Turpin Smale Catering Consultants UK – Recent Assignments

2007: Long Term Clients & Lots of Cafés

• The Wellcome Trust - we advised them on the appointment of Oliver Peyton to run a small café in the new Wellcome Collection building, and we continued with contract advice and quality performance audits.
• We managed the tender at the RHS Gardens, Wisley, one of the largest and most complex contracts around.
• The Royal Society also used us to manage their tender, for what is mainly conference and function business in their beautiful London buildings.
• We continued to carry out price benchmarking for the Royal Automobile Club.
• Our involvement with the Horticultural Trades Association continued, with a number of regional workshops on their café business, a major national conference and advice to 16 different garden centres around the UK.
• We provided contract advice and conducted quality performance audits for the Financial Services Authority.
• For Windsor Castle, we assisted in the implementation stage of their cleaning contract.
• There was another tender for the café at Fulham Palace, a lovely summer time venue that is seeking to build all year round business.
• Seven years after we first tendered the contract for Wessex Water at their ground breaking sustainable offices outside Bath, they asked to re-tender.
• We finished the tendering for the last of the contracts at the South of England Showground for the on-site catering.
• For the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society we advised on the development of bars at the Balmoral Show.
• At the Tower of London, we worked on the strategic options for the type of catering offer to put into one of their outlets and the best process to achieve that.
• We continued to work with Baltic the gallery in Gateshead on finding an operator for their Terrace Restaurant.
• Having worked on a number of projects over the years for Stirling University, they asked us to conduct a strategic review of their campus catering.
• Mersey Ferries used us for catering tender advice following a strategic review.

• The Museum of London have engaged us to assist in the development of their catering facilities and in seeking operators to manage them.
• Guildford Cathedral also involved us to tender their café and function business.
• Those who know us will be aware of our love for sailing, so it was a double pleasure to advise the Royal Thames Yacht Club on their tender and to provide advice to the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes.
• Land-based clubs also feature with assignments for both Boodle's and the Caledonian Club.
• A new sector for us - farmshops - is very dynamic and we have been appointed catering adviser to FARMA, their trade association, as well as conducting workshops of how to set up a café and how to get a cafe from good to great.
• The Royal Society for the Arts wanted a 'health check' on their in-house catering operation and we were delighted to report on its excellence.
• We conducted an audit of the public and hospitality catering provided by six different companies at the nine race courses of Northern Racing - without placing a bet.
• At Chatsworth we have been addressing problems of success - queuing issues - at their deservedly popular catering outlet. Their sister estate at Bolton Abbey sought our advice on how to re-develop a high profile café opportunity.
• We have carried out operational reviews of the catering at leisure attractions Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight, all five historic houses of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon and at the historic ship SS Great Britain in Bristol.
• The new Stockwood Discovery Centre in Luton entrusted their catering tender to us, as did the renovated and now reopened Belgrade Theatre in Coventry.
• The National Tramway Museum near Matlock employed us to review their visitor catering and the Jewish Museum in north London is planning a new café in their redevelopment with our input.