Catering Services Review
Our recommended starting point is a thorough review of services and requirements. Clients may not be sure of the best options for their particular situation. Several days will be spent on location viewing the services, meeting with stakeholders (both staff and students) and information gathering. A detailed report will follow with an in-depth qualitative and financial review covering all aspects of service delivery including a full set of option appraisals on the future management of the catering services. Options for in-house delivery, out-sourcing and an analysis of existing services will all be included.

Key Fact: Ideal Catering Consultancy has conducted full reviews at over ten UK universities which have achieved improvements in the quality of services provided and financial performance.

Financial Health Check
We will carry out a financial health check against known industry benchmarks to determine if an in-house operation is as efficient as it can be or if the incumbent contractor is providing value for money. We will review a contractor’s performance against their financial obligations. We will also provide the basis for accurate financial forecasting.

Key Fact: Following one completed health check a Contractor had to credit their client with over £100,000 due to contractual obligations.

Qualitative Audit / Contract Monitoring
On average our initial audits provide a ready made action plan which will deliver a 20% increase in qualitative performance for all types of service provision. A number of our university clients have utilised ICC to formalise SLAs and KPIs within their catering services and our auditing forms a key element of the on-going management of their catering services.

Key Fact: An initial audit on a particular Contractor scored below 50%. Following the third completed audit the score has been maintained at over 86%.

Market Testing / Tender Facilitation
Our wide ranging experience in the sector (over 15 completed OJEU tenders) has allowed us to evaluate numerous tender responses and we have never had a challenge from an unsuccessful tenderer. By working with client procurement and legal teams and ensuring that bidders are aware of the requirements and expectations, the responses we receive tend to be realistic, achievable and fully compliant which all reduce evaluation time.

Key Fact: Ideal Catering Consultancy has completed catering services tenders with one UK University on three separate occasions to date.

Students’ Unions
On a number of occasions Ideal Catering Consultancy has been asked to assist with the catering and bar services within the institute’s Students’ Union. Cuts to funding and a changing drinking culture amongst students have led to significant financial challenges. Our successful inputs have led to additional projects with other University Unions through referrals.

Key Fact: Ideal Catering Consultancy has assisted eight Union’s within the sector.

Residential
As part of our work in this sector we have worked with our clients to create bespoke solutions for Halls of Residences and / or residential conference centres, enabling our clients to improve their residential services.
Non Catering Services
With the satisfactory outcomes that we have delivered to our Clients within their catering services, several organisations have engaged our services to review, realign or tender their cleaning services, soft services packages and full facilities services. On a number of occasions we have tendered combined catering and cleaning services contracts on behalf of our Clients within the University sector. We have also tendered two non-catering contracts with a combined value of £14m and involving the potential TUPE transfer of 700 staff for two major London universities.

Key Fact: Over 20 of our catering services Clients have subsequently asked us to assist them with their soft services provision.