Convivial catering

CONVIVIAL & SUSTAINABLE

Grazing provides a subsidised breakfast and lunch offer every day, with a variety of options including salad and hot foods, as well as catering for ad hoc hospitality events, such as Pernod Ricard’s ‘convivial evenings’ for staff. Every Thursday, for example, a team or brand from the business takes over the bar and Grazing will theme the food around the brand. This recently included a Mexican themed menu to pair with Olmeca Altos, Pernod Ricard’s tequila brand.

‘Conviviality’ is a key tenet for Pernod Ricard, which it sees as the antidote to loneliness, by stimulating meaningful connections with people, including among colleagues.

Pernod Ricard supplies Grazing with its daily head count and the caterer’s CPU and flexible business model allow for increasing or decreasing the catering volume daily, meeting the needs of the modern workplace and critically, keeping food waste to a minimum, which was another priority for the client. Any food ‘left over’ is redistributed through a partnership with Olio, supporting Pernod Ricard’s environmental targets to reduce the overall intensity of carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, and achieve net zero by 2050.

“The priority for us was food quality and sustainability. We wanted to have as much organic and locally sourced food as possible, to promote health and wellbeing for our employees,” says Fallon. “The quality and freshness of the food is very good. They also offer a brilliant variety.”

This includes seasonal variety and embracing holidays and annual events, which contributes to the office’s ‘convivial’ and celebratory environment. With multiple brands and teams based onsite, having a central dining space and food offering that bring people together has been key.

Hurst says: “It’s the one time of day that everybody gets together. What we need to do is ensure the food is amazing, so they stay in the building and enjoy each other’s company. There are plenty of other options around, so we need to make sure our food is attractive and people want to eat it.”

“Food really helps to bind our brands,” says Fallon, “it’s a good environment, and the food really plays an important role.”

SUCCESS RATE

Hurst adds: “We now see a 90 per cent penetration rate at lunchtime. This is insanely high but that’s because we’ve all collectively worked hard at making it right.”

Fallon adds: “The quality of food and cost that Grazing offers our employees helps bring people together in the office. The small, tight knit team Grazing has onsite work very hard and are very customer focused, which adds a huge amount of value to our workplace.”

There are a multitude of benefits to outsourcing office catering, not only the food offering itself but also in allowing the team to focus on its core priorities while outsourcing the nutritional wellbeing of its staff and hospitality to a specialist in this space.

“It really works smoothly. It takes away the hassle,” says Fallon. “It helps to have one company doing everything. They don’t require a lot of management from our perspective.”

He adds: “Grazing are self-sufficient, they get it done. They don’t need too much management. It really helps and we can focus on developing other areas.

“From my perspective, facilities management supports the business, allowing employees to focus on their core roles. There are a variety of areas that facilities management covers, such as Health & Safety, maintenance, cleaning (housekeeping), front of house services, parking, security, etc.

People don’t always see these what takes place in the background, but they enable the wider business to function.”

By establishing a catering offer that has employee wellbeing and satisfaction at its heart, Pernod Ricard has retained its three-star Fitwel accreditation, which recognises workplaces with a wide range of strategies aimed at improving employees’ physical, mental and social wellbeing.