Introduction

Edwards and Ward are a long-standing contract catering company working in the education sector as well as in business and industry. They operate a significant number of units at any given time in any area within Britain. This brings with it having varying numbers of staff at any one time and having to deal with Environmental Health Officer from various localities.

The Problem

Many years back due to the ever-larger contracts the company was operating, it became evident that to standardise their operations, appropriate corporate systems were now required. In addition, it became evident that Primary Authority Partnership with a suitable council was imperative for ensuring a smoother operation and compliance throughout the business, mitigating possible varying opinions and disagreements with local authorities.

The Solution

We sat down with management at varying levels and collected information on the actual operations within each sector, locality and contract in order to gain a holistic view of the business. We then started to create corporate food safety and health sand safety systems which were easy to be adhered to and ensured that staff had one base to work from.

In order to speed things up and ensure that all units were operating to the same systems at any given time these were made available through each area’s own section of our website eliminating the need of printing reams of paper and ensuring one company one system was in place.

Full training was provided to key members of central management and unit managers on use of the systems which include due diligence recording. Furthermore, training in food safety and health and safety for the full management and staff compliment relevant to their responsibilities was provided.

This in place, we then moved on to achieve Local Authority Partnership for the company with a local council in the South West which council represented the largest number of units in operation at the time.    

The results

The company has reduced dealing with Environmental Health Officers knowing that corporate systems are in place and compliance is 100%. It continues to tender and win ever larger contracts relying on us to: –

• ensure updating of systems on a regular basis.
• deal with Environmental Health officers as and when necessary.
• provide training in class and online.
• have full access to databases on our website at the touch of a button.

Directors and management rely on us being a phone call or an email away from any issues that may arise from time to time more so in these ever-challenging times.