A Sligo woman had the huge task of managing catering at the Beijing Olympics, writes Caroline Madden

WHO WOULD have thought that Usain Bolt is a big fan of pizza, that Michael Phelps likes to start his day off with a bowl of oatmeal but only if there's maple syrup, or that our own Kenny Egan adores Peking duck pancakes?

But then again, who would have guessed that the responsibility for feeding the world's greatest athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics rested on the shoulders of one Irishwoman, Catherine Toolan?

Toolan says modestly that she was "in the right place, at the right time" to scoop the position of executive director of the entire catering operation at the Olympics Games, which is about the biggest catering gig on the planet. "The service for the Olympics and the complexities of the project and the size and scale of the menu is the biggest in the world," she says.

Toolan, who hails from Sligo, was working for Campbell Catering when it was taken over by US catering giant Aramark in early 2005. Aramark was looking to develop its food service business in China. As Toolan had spent some time studying in Tsinghua University in Beijing, she got the chance to work in China. At the time Aramark was also bidding for the Olympics, and when it won the bid, Toolan was given the opportunity to head up the catering project.

The scale of the task she faced almost defies comprehension. She oversaw the design and construction of 37 food outlets, including the main dining hall in the Olympic Village, which was the size of about four football fields; she managed a staff of 7,500 people; and she was in charge of 3.5 million meals being served. Where does one even start when faced with such a mammoth project?

She says Aramark began by building a core management team from people within the company, and establishing a very detailed project plan and timeline. "That's one of the unique things about the Olympics - there's very much a finite beginning and a finite end, so you have to be ready. There is no room for error or overruns," she explains.

Building the rest of the team wasn't as straightforward. They worked with the China Culinary Association to source people, but nevertheless finding hospitality staff with the necessary skillset, such as spoken English and an understanding of food safety standards (which was critical as athletes clearly can't afford to get sick), proved "quite challenging", she says.

Another challenge presented itself in the form of the Chinese distribution and supply chain, which she describes as being "at a developmental stage". Sourcing the volume and variety of ingredients needed to provide the athletes with an international menu wasn't easy.

"We worked very closely with our suppliers to develop . . . the menu to ensure that we could provide the athletes with what they were used to eating on a day-to-day basis and thankfully it was a success," she says.

Toolan already had plenty of experience of overseeing large international events. She ran the catering at the Chinese Formula One grand prix for two years, and she also studied the differences between western and eastern business culture while at Tsinghua University. Nevertheless it was difficult to anticipate the impediments that cultural differences would create.

"It's a very, very different culture in terms of the way things are done," she explains. "In the West . . . everybody has clear lines of responsibility and they're very aware of who they report to and what their specific responsibilities are, whereas in China, decision-making is very much on a consensus basis."

"People don't like traditionally to take responsibility for specific tasks," she continues. They had "hours and hours" of meetings with up to 14 different bodies, "all with their own opinion and their own perspective". "And then nobody really can make a decision - that's quite challenging."

"I think I personally probably underestimated the amount of work we had to do to get decisions made on the project given the very, very specific timelines that we had to work towards."

Another significant cultural difference is that e-mails aren't accepted as formal communications in China - everything had to put be in memo form and faxed, which slowed down the communication process.

"One thing I developed was more patience than I ever had in my entire life," she says. "Having patience was the only way to get things done in the end."

Fortunately there were plenty of highlights that made all the hard work worthwhile. She recalls the carnival atmosphere on the night of the closing ceremony when all the athletes came back to the restaurant. Hundreds of her chefs came out to applaud them. "The athletes turned round and stood up and gave the chefs a standing ovation," she says. "That was very moving, I have to say."