Education catering firm, Pabulum brought together its team at its annual conference, Meet 2016 – Everyone Counts.
The event saw the firm and its staff celebrating the year’s achievements and making plans for the year ahead.
The special occasion brought together staff from Pabulum’s growing list of 140 sites, as well as employees from the company’s Fleet headquarters and suppliers including Bidvest, Dennys Brands, Foodari and British Premium Meats. Among the achievements celebrated was the company’s recent announcement of new contract wins worth over £15m.
The individual contributions of Pabulum staff were also recognised with an awards ceremony to reward catering staff and head office personnel. There were awards for innovation, support, the best teams and recognition for outstanding primary and secondary chefs.
In addition to this, there was the company’s highest honour, the Chairman’s Award, which was won by Development Chef Dennis Baillie.
Baillie was awarded the prestigious accolade for his commitment and dedication to the business across the year, he commented, “I’m absolutely delighted to have all my efforts this year recognised. I love my role and the fact that I’m helping to make a difference to the health and wellbeing of so many children, it’s something that’s very rewarding in itself.
'I’m proud of the way we at Pabulum put a lot of hard work into our menu planning and recipe development, making sure students are getting fresh, wholesome meals that are full of flavour too.
'All our school meals are produced on site, from scratch, using fresh, nutritionally balanced ingredients. We hope that this approach will help inspire a lifelong love of fresh food in young people.”
A major part of the day was to understand how Pabulum employees live and breathe their values of Passion, Education, Innovation and Sensation.
Managing Director, Nelson Williams said, “We are a company driven by personality and our recent survey of The Best Places to Work in Hospitality 2016 confirmed that Pabulum people consider good communications with their manager and team members as their number one priority – we scored well above the average score for this survey.
'I was also really pleased that we announced a new additional people orientated scheme that encourages and rewards everyone to do better.”
The occasion was filled with fun and laughter as well as discussion around Pabulum’s continuing commitment to creating a fresh food culture within schools.
Williams said, “Pabulum has enjoyed another excellent year, we’ve grown the business and are proud to be recognised within the industry as an outstanding company.
'Every single member of staff has played a part in this success and Meet 2016 has been about recognising this and saying thank you. It was great to see so many happy, smiling faces around the room.
'I believe it’s important to come together and reflect on what we’ve achieved as a business. Doing this helps inspire and motivate everyone for the new school year ahead, that’s why we also set out our plans for the future at the event.
'This is not a business you can afford to stand still in, so we’ll continue to grow, without compromising on our values and commitment to fresh food.”