What is contract catering?

[Wu Banger]

I have just called up today after seeing an advertisement in my local rag for a catering supervisor. Description in the ad is "Must have excellent customer care skills and be able to assist the manager to organise and controll all aspects of the restaurant service". I am from a restaurant background and have been restaurant manager at a couple of places - a 65 and a 90 seater restaurant. It seemed straight forward but when i rang the lady asked if i was familiar with contract catering. I said no and she said it would involve helping with stock rotation, ordering, checking fridge temps etc. The job is at Mamas and Papas so assume it is in their staff restaurant so just wondered if anyone could help with what would be required of me so i am fully prepared for my interview tomorrow. Thanks

[douglas9401]

Possibly where a company outsources their staff catering to a company like Compass?

[bushbaby_de]

It's as Douglas said. I have worked in a few places (which were often business canteen type places) where the workers are employed by a third party company who have won the bid to provide the food. So its pretty much the skills you already have from restaurants, plus a much more stringent recording regime to prove food was always kept at temperature, disposed of after the relevant amount of time, waste recorded etc etc. It's used to prove you are sticking to the contract and to help make a new bid if the contract comes up for review.