David Oldham and his team of chefs from Keele Conference Park have just returned from their annual oversees training conference which this year involved sampling the fabulous food of Tenerife. The four-day visit is part of the company’s on-going programme of training and development with the catering team constantly on the look out for new concepts and ideas.
This year’s training programme focused specifically on catering for large numbers of clients in various locations and marketing a wide variety of offers on one site. The team was introduced to the executive chef of one of the islands top hotels, the Mare Nostrum Resort where the executive chef explained how they operate across five 5* hotels. The team also went on a Jeep Safari, trekking up in to the volcanic countryside, where they sampled typical Canarian food including baked black potatoes with spicy sauce.
Head of Catering David Oldham explained: “Tenerife has developed rapidly and offers a multitude of places to eat and drink so it was interesting for us to see how the different outlets market themselves. For many it was the “in-your-face” approach of dragging customers into their premises with two for the price of one offers but that can de-value the offer so you have to be careful how you do it. It was interesting to compare how we each market our outlets and swap ideas about how we meet similar challenges."
In recent years the award-winning team has visited Spain, France, Malta 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: Purchasing Systems Ltd, Serchem Chemicals Ltd, Bernard Matthews, Althams Catering Butchers, M&J; Seafoods, Caterware and Coca Cola.
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