Happy birthday to us!
As we celebrate our fourth birthday this month, we’ve been thinking about the successes and
activities of the last year and it’s safe to say 2018 was our busiest year yet!
After being appointed to the London Universities Purchasing Consortium catering services
framework, we were delighted to attend their launch event at Student Central in April. The event
was a real opportunity for us to present our thoughts on the challenges with today’s often
transactional contracts which we believe should instead be an opportunity for transformational
partnerships with suppliers.
One of our major projects last year was a feasibility study to modernise a high-volume national
estate portfolio and its associated catering offer. As with many businesses change comes almost
quarterly with today’s dynamic markets and operating conditions, so the aim was to first evaluate
the estate and then the costs, benefits and opportunity to repurpose some parts of it over a finite
period to create a new catering provision architecture and food and beverage offer that will
continue to be modern and desirable to the various workforce segments, but also deliver optimum efficiency through the contract.
Other key projects the team have been involved in have included catering contract reviews at several universities, including one where a critical supplier dispute was settled; leading a project with a national utilities provider to create and implement new ways of working to collaborate with suppliers in the most innovative ways yet (watch this space!); delivering customer experience and touchpoint mapping particularly related to food service kiosks and hospitality of stadia and arenas and finally, supporting a feasibility study with elements of café menu design relating to a major corporate headquarters move to Canary Wharf.
We’re really proud that in keeping with our company and personal values, we have this year also made several donations to a local food bank to ensure that Thread Consultancy is continually giving something back to the community in a way that is tangible to them, and meaningful to us. We’re excited about what the next year has in store!