Recognised as the Oscars of the catering and hospitality industry, the Cateys award nomination process is currently open and recognises and rewards excellence in a range of categories including Restaurateur of the Year, Hotel of the Year Best Use of Technology award and Menu of the Year to name a few. Categories also include the Accessibility Award, Sustainable Business Award and Health and Nutrition Award. While the Cateys nomination process is open to all in the industry, not every social enterprise offering a food or beverage service to help people who are disadvantaged are aware of the Cateys or associate themselves as operating in the industry; instead, they may associate themselves with the community services or education and employment industries/sectors they hail from. The question I would like to pose is whether there is scope and interest in providing a similar award process specifically for social enterprises, charities and social businesses in the hospitality industry. And if so, what could the categories and criteria be? Potential categories could include Best community cafe Best social enterprise
Best social enterprise helping
Alternatively, is the aspiration of social enterprise food and community businesses to compete and be recognised among their mainstream peers and counterparts or as part of local voluntary and community sector or local food and drink business awards? What are your views on this? Let us know what you think.
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With the uncertainty of Brexit and whether people and families can holiday in Europe post-Brexit given the uncertainty of having to get visas, travel issues or increases in holiday prices, let alone the value of sterling against other currencies, there will be an increase in the number of people staying and taking their holidays in the UK.
This would be a welcome boost for the local tourism industry and associated industries including restaurants, cafes, tourist attractions and hotels. In particular, it would be an opportunity for social enterprises in these industries to benefit from increased trade too as more and more people are discerning about where their hard earned money is being spent. A definitive listing or database of social enterprises operating in the travel, tourism, catering and hospitality industries would be beneficial to allow them to benefit from an increase in domestic tourism. Having said this, an increase in staycations would require existing and new tourism and hospitality businesses to be able to increase staff in their establishments therefore, ways in which employers can attract people into the industries to deal with the current skills shortage will be essential; this is something where social enterprises who help train disadvantaged groups in hospitality, catering, food preparation and tourism skills can play their part as well as industry initiatives to raise awareness of hospitality, travel and tourism as being careers of choice rather than a short term job between education and other career options. When you think about traditional ways of keeping and storing food like preserving and pickling, a common image and association may be that this is the 'preserve' of institutions like The Women's Institute. However, many restaurants and top chefs like Tommy Banks of The Black Swan in Oldstead and his recent venture Roots in York are using preservation techniques like pickling and fermentation processes to use the abundance of seasonal food available out of season but also to add different flavours and textures to dishes. In addition, top international chefs are visiting Buddhist nuns and monks in the Far East like Jeong Kwan in South Korea to learn and sample fermentation processes in the production of vegan 'temple food' to extend the current explosion in vegan food.
To deal with this interest, there will be a resurgence of courses in these skills and techniques like those provided by the School of Artisan Food. Older people with knowledge of preservation methods from years of experience will be able to pass on their skills to younger people, providing the opportunity to also reduce social isolation by encouraging them to get involved and potentially providing additional incomes. Social enterprises will have the opportunity to help in this. Predictions
The beginning of each new year is often a time to reflect and consider what has happened in the last year and predict what the coming year may bring. With this in mind, I'm going to make some personal observations and give a few of my own personal thoughts on what the next twelve months will bring in the food, hospitality and social enterprise areas which are also intended as conversation starters... Prediction #1 - Food Waste Will Continue But Will There Be Enough Surplus To Meet Current Demand? The issue of food waste is not going to go away and the work being undertaken to help resolve this issue will continue; however, the uncertainty of Brexit could have an effect on this. If a no-deal Brexit materialises the short-term availability of food in our supermarkets and shops could be affected which could lead to supermarkets, grocers and shops and restaurants reviewing their use and acceptance of surplus food or ugly/wonky fruit and vegetables. While this would be a good step towards reducing current levels of food waste, a switch to keeping or using surplus food would have an effect on the community and charity organisations use of it if there is less to be distributed. |
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December 2022
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