Ten chefs and the Head of Catering from Keele Conference Park have just returned from a fact-finding visit to Malta as part of the company’s on-going programme of training and development. Waistlines, as well as imaginations, were well and truly stretched as the team spent four days finding out more about Mediterranean catering operations.
One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the University of Malta to see how an academic venue compared to the offering at Keele Conference Park. As Head of Catering David Oldham explained: “We found that many of the day-to-day problems and challenges that we encounter at Keele are similar to those at the University of Malta. It was interesting to compare how we each respond to those issues and we were able to swap ideas about how we meet those challenges.”
The itinerary also included visits to the Marsovin Winery, The Institute of Tourism Studies, The Fortina Spa Hotel and The Hilton Hotel. At The Hilton the chefs learned how the kitchen organised its recipe production to ensure consistency of results every time. This included a display of photographs of the finished dishes for the trainee chefs to refer to along with calorie, carbohydrate, protein and fat contents for each dish. The team hope to introduce similar systems at Keele Conference Park.
In recent years the award-winning team has visited Spain, France and the USA to see how other catering operations are run. As David Oldham says: “It helps us to pick up new ideas and stay ahead of the competition and we are looking forward to putting some of these ideas into action back at Keele.”
The visit was sponsored by suppliers including Coca-Cola, Bernard Matthews, Caterware, Serchem Ltd and Hobart UK Purchasing Systems Limited.
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