The FSM Awards recognises the very best of the contract catering world across its diverse sectors, from workplace to education catering, across everything from management to chef skills, innovation to CSR. The glittering night was compered by Mark Durden-Smith who it seemed had trawled through everyone’s LinkedIn and company websites to find out some of the most embarrassing facts about them (all of which was taken in good humour – thankfully).
Last night we were lucky enough to be invited to Festival 30, the 30th birthday celebrations of The Russell Partnership – industry leading foodservice consultants and long-time client of Jellybean.
Held at the prestigious Royal Garden Hotel, I had the pleasure of attending the first BITES Live conference from H2O Publishing and hearing all about the latest trends and brands shaping the food and drink offerings on our high street.
BITES stands for Brands, Insights, Trends and customer Experiences, which was perfectly covered by the array of exciting speakers discussing hot topics from experiential hospitality to how technology is shaping eating out. Here are my top takeouts from the day:
The EDUcatering Awards held by H20’s EDUcatering Magazine celebrates the oft unsung heroes of catering in the education sector. School catering has seen its critics over recent years, but in stark contrast to the headlines, it has some of the most passionate and driven people in the world of foodservice. Dedicated to ensuring our children eat well and develop good habits early on, school caterers both in-house and in the contract catering arena take their responsibility very seriously and truly deserve this glittering night. As the leading foodservice agency we were lucky enough to attend this marvellous event hosted by Jamie Robins MD of H20 and Jason O’Rouke, Headteacher of Washingborough Academy.
Glory for Independents at the Retail Oscars
The Retail Industry Awards, widely regarded as “The Oscars” of the grocery retail sector is the annual get-together of the whole industry to celebrate and reward the best of the best, from the smallest independents, to the largest supermarket groups. Having hot-footed it from the Quality Foodservice awards the Jellybean team were joined at the prestigious ceremony by many of our key retail clients to toast the great and good.
