INTERVIEW: Sharon O'Donoghue, Brook Catering:COMPANY CANTEENS tend to have a ropy reputation. But is it possible to reduce their running costs and still improve the quality? Sharon O'Donoghue believes it is – primarily because so many have been so badly run in the past.
“It’s all about the cost base,” says O’Donoghue (33), co-founder of Brook Catering Event Management, which for the past three years has provided the catering for the Rose of Tralee ball, which was a particularly big occasion for the 50th anniversary this year.
“Everyone is looking at how they can reduce their costs. So when we take on a new client, we usually promise that we’ll cut their previous costs by 20 to 30 per cent, and so far we’ve been successful in every single case.
“Primarily what we look at – just as you would if you were running a restaurant – are purchasing and labour costs, and usually those are not being properly managed. That’s how we can make substantial savings and still have leeway to improve quality.
“We came across one canteen recently that had eight staff to cater for 150 people, which is ridiculous. It should have been five or maybe six. And very often you’ll find an equivalent proportion of overstaffing in larger operations.”
The expectation, of course, given the track record of many canteens, is that cutting costs leads to a worsening of quality – a contention which O’Donoghue finds depressingly familiar and immediately rejects.
“There’s absolutely no reason why that should be the case,” she insists with a zeal worthy of Jamie Oliver on the subject of school dinners, “and in our case it’s most certainly not.”
Good food, she says, is simple. “Every meal we sell in every canteen is made with fresh produce. When we use carrots, they’re fresh, not packaged. We make our own bread and scones on site. We make our own sauces.
“We see no reason why we can’t serve traditional home-cooked food in company canteens. And the irony, in any case, is that it’s cheaper to buy food fresh rather than packaged, so that feeds into our savings as well.”
According to O’Donoghue, in the early days when the company was unknown and was looking for business, “the dismissive response we got from many prospective clients was, ‘there’s no point in changing; you’re all the same’ ”.
Now, however, “we can show a 50 to 60 per cent average increase in sales in canteens we’ve taken over”.
“In one location we actually doubled daily sales inside a fortnight,” she says. “Customers were waiting for a change and immediately voted with their wallets.”
So the back-to-basics approach appears to be working. Brook Catering, which was set up in 2006, had a turnover of €1.5 million in 2008 and is on target to double that to about €3 million this year.
Customers include Cork City Council, Uniphar, Gama Construction, Ferrero, Kepak and, most recently, Abtran, the largest indigenous business process outsourcer in the Irish market.
Brook has a core staff of 54, about 90 per cent of whom are full time, though on occasions such as the Rose of Tralee ball, casuals can push staff numbers closer to 200.
“This was the first year I wasn’t directly involved in overseeing the catering for the festival ball, which can be pretty nerve-racking, producing a high-quality five-course meal for 1,500 people paying €150 a head,” says O’Donoghue.
“This year I brought clients to show off how well we do, but I spent the entire evening watching and worrying about what was going on, and timing everything. It took just 26 minutes to serve the main course and its various accompaniments to 1,500 people, which was excellent – our best to date.”
ON THE RECORD:
Name:Sharon O'Donoghue.
Company:Brook Catering Event Management. www.brookcatering.com
Job:co-founder.
Age:33.
Background:Graduated from Tralee Institute of Technology in 2000 with a BBS in marketing and subsequently with a diploma in public relations from the Public Relations Institute of Ireland.
First job was as trainee retail manager with Primark Ireland, before moving to the Earl of Desmond Hotel as sales and marketing manager. In 2002, she was appointed marketing director of the Rose of Tralee. In 2004 she joined the Shelbourne Pub Group as sales and marketing manager and in 2006, co-founded Brook Catering Event Management with business partners Liam Murphy and Kieran Callinan.
Challenges:"Our biggest challenge is always going to be our competitors. There are a number of big Irish players in onsite catering and others coming in from abroad. But we've always taken the view that you persevere, add one client at a time and take advantage of whatever breaks come your way."
Inspired by:Karan Bilimoria, founder of Cobra Beer. "His entire story – born in India, moving to the UK, becoming a chartered accountant and setting up Cobra in 1989 – is really inspiring. He faced a lot of struggles but succeeded through knowledge and intellect."
Most important thing learned so far: "You can tell everyone you're the best, but every company says that. The fact is: good-quality food speaks for itself."
petercluskey@ireland.com
