industry will gradually bounce back, despite all the adversities. Caterers are analysing, processing, experimenting and adopting a proactive approach to deliver the best possible outcomes. The overwhelming message is one of optimism: creativity, flexibility and ability to adapt service delivery models to changing requirements is what will get the foodservice industry to move forward and succeed.
If you’re a corporate client organisation with a workplace staff restaurant and need fresh, forward-thinking, app-savvy, sustainability and safety-focused support to establish the best catering solution for you moving forward, email me directly on
#workplace #contractcatering #contractcaterers #returntowork #foodservices #foodservice #workplacecatering #facilitiesmanagement
Last week’s CACI report “Adapting to the New Consumer Reality” corroborates TAF’s findings that today’s employee, emerging from lockdown, is very different to the one that went in, in March.
TAF has engaged with caterers, consultant peers, foodservice suppliers and workplace client organisations in recent weeks and has been repeatedly asked to predict workplace foodservices.
To think ahead, we had to first take a look at the consumer… the customer … the employee NOW and understand how they have emerged from lockdown (and WHY).
This is why I cast my mind back to when I was at Cardiff University and introduced to the studies of Abraham Maslow. I reconsidered what Maslow had studied, and thought about “The Maslow Effect’ having applied the thoughts of Abraham Maslow to foodservices in the workplace, and the specific ‘needs’ challenges employers face.
Maslow, wrote a paper in 1943, A Theory of Human Motivation, having developed the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ proposing healthy humans have certain needs which are arranged in a hierarchy or a five-tier pyramid (see diagram).
Below: Workplace Foodservice Covid-19 – The Maslow Effect, According to Tracey Fairclough, MD
According to Springboard data (https://www.spring-board.info/news-media/social), the retail analyst, covering hospitality businesses, it was encouraging to hear of reported visits increasing by almost 30 %, at 3pm on Monday 4th August, versus the previous week, with Opentable, the restaurant booking platform, reporting a 10% increase in the number of diners compared with the same day last year.
This month, August 2020, Chancellor Rishi Sunak inventively and commendably launched the “Eat Out To Help Out” incentive to encourage diners to dine out this month at one of 72,000 participating cafes, pubs and restaurants.
By way of an overview of the offer, which appears to have caused some initial confusion: ”eat out to help out” offers people of the UK (not on any kind of local lockdown) a discount of up to 50% when eating or drinking (soft drinks) in a participating restaurant or food establishment – Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout August.
With no news from Chancellor Sunak on extending his £500 million scheme… as catering consultants, we wanted to apply best practice from our own “eating out” experiences to ‘helping out” workplace catering and foodservices by sharing our Foodservice Firsts – from
dining in (at home) and dining out (at restaurants) during and post lockdown.
Whilst hospitality is one of the UK’s biggest employers and hit hard by lockdown, a survey published last month suggested Britons were still uncomfortable about eating out at a restaurant, sadly something that’s since been corroborated by celebrity chefs, such as Tom Kerridge and James Martin, reporting customer “no shows”.
In terms of my own confidence as a customer in “eating out” throughout lockdown, irrespective of the “eat out” scheme incentive and undeterred by neigh-sayers, here’s my story:
ADAPTING TO INSTIL CUSTOMER CONFIDENCE
What’s been inspiring is how foodservice providers are adapting and evolving:
Our Foodservice Firsts demonstrate WHAT type of provider is open and ready for business, WHERE they operate, HOW they inspire confidence and WHY they’re the source of inspiration for workplace catering, with the UK economy seeking to repair itself. Important to take stock of the word ‘Restaurant’ which derives from the French verb “restaurer”, meaning to restore!
Irrespective of money off incentive, the above experiences have given me every reason to believe there are ways and means to inspire foodservices to cater to restore employees in the workplace. What do YOU think?
If you’re a corporate client organisation with a workplace staff restaurant that needs to open again soon and need some fresh, forward-thinking, app-savvy, sustainability-focused support on best practice from the high street, like this, or to project manage any other catering consultancy needs, email our Managing Director, Tracey Fairclough, today ">.
To see the detail in the Foodservice Firsts, please refer to our article featured in Hospitality and Catering News by CLICKING HERE NOW: https://www.hospitalityandcateringnews.com/2020/08/dining-shared-experience-review/
#workplace #contractcatering #contractcaterers #returntowork #foodservices #foodservice #workplacecatering #facilitiesmanagement
TAF is proud to announce that its consultants have completed and passed the City & Guilds and ILM e-learning module that equips individuals with the essential health and safety knowledge regarding Covid-19.
With fifty million face masks bought by the UK government back in April 2020 not being used because of safety concerns, have YOU considered the best face mask options and how best to protect your workforce, colleagues and customers?
Tracey Fairclough, our Managing Director, contemplates the market, given that quality of masks is a hot topic amongst TAF’s corporate client company organisations who ask her advice on the best options for catering staff having more face to face interactions with workforces.
READ THIS NOW to see how the range of face masks we benchmarked (between April and August 2020) fared and make your own mind up… it’s never too late to save a life … especially if it’s your own!
Call: +44 (0) 1306 646 340
