Turpin Smale Catering & Conference Consultants - News

2011 - Good Advice Pays

We were delighted that Charles Manners joined us as a Director and Co-Owner at the start of the year and continues our tradition, and unique selling point, of Turpin Smale having only senior, experienced catering consultants. Charles is leading our involvement in the conference and higher education sector and clients include Staffordshire University where he is currently interim Director of Commercial Services and University of Buckingham where we assisted the master planning process. Higher Education is undergoing significant change with the introduction of fees, and the catering and conferencing areas will increasingly need to reflect the aspirations of their institution and the student experience, and deliver a commercial return!

We have changed the company subheading from 'foodservice' to 'catering and conference' consultants to better reflect what we do and given ourselves a logo makeover. Venue Cymru in north Wales and No 41 Portland Place (Academy of Medical Sciences in London) are typical of our conference centre clients.

For some of our other "venue" clients, conferences, meetings, functions and events form an important backbone to their activities. We have conducted a review and produced a business plan for the Royal Society of Arts, and this has led to a tender to find the best operator to deliver these services in their iconic building. We also conducted a tender for the functions catering and café at Fulham Palace when they wanted to move from an approved list to a solus caterer.

London Clubs are one of our specialist areas, and we have worked with several including the Royal Automobile Club and the City of London Club.

'Keeping with it' is important for a consultant and our Great cafés blog has had over 25,000 page views to date. Targeted at the professional café operator it provides a daily commentary, with photos, on what is new and exciting in the café sector. Our free blog is available via our website and on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr and has just been shortlisted by Caterer & Hotelkeeper for their Blog of the Year.

Our London café Tours are as popular as ever with over forty completed to date, and recently we have added eight new cafés to the list, which shows just how dynamic this sector is.

Getting the best out of visitor attraction catering is one of our specialities and we have been brought in by Sussex Past's Michelham Priory, Easton Farm Park and Rufford Country Park. For a well-known family attraction in Kent, Hop Farm, we conducted a tender for the mobile catering at their major events and we reviewed their catering for visitors and functions and advised on improvements.

Stately homes are increasingly maximising the commercial potential of their catering operations and our clients include Holkham (North Norfolk), Bolton Abbey (Yorkshire Dales) and Tissington Hall (Peak District).

Many of the developments in the High Street also apply to our "staff catering" clients. We continue to conduct quality performance audits together with contract advice for the Financial Services Authority. This year we advised Richmond Housing Partnership on the café in their new offices and we conducted a tender for two cafés at their multi-tenant serviced offices for London & Strategic Estates.

Garden centres and farm shops continue to build, expand and improve their cafés. Chessington Garden Centre has expanded from 100 seats to 350 seats and we have worked on projects throughout the UK covering Peterhead, Chester, Chichester, Taunton and Waitrose's Leckford Estate in Stockbridge.

We have conducted catering workshops for organisations including the TMA (Theatrical Management Association), MA (Museums Association), FARMA (Farmers' Retail and Markets Association), Caffe Culture and the HTA (Horticultural Trades Association). The Birmingham REP and Library of Birmingham is a major project in central Brum and we are guiding them through the catering and conference implications of this £188 million development until the opening in 2013. On a smaller scale Square Chapel is a wonderful arts centre in Halifax with a large volunteer base and they are using our catering and conference expertise in their Cornerstone expansion project. In London, we prepared a strategic review of the catering at the Wellcome Collection for their museum/exhibition space and medical library.

The Royal Society of Chemistry has used us to re-tender their staff restaurant in Cambridge and continue to oversee the catering at the impressive Chemistry Centre in Piccadilly. A new client is the Royal Academy of Engineering, which is in the process of a major refurbishment of their premises in Carlton House Terrace. Large projects include tendering the catering at Westminster Abbey just before the excitement of the Royal Wedding.

Chris remains a non-executive director of leading City bar operator Corney & Barrow and he sits on the Restaurants Committee of the British Hospitality Association. Peter is also still serving as non-executive chairman for Beales Hotels Group and is a trustee of our main industry charity, Hospitality Action, where he sits on two of their committees. Charles is a non-executive director of the Ludlow Food Centre which has a farm shop and café and is a near unique operation in that 80% of the products sold come from the surrounding four counties.

It's great to have Charles aboard and that so many of our clients believe that good advice pays.