Feeding politicians...The ICC gets ready to welcome the
Liberal Democrats Autumn Conference
By Craig Hancox, Amadeus' Food & Beverage Manager at the
ICC
With just a couple of days to go we're in full swing preparing
for the Lib Dems arrival.
We're expecting more than 7,500 delegates and it's not just
their appetite for politics that the ICC will be feeding - the
catering team from Amadeus will be delivering a whole range of food
and beverages throughout, which will be equivalent of roughly six
months worth of events over four days! This is by no means easy and
I know this because I guess I can say... I've been there and done
that... when they held their spring party conference with us in
2010 and in that same year we also hosted the Conservative party
conference.
It really takes military organisation, expert attention to
detail and lots of ingredients to feed this many delegates at a
conference this size: we expect to be serving 20,000 cups of coffee
made from 1,100 packets of Fair Trade coffee; 1,800 bottles of
fruit juice; and, 1,300 handmade cakes! To deliver on this scale
means 175 catering staff are involved including 30 chefs, 100 food
service assistants and 15 catering managers.
In order to keep organised the venue is split into four
different zones and each one colour-coded and managed by a separate
team.
In addition to the main delegate catering we are creating a
catering concept area in Hall 4, the main exhibition area,
where delegates can choose from a range of fresh fillings to create
their own deli-style sandwich and opt for a healthy fresh fruit
smoothie of their choice.
As well as the main conferences there's going to be 200 fringe
meetings and ninety per cent of those will have some element of
catering such as a drinks reception, lunchtime buffet or breakfast
seminar - to deliver on this scale requires a fantastic team and
while we've all worked really hard over these last nine months from
when the planning began, it's these next few days that will require
us all to go that extra mile to make the event the best it can
be.
Now I'm really excited and can't wait to see it all in place and
operating.