Turpin Smale Catering Consultants UK – Recent Assignments

2009: A Route to Recovery

• Clubs may have a fusty image but their members increasingly want efficiency, transparency and modern day standards of the highest order. We are proud to continue our association with the Royal Automobile Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron.
• We were delighted when the Royal Albert Hall selected us to conduct a strategic review of their bars, catering and hospitality. This is an iconic building and we aim to help them match that with iconic catering and facilities.
• Small museums face a challenge - how to make catering pay. Newark Air Museum and Royal Gunpowder Mills sought our advice and we were asked to speak at the Association of Independent Museums annual conference. We managed the tender for the People's History Museum in Manchester, who are re-opening after building a spectacular new wing. We continued to provide advice to the Yorkshire Dales Country Park Museum on the development of their new café. Also, we advised Fulham Palace on the tender for their café in its delightful setting.
• Our work with business and industry clients continues. In addition to conducting quarterly quality performance audits for the Financial Services Authority, we advised them on the tender for their staff feeding and hospitality services. We continued to provide advice and quality audits for the Financial Ombudsman Service and for Wessex Water, following their successful tenders and changes of contractor during 2008.
• Our highly popular London Café Tour sees over twenty of the best cafes being visited (and some tasted) in rapid succession. There is just no replacement for seeing how the best operators operate.
• Despite the difficult economic climate, some organisations are looking forward for the long term. We were appointed to conduct a feasibility study for a new destination restaurant in the North East. Also, we reviewed the business plan for an organisation that plans to open a pizza business in Marrakech.
• Cafés continue to be the bright spark in a damp economy. Two award-winning cafes are clients - the extended Real Food Café in Tyndrum (a "culinary cult" according to the Sunday Times) and the newly renovated Sandbanks Café in Poole. We advised the Wellcome Trust and conducted quality audits in their café at the Wellcome Collection.
• We continue to advise numerous garden centres on how to improve sales, standards and profits plus operate the Horticultural Trades Association's Catering Advice Line and Catering Business Improvement Scheme.
• Visitor attractions have had a good 'staycation' summer and Waddesdon Manor, Easton Farm Park and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust continue to improve that vital catering part of the visitor experience with our advice.
• For Historic Royal Palaces, we advised on a difficult tender for a new restaurant on the sensitive Tower of London Wharf. It will be a costly development, but has tremendous long term potential.
• Biggin Hill Airport is planning a new hotel and separate café restaurant and we are ensuring the standard 'dead' hotel dining room is avoided.
• Tenders to appoint a new caterer benefit from professional advice and seeking out the best (and not always the most obvious) caterers. The recently opened Nottingham Contemporary art gallery and Exmouth Pavilion are two recent projects. In the latter part of the year we have been advising the Academy of Medical Sciences on the tender for their new conference centre in a beautiful West End building.
• Improving tradition is very much what we have been called in to do at the Holkham Estate in Norfolk and the Drapers' Hall in the City of London.
• Showgrounds and exhibition centres is a sector that we have worked with for many years. In 2009, we completed a strategic review for the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, and we tendered for the mobiles catering contract for the South of England Centre, near Haywards Heath.
• Chris Brown's non-executive role at Corney & Barrow continues as they successfully cope with a recession-hit City and two new bar openings. Peter Smale was reappointed as non-executive chairman for Beales Hotels, helping them focus on delivering high quality services at the top end of the 4 star hotel market.
• The nicest compliment was the long term client who simply said 'We trust you'. It is not always major projects and the right advice at the right time is often all that it takes. The Belgrade Theatre, Royal Institution of Great Britain and UK Centre for Carnival Arts are clients.