Tag Archives: Catering business

01 
Mar

Food and Drink in Trouble

Food and drink in troublePre-Covid when AC Services Southern published a weekly blog, we ran a series on the food and drink in trouble in the world due to climate change and disease. We were reminded of these, last month, when the Economist published an article on how a “warming planet threatens the world’s favourite drug”.

Aside from the catchy attention-seeking headline, the article confirmed the changes that will be coming for coffee.

Healthy Food

Sadly, coffee is not alone as anyone trying to buy olive oil will know. Last year prices rose by over 70%. And this on top of hefty increases the year before.

Spain is the world’s biggest olive oil producer and accounts for 70% of European consumption and close to 45% of the world’s. It’s harvest typically takes place in October and November. With Spain in its second year of drought, 2022’s bad harvest has been followed by one of the worst on record.

Using alternatives will cut down on the agreed health-giving benefits of olive oil consumption. Sadly, this may become necessary.

Drug-connected Drink

Coffee is grown in over 70 countries. More than 2B cups are drunk every day. Caffeine is by some measures the most popular recreational drug. Directly and indirectly, it supports the livelihoods of some 125M people.

Again, global warming threatens the areas in which it can be grown. Brazil is the world’s largest producer. Yet in 70 years’ time, between a third and three quarters of its coffee-producing land will become unusable.

The bigger problem is that the most popular bean Arabica, accounts for 70% of the beans sold. It is incredibly fussy as to where it will grow- it needs temperatures to remain constant between 18-23°C. A solution would be to grow it higher up. In Ethiopia, some plantations are already 600m higher. But this solution only works to a certain height, given changes in soil and slopes which affect growth, survival and harvest.

The second most popular bean is Robusta. This is less fussy to grow but is known for its bitter taste. This does not go down well with coffee snobs, which is why most ends up in instant coffee.

While there are over 130 other coffee varieties, ramping them up to fit the Arabica void may not work. In part this is due to taste, but also to their abilities to withstand disease such as coffee-rust fungus or wilt. A bean called Excelsa with an equivalent flavour to Arabica was able to overcome the fungus threat and expanded widely in Africa in the 1910s-30s, but then was devastated by wilt.

Alternatives and Substitution

Many alternatives are now being considered to solve the coffee problem. Sadly, even if a winner is found it will be at least 10 years from selection to commercial production.

Unlike olive oil for many uses, there isn’t a simple substitution for catering colleagues. But as our company comic put it; the positive is they might no longer be in the biggest drug trade in the world!

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Published Date: 1st March 2024
Category: Blog, Catering Business, Food Sourcing, Local food, News
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02 
Jan

Ready for More in 2024

Ready for 2024Each year AC Services starts its regular monthly blog with a calendar for the year ahead. We looked back to the one we had last year. That talked of the broken dreams in 2022 and hopes to shake off the negative effects of the pandemic. In 2023 we hoped again that one of our teams would triumph as World Champions. And again we were disappointed.

The difference in 2023 was the opportunity to plan for the first Coronation for 70 years sadly following the Jubilee in 2022. In 2024 there is no Jubilee, Coronation or Royal Wedding to plan for. There are also very few world championships that most people would be aware of or get excited about. It is an Olympic year, but little of note sporting-wise.

Time to Plan

January is the best time for catering businesses to plan the year ahead in order to survive. That’s why we put forward a calendar, so that key events can be noted and opportunities created.

It’s also why this year we have thrown in a few extra celebration days. Some of these may be obvious, while others could be spurious. Is there really an International Tea Day? Maybe not, but it does provide an excuse to have something different to talk about and promote. And that excuse can get you more customers and demonstrate what you can do. We would also urge you to think locally as your own communities will also have special days.

2024 Events Calendar

January aka Dry January or Veganuary

  • 14-28 Tennis Australian Open Melbourne
  • 25 Burns Night

February

  • 4 Yorkshire Pudding Day and British Pie Week
  • 2- March 16 Rugby Union Six Nations
  • 10 Chinese New Year, Year of the Dragon
  • 14 Pancake Day
  • 14 Valentine’s Day29th Leap Day!

March

  • 1 Employee Appreciation Day
  • 10 Mother’s Day
  • 10- 8/9 April Ramadan
  • 15 Red Nose Day Comic Relief
  • 31 Easter Sunday

April

  • 8-14 Golf Masters Augusta
  • 8 Total Solar Eclipse North America
  • 13 Horse Racing Grand National Aintree
  • 10- 6 May Snooker World Championship Sheffield
  • 22-30 Jewish Passover
  • 23 Great British Beef Week

May

  • 6 Early May Bank Holiday
  • 20 World Bee Day
  • 20-19 June Tennis French Open Paris
  • 27 Spring Bank Holiday

June

  • 1 UEFA Champions League Final Wembley
  • 4 National Cheese Day
  • 13-16 Golf US Open Pinehurst
  • 16 Father’s Day
  • 21 Summer Solstice

July

  • 1-14 Tennis Wimbledon
  • 18-13 Golf, The Open Royal Troon
  • 21 National Ice Cream Day
  • 26 – 11 August Summer Olympics Paris

August

  • 16 Tell a Joke Day
  • 18 National Fajita Day
  • 26 August Bank Holiday
  • 28- 18 September Paralympics Paris

September

  • 1-8 Cycling Tour Britain
  • 13 Positive Thinking Day
  • 27 World Tourism Day
  • 29 International Food Loss and Waste Awareness Day

October

  • 12-10 Yom Kippur
  • 12 World Hospice and Palliative Care Day
  • 20 International Chefs Day
  • 31 Halloween

November

  • 1- 4 Diwali Festival of Lights
  • 5 Bonfire Night
  • 9 British Pudding Day
  • 29 Black Friday

December

  • 7 Small Business Saturday
  • Christmas again and looking ahead to 2025!

At AC Services, we wish you a successful and prosperous 2024.

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Published Date: 2nd January 2024
Category: Blog, Catering Business, News
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30 
Aug

Getting Catering Business Ready for the New ‘Old Normal’

catering business 2023The news for catering business is not great. Even the county daily e-newsletter is regularly reporting restaurant closures of established and new venues. Locally a celebrity chef forged ahead with the building changes for a new pub-restaurant; only to cancel the project on the point of opening. It’s now time for everyone to recognise that the last 10 years have been an aberration of low interest rates and high expectations. For the foreseeable future the old normal is back.

Bleak Catering News

Creed Food Services have produced an excellent report based on a survey of 150 UK Directors, General Managers, Assistant Manager and Chefs of hotels, restaurants and pubs. It’s called Plates to Profits.

The findings are stark:

  • 86% of catering business surveyed said they’d close in next 3 years, if business costs did not reduce and they didn’t increase prices. Half said in a year!
  • 23% did not consult their own wholesalers for cost saving advice. An own goal given the mutual benefits this brings.
  • 43% are operating with fewer staff. Half have changed the menu to simpler dishes to respond to this.
  • 39% are buying more pre/semi-prepared dishes while a similar percentage have reduced opening times or food availability on certain days

Customer behaviour has changed

Consumers face a long-term reduction in disposable income. Two thirds of customers have reduced the amount that they spend to eat out. But they will pay for good quality (86%) and pay more for such (75%) according to a Lumina study.

Plates to Profits respondents reported customers:

  • Visit less regularly – 45%
  • Reduce the number of courses they order – 43%
  • Choose more affordable dishes and reduce the number of sides – 40%
  • Not order tea/coffee at the meal end – 29%
  • Not order alcohol, but chose soft drinks or water – 19%
  • Book earlier timeslots or take advantage of early bird offers – 33%
  • Choose food share options – 45%

The Economist, in July, published an interesting report through a collaboration with Visa internationally comparing catering customer habits pre and post pandemic in cities. While weekday lunches have held up, weekday evening events have dropped by almost 3%. Conversely Saturday and Sunday lunches have increased in popularity. Saturday afternoon is now the spending peak not Friday night.

Catering Business Action

Now is the time to take positive action to ensure survival and future growth in your catering business. Consider what your answers would be to the Creed questions or Economist/Lumina studies.

This will help your responses to the new old normal based on your data. Those insights will help you respond to the menu selection, staffing and cost challenges. Also consider what menu choices offer the biggest margins; and how you could do more on food waste by rethinking could happen such as vegetable peelings/trimmings and fruit as toppings or side dishes.

Plates to Profits offered 5 suggestions to consider:

  • Maximise covers to streamline operations for peak time. Relook at your space inside and out and how it could be used.
  • Charge for quality bread and butter. Consumers will pay for the quality and the unsold is easily turned into alternatives.
  • Offer 2 or 3 course set menus. This reduces ingredients, streamlines mains and gives perceived value for money.
  • Offer sharing experiences through encouraging sharing options. The faff of the second plate is offset by the responsiveness to customer cost saving need.
  • Offer higher priced specials of mains, sides and desserts. Change frequently to reflect seasonality to manage costs, streamline menus and meet the proven desire for sustainability.

Like all catering businesses, A C Services is reviewing its operations to ensure it can flexibly meet the needs of its current and prospective clients in this changed economy. After all, following our success this year, we’re aiming to be crowned the best Service Partner for Rational in the UK again next year. This will only come by working sensibly together.

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Published Date: 30th August 2023
Category: Blog, Catering Business, News
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28 
Jun

Our Essence is Customer Service

Customer service is our coreLast month we suggested that one way for catering businesses to weather the current economic storm is to focus on the core or essence of their business. With the Bank of England increasing the interest rates to tackle more persistent inflation; it’s probably right for AC Services to explain ours. It’s customer service.

Customer service! An easy opt out, many may say. After all it’s all part of any front of house business. Let’s for a moment consider that. What we don’t mean by customer service is the waiter asking “Is everything alright” mid-stride heading away from the table. That is a complaints avoidance tick-the-box approach that ultimately pleases no-one.

The Why of Customer Service

Consider for a moment what ACS does. We repair and maintain Rational ovens in the South West of England and South Wales and supply cleaning materials for those machines. Good customer service means different things in each of those scenarios:

  • Repair is an emergency. Something has broken or does not work. The impact of that could be large (stops service) or small (there’s a work-around) but it always starts with a crisis call.
  • Maintenance is the scheduled servicing of an essential machine so that it continues to run at optimum performance. The when is dictated by its age and normal use patterns and by our mutual schedules for convenience. This might start with a reminder call, machine notification or email.
  • Cleaning materials are supplied to aid in the reduction of the first two. They are optimised for Rational machines and are proven to assist in preventing breakdowns or increased maintenance cycles. This is an order to us by phone or on-line.

The Uniting What is Knowledge

What the scenarios have in common is knowledge. Foremost is technical knowledge gained through training with Rational, but also from experience of these ovens over time. Our engineers and technical teams have 60+ years of Rational experience between them. They understand and can cope with ovens of all ages, whether that is in the kitchen or with the remote servicing of newer models.

The second essential knowledge is of the demands of catering businesses. For maintenance visits we try to avoid the peak of service. Although for some clients, we know there is never really a lull during the normal working day.

Thirdly we know the area. Keeping costs down is an issue for all businesses so we schedule our engineer’s routes logically across their local patches. Because they work locally, they understand their clients. Equally importantly they’re able to respond quickly to the stop-service breakdowns by rejigging those routes.

Not Just the Engineers

But that knowledge does not just exist in the engineers, it also sits in our front of house aka our office-based team. With over 30 years of catering and Rational experience between them, they can diagnose and deal appropriately with all inbound and outbound communication.

Apart from our very short initial department selection, this is not an impersonal tele-service operation. We aim to know and understand our clients. The same issue for one clearly needs an immediate repair, while another sees it as something to pick up in the next maintenance booking. Or this time can’t wait, because tomorrow is a prestigious event. Lynne, Denise, Neil and Helen understand the impact it has on your catering business and look for solutions to minimise this.

True customer service is understanding the customer’s needs and efficiently solving their problem while minimising the downtime in their kitchen. This approach drives everything that AC Services does and explains why we have high levels of repeat business and happy customers.

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Published Date: 28th June 2023
Category: Blog, Catering Business, News, Rational
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30 
May

Sensible Catering Forecast

Catering forecastThe third and final May Bank Holiday has passed. No more now until the end of August. Hopefully all catering businesses have seen a boost in trade and are well into preparation for the early summer months.

For many these are the traditional boom months as customers have better weather and longer days to enjoy.

It’s also normally when people have more to spend as they are spending less on power and heat. But the cost-of-living crisis is rolling on and the catering forecast is not good.

Bright spots

Last week the government announced the new Ofgem electricity price caps. These knock £426 off consumers’ typical annual electricity bills. No announcements yet or probable on business electricity. The better news is there could be more variability in the business electricity market, as suppliers begin to respond to generation cost reductions.

Headline inflation is now below 10%. Consumers everywhere can now start to breathe a sigh of relief because that is seen as progress. And 8.7% annual inflation must be good?

Cloud 1: Inflation explained

Inflation measures the annual change in prices. Overall prices this April are 8.7% higher than last April. That is still a massive increase. Since 2004 the official target has been 2% with the Bank of England required to write to the Government explaining why it was above this figure- “Good news PM we’re only 4 times target in April rather than 5!”. 2% means reasonable growth. The plus is, 8% is less scary so may encourage consumers to spend.

Unfortunately, that is the headline rate. The core rate that bankers and economists look at is now 6.8%. This is worryingly high. It means that interest rates on loans will remain high for years rather than months. For businesses, reducing borrowings now will increase profitability and longer term cashflow.

Cloud 2: War

There is an even bigger inflation rate to worry about for catering companies. This is food inflation currently at an average of 19.1%. But some core products are even larger: milk 33%, potatoes 28%, butter 20%. Avian flu, grain prices and electricity costs have pushed chicken 23% higher. Ukraine was a major exporter of grains, oils and fertilisers. The war is a big cause of this inflation.

Cloud 3: Climate

The forecast on olive oil is perhaps the worst and currently 46% higher. Drought in Spain meant the harvest was halved last year. Italy’s harvest was 40% down and was overtaken in volume by Greece. Given production cycles, it’s predicted that by the last quarter of 2023 there will be a serious availability crisis. Already the cost of alternative oils is 26% higher, and where is the major oil sunflower crop- yes the Ukraine.

But climate also affects the UK. Extreme weather last winter hit sugar beet pushing sugar 47% higher. Want to use honey as an alternative? The week-long sub-zero temperatures in December took out many hives. British agriculture will be short of many pollinators and a less sweet autumn is projected. Agriculture also has the wettest March for 40 years to cope with after the driest February.

What can catering businesses do?

Let’s be aware of the clouds, but use the sun to prepare in order to improve your catering forecast. Consider:

  • Food is a basic need and an easy treat. First, think inside, yes inside the box. What is the essence or core of your catering business? This is what most people come for.
  • Without reducing that core what ingredients could you swap and change for others? Could you shorten supply chains by sourcing locally and more seasonally?
  • What key messages do you need to consistently communicate over the coming months to your customers so as their cost-of-living crisis eases, they come back for more or for that first treat.
  • How can you reduce other costs without increasing the risks. For example, cutting back on oven maintenance and cleaning is a short-term saving; but increases the risk of failure during service. That would be a much bigger loss of direct and future custom.

Above all make the most of this summer to increase cashflow and profit to make the end of 2023 easier; when the catering forecast might be sunnier.

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Published Date: 30th May 2023
Category: Blog, Catering Business, News
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24 
Apr

Celebrating the Coronation?

Celebrating the Coronation

Back in January when we scheduled our blogs for the first half of 2023, we thought it would be timely to help those preparing events to celebrate the Coronation of Charles III. But with just over a week to go, it all seems a little flat.

Or is it the traditional British reserve that means we leave to the last-minute, preparations for celebrations? And what can catering trades do about it?

A Changing Monarchy

Perhaps we are taking our cue from the King himself. He has requested a more low-cost approach overall. This includes inviting 2000 guests down, from his mother’s 8,000. And something like a quarter of those guests are people recognised as being worthy in their communities; not simply the traditional great and good.

Certainly, the way we celebrate has changed since 1953. With 4 monarchs in the first 50 years of the twentieth century and Elizabeth as the fifth, more people knew what to expect and perhaps their role! One of the often-stated big pluses from the Big Lunch to celebrate the Queen’s 70th Jubilee; was the simple chatting to neighbours, something we have lost in our busy digital lives.

Changing Cuisine

The last coronation gave the nation poulet reine Elizabeth. More commonly known as Coronation Chicken. It was designed for versality for a salad or sandwich. So, all could enjoy at their garden or street party.

More interestingly it included an Indian-inspired curry sauce. This somehow seems to look backwards to the former empire and forwards to the opening up of cuisine to the masses. That opening gathered pace in the 70’s and 80’s to lead to a £4B Indian restaurant market in the UK today.

Coronation Quiche will have to go some to match that. But it does reflect our current times worried about the costs of living and reducing risks rather than celebrating.

Last-Minute Prep

It’s not too late to join in and share the positives provided by the Coronation to celebrate our communities and nation. The official timetable:

  • Saturday May 6th, the Coronation itself. The procession starts at 11am to Westminster Abbey; the service might last up to 3 hours and then back. For those wanting to view the procession in person queuing starts at 6am and not before.
  • Sunday May 7th, the Big Lunch. Over 7,000 street parties have signed up to be part of the Big Lunch with over 1M participants
  • Monday May 8th the bank holiday. This celebrates volunteering and public service but not just on the one day as explained on the website

If you’ve prepared an event, AC Services knows it will be a success and you have everything in hand including anything to do with your oven maintenance/cleaning. If you haven’t got an event and:

  • it seems quiet in your community; think what you might do and promote to create some buzz for those who will want to join in at the last minute.
  • there’s something planned by others; consider how you could link in to promote their event or add to it.

After all coronations don’t happen very often and it will be 25 years to the next jubilee; so a shame not to take the chance to put out the flags and celebrate!

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Published Date: 24th April 2023
Category: Blog, Catering Business, Events, Local food, News
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29 
Mar

Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Show

Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Show logo

For the last 87 years the place to be in March, has been the Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Show. For anyone in catering businesses there’s always some nugget to find in the UK’s largest gathering of the food, drink and hospitality sector. In 2022, it got even better when HRC joined forces with the Pub Show. It now includes all sectors and the entire supply chain for food and beverages.

Everything under One Roof

The Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Show is the destination to experience product innovation. Over three days visitors have the chance to meet and reconnect with over 1500 suppliers. These are from across food & drink, professional catering equipment, design & decor & hospitality tech. Anyone from the trade can discover, taste and test the latest products created specifically for hotels, restaurant & catering professionals.

The Show is organised into five main sections for food service, professional kitchens, design and décor, hospitality technology and the Pub Show. As a trade-only show there are opportunities to network (facilitated as well as freestyle); to hear noted speakers discuss the latest trend; and to get business advice directly from experts. Alongside this runs the UK’s most prestigious cooking competition – International Salon Culinaire.

Rational Attendance

At AC Services Southern, we recommend that anyone in catering attends HRC. If you missed this year’s put it in the diary for next year, now. When we attend, we always learn a lot about what is happening today that will affect our clients tomorrow. We need also to admit that we might be a little biased, as Rational always has a stand.

This year Rational demonstrated its iKitchen approach with its latest generation of cooking systems, the iVario and iCombi Pro. These combined cover 95% of all conventional cooking applications; at the same time achieving space savings of up to 40%.The cooking systems are made for cooperation, and when combined with the ConnectedCooking network solution, the intelligent kitchen is complete.

Seminar Variety

The seminars genuinely cater for all. For example, Hospitality 2023 a Global View in which IGD Insight and Economy specialists Nicola Knight and James Walton shared their predictions for 2023 on the impact of global pressures on the hospitality sector in the UK. It was followed by Successfully Interpreting Future Trends to Unlock New Revenue for Your Business. This had the subtitle of Ever Attended a Trends Talk and Thought There Was No Way Your Business Could Relate? The solution was a panel of hospitality champions discussing how they managed to interpret future trend predictions.

And they don’t avoid the basic new challenges such as Making Sense of Fat, Oil and Grease Management Responsibilities. This focused on the recent launch of an important guide to fat, oil and grease management in foodservice kitchen wastewater. This report brings together all that a site needs to know to make an effective evaluation of how it should manage its FOG disposal to prevent sewer blockages.

International Salon Culinaire

International Salon Culinaire has been regarded as one of the world’s top competitions for chefs for over a century. Over 100 live and static competitions across the three days provide a platform for chefs of all levels to go on to greater success in the industry.

Gold Medal Winners this year ranged from James and Alan Dougan of NHS Scotland GGRC in the NHS 4 Nations Chef Challenge to those beginning their careers, like Boe Trowbridge of City of Portsmouth College Monday’s winner of Butcher a Whole Chicken for Saute.

The 2023 HRC Chef Ambassador for HRC and International Salon Culinaire was Monica Galetti. She shares our view that:

“Now, more than ever, it’s so important for hospitality professionals and chefs to come together, network, learn and continue growing this fantastic industry. There’s nowhere better do to this than at the Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Show.”

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Published Date: 29th March 2023
Category: Blog, Catering Business, Events, News, Rational
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01 
Feb

5 Catering Trends 2023

5 catering trends for 2023We’re already a month into 2023, but it’s never too late to plan for the year ahead. Which is why this month, AC Services is looking at five emerging trends in UK catering businesses.

Menu Size Reduction

With the cost-of-living crisis, the message seems to be getting through that less is more when it comes to items on the menu. One of the consistent messages from Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant rescue programmes has always been reducing the size of the menu. Why, because a shorter menu is far easier for the kitchen to cope with. The consumer can have too much choice!

Shorter menus have significant benefits. They reduce waste as a smaller range of items need to be purchased. This also enables an increased focus on the freshness and availability of ingredients. In turn this allows better control of costs.

A 2023 trend is the 9 course a la carte menu, with only 3 choices each of starter, main and dessert.

Premium Side Dishes

Here the aim is to keep the mains to as low a cost as possible. Why, because consumers will calculate value based upon the advertised price of the main course. They then feel they are in control of deciding whether they want a side dish.

The side dish could be justified as a treat, sounds attractive or because they have decided it’s a necessary part of their meal. The last one is key. What is not happening here is cutting back the mains to say just the protein and charging extra for everything else.

This trend allows chefs to keep costs down for the core menu, but also show their creativity in this week’s side dishes with greater margins.

Flatbread Sharing

This trend is not for everyone perhaps, but flatbreads are increasingly appearing on menus usually as starters. They are a low cost option which are easy to make to order for most kitchens. With a range of toppings, dips and sauces they become an easy sharing course for groups or couples, who perhaps didn’t intend to have a starter.

It’s the warm flatbread, which is the trend. It harks back to the old tradition of offering a bread basket before a meal so the guest finishes the meal happily full!

2 Specialised Catering Trends for 2023 and 1 Certainty

An interesting trend to watch in 2023 is going to be the apparent upsurge in roadside dining. This had seemed to have died with the end of Little Chefs and Happy Eaters. The space in the market seems to be consistent menus with easily accessible dining rooms that aren’t fast food. The wider economic situation is of course similar to what fuelled the original trend in the 80’s.

A more localised trend is catering businesses asking their clients to help fund their development through crowd-funding. This comes in part from the various campaigns to save the local pub, which often use crowd-funding to raise necessary capital. The big plus of course is that it also builds the community clientele for longer term survival. And it taps into the support of those who dine infrequently, but want to do it locally.

Whatever the trends for 2023, the certainty you can rely on is that AC Services will be here to assist catering businesses in South West England and South Wales with servicing their Rational ovens.

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Published Date: 1st February 2023
Category: Blog, Catering Business, News
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30 
Dec

Looking Forward to 2023

Looking forward to 2023While 2022 started with high hopes of shaking off the negative economic effects of the pandemic and finishing as World Champions in at least one sport; it was not to be. The wish for many businesses in 2023 will be for stability, time to regroup and an uplifting success like the Women’s Euros.

Whatever happens higher living costs and energy prices will be with us throughout 2023. These will have an adverse effect on catering businesses of all types. Whether that’s because clients are no longer spending or the raised costs of ingredients and power.

Starting the year with plans based on those realities perversely allows businesses to be more positive. Effective planning means more efficient use of resources and hence higher profit or simple survival.

Looking forward to the year ahead

AC Services traditionally starts the year with a calendar of events. Those events are a mix of holidays, holy days and sporting events.

2023 doesn’t disappoint with opportunities for all catering businesses to seize upon dates in the national calendar to run themed events. While world cups will be fewer, we do have the Coronation and an extra bank holiday to look forward to.

And that’s only nationally. Most areas also have local events which provide opportunities for catering businesses. Even when times are tough, most people will still do a one-off event to treat themselves.

2023 events calendar

January aka Dry January or Veganuary

  • 13-29 Men’s Hockey World Cup India
  • 16-29 Tennis Australian Open Melbourne
  • 22 Chinese New Year, Year of the Rabbit
  • 25 Burns Night

February

  • 4- March 18 Rugby Union Six Nations
  • 9-26 Cricket Women’s World T20 South Africa
  • 9- 26 March Men’s Cricket World Cup India
  • 21 Pancake Day

March

  • 19 Mother’s Day
  • 22- 21 April Ramadan

April

  • 6-9 Golf Masters Augusta
  • 9 Easter Sunday
  • 15 Horse Racing Grand National Aintree
  • 15- 1 May Snooker World Championship Sheffield

May aka Bank Holiday Month!

  • 1 Early May Bank Holiday
  • 8 Charles III Coronation Holiday
  • 26-11 June Tennis French Open Paris
  • 29 Spring Bank Holiday

June

  • 3 Horse Racing Epsom Derby
  • 15-18 Golf US Open Los Angeles
  • 16-31 July Cricket Ashes Tests
  • 18 Father’s Day

July

  • 3-16 Tennis Wimbledon
  • 20-23 Golf, The Open Royal Liverpool
  •  28- 6 August Netball World Cup Cape Town

August

  • 12 Rugby League Challenge Cup Final
  • 28 August Bank Holiday

September

  • 3-10 Cycling Tour Britain
  • 8-28 October Men’s Rugby World Cup France
  • 29- 1 October Golf Ryder Cup Rome

October

  • 31 Halloween

November

  • 12-17 Diwali Festival of Lights

December

  • Christmas again and looking forward to 2024!

At AC Services, we wish you a successful and prosperous 2023.

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Published Date: 30th December 2022
Category: Blog, Catering Business, News
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29 
Nov

Countdown to Christmas

Christmas countdown starts with Black FridayAfter the year we have had as a country and with the FIFA World Cup due to end literally a week before Christmas; there is no doubt we’re living in very strange and uncertain times. Yet those in the hotel, restaurant, pub, café and farm shop trades know that in order to make money, we need to be prepared to serve demand as it occurs. Hence our Christmas countdown.

Some of that demand is predictable with bookings for Christmas parties and events. While other demand is more ad hoc. It could literally depend on the weather or on the consumer’s feeling of the need to go out. A long run for England or Wales might dampen demand for those premises without television as people stay in; or become a place of escape for those desperately avoiding soccer.

Being Prepared for the Predictable

When demand comes, you’ll want service to function seamlessly from start to finish. For your Rational ovens this means ensuring that you have all the cleaning supplies you could need for the next 6 weeks. Regular cleaning optimises Rational performance and reduces the likelihood of a failure.

Check your cleaning supplies. Order by 2nd December and there is a reasonable chance that we can deliver before Christmas. If you order no later than 10th December and we have it in stock then you will also beat the 10-15% price increase, which Rational has had to bring in globally effective 1st December. Order either online or call the team on 01454 322222.

Being Prepared for the Unpredictable

If you haven’t already booked a Rational service or maintenance visit before the Christmas and New Year break, it’s probably too late. But we’ll happily arrange a date for January for those in our area.

Most oven breakdowns are unpredictable, but often seem to happen at times of peak demand. While many of AC Services Southern staff take a break over Christmas, there is always an engineer on call dealing with whatever crops up.

For ease of contacting us to resolve your breakdown, below are our opening hours:

In all instances, dial 01454 322222 and choose the relevant option.

  • Friday 23rd Office closes at 5.00 p.m.
  • Saturday 24th Engineer on call for emergencies
  • Sunday 25th CHRISTMAS DAY CLOSED
  • Monday 26th BOXING DAY CLOSED
  • Tuesday 27th Engineer on call for emergencies
  • Wednesday 28th Office open 8.30 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Engineers available
  • Thursday 29th Office open 8.30 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Engineers available
  • Friday 30th Office open 8.30 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Engineers available
  • Saturday 31st Engineer on call for emergencies
  • Sunday 1st NEW YEARS DAY CLOSED
  • Monday 2nd Engineer on call for emergencies
  • Tuesday 3rd Normal office hours resume

While we cannot predict the outcome of the football; working with our catering colleagues, we can make the season less stressful and more productive by using our Christmas countdown!

Readmore..

Published Date: 29th November 2022
Category: Blog, Catering Business, Cleaning Products, News, Rational
Tags: , , , , ,