Peter Elson meets JIM LOVETT,managing director of Waterfall Services

BUYING a major North West catering company resulted in Jim Lovett revisiting a familiar scene from his youth.

As boss of education contract caterer Taylor Shaw, he found himself in the principal’s office of his old school organising its new meals.

“I never imagined while I was at school one day I’d be in the headmaster’s study discussing running the school’s dinners,” said Lovett, 40, who was at Blackpool Collegiate, now Blackpool Sixth Form College – and where his mother once worked.

“She’d left by then, so no accusations of insider trading,” he laughs.

One cannot imagine that Lovett, with his academic success. had previously been in the headmaster’s study for the wrong reasons, but it’s a neat turn-around of events.

He escaped the corporate octopus in 2007 when, with four colleagues, he left French multi-national contract caterer Sodexo, where he was health care catering director.

Together they bought Caterplus, a southern England specialist care and welfare contract caterer, which had an £11m annual turnover.

Three years ago they added Warrington-based Taylor Shaw, founded in 1997, which now has contracts for 400 UK education establishments.

Although Caterplus is now run from Milton Keynes, the head office for both companies was set up 12 months ago at salubrious Birchwood Park, Warrington, under the umbrella of Waterfall Services.

Together the two businesses’ turnover will be at least £45m this year, and he hopes it will reach £50m. Last year’s turnover was £38m.

Originally based in Watford, Caterplus exclusively dealt with 100 residential care and nursing homes.

It also supplies food for welfare charities and homeless shelters in London, such as the YMCA, St Mungo and Centrepoint.

“We bought it as a very niche-like business in a market not penetrated by the big boys,” said Lovett.

“We liked the fact it was a fresh food company, which was not sexy enough for large corporations.

“Our other key selling point is we train everyone, so staff on site have a high level of competence and skills to properly look after residents.

“We grew it from a company with a market inside the M25 London orbital to one up to Birmingham.

“Then we looked for a northern business partner and met Peter Taylor and Steve Shaw.

“There was terrific development potential and great synergies in terms of company values and beliefs in fresh food and trading practices.”

This allowed Taylor Shaw to use Caterplus’s contacts to expand southwards, and Caterplus to grow northwards from Birmingham.

“We didn’t want them to blend together in their front-line work, as they are specialist teams in their own markets,” said Lovett.

“The benefit is through back-office administration, human resources, payroll, sourcing food and purchasing power for materials.

“For example, our Taylor Shaw team understands the education market and what youngsters want to eat from the age of five to 18.”

The company has taken assaults on school catering standards from the likes of Jamie Oliver in its stride, he claimed.

“Essentially, we’re already there and haven’t changed the way we do business.

“About 90% of what we do is based on fresh food and home-made on site by our own trained staff.

“The bigger boys have tried to de-skill people to lower wages and buy in more food.

“Of course, this is cheaper, but we’re not the cheapest in the market.

“Just because our clients are children, you shouldn’t look at them as anything other than customers.

“Schools who switch to us find children with packed lunches return to taking meals.

“The whole thing is cyclical. If you cut costs, the meals get cheaper, so less children buy them and so budgets are cut further.

“Instead, you should get volumes up and returns up and cut food wastage. Cost is always a factor and we have to work within constraints.

“You can’t do exactly what you want, but you can make meals which children want. When you do it daily, you get very specialised at meeting those needs within the parameters.

“The same principles apply to Caterplus; you must meet the needs of homes and residents.

“We’ve done a whole study on dementia feeding, which your bog- standard caterers can’t do.”

He believes this is how Caterplus and Taylor Shaw have effectively competed with bigger rivals through the recession.

“Our food service team’s nutritionists and dieticians look at the menu design of choices,” said Lovett.

“For example, what fish is available and what are the alternatives which are environmentally and nutritionally effective?

“The price of meat is rising astronomically, and we must constantly think about what to put on the menu.

“Schools give us a budget at the start of the year and we have to work within that and the Government’s nutritional guidelines.”

The companies jointly employ 2,500 staff, with 1,500 at Taylor Shaw.

“They’re all disparate with a vast number on sites, which is a complication of the business, particularly for training.

“For us, the recession means we get squeezed and our existing clients want better value for money.

“They want more for less, but the converse is a lot of other contract caterers can’t comply so we win work from them.

“We’re much more flexible than the big boys. We don’t have a ‘one menu fits all’ attitude.

“There’s always standardisation behind the scenes and we will go with a typical selection offer to a client, but we don’t force it on them.”

Although he is a keen foodie, Lovett can’t quite believe the business he is in, but he loves it.

His father was an ICI chemist and he himself read bio-chemistry and biotechnology at Sheffield University.

After moving into pathology and health care as an NHS graduate management trainee, it funded his Masters at Manchester University Business School in business and finance.

After defecting to Price Waterhouse Coopers (later PWC), he was a management consultant for five years before going to Sodexo.

“For me there was definitely an element of you can preach a good game, but can you do it?” he chuckles. “I felt was going to sink. It’s a very different kind of motivation game, but it still comes down to looking after people.”

With three sons ranging from nine months to eight years-old, he and his wife, Jane, rarely get out of their Knutsford home to dine out.

“When we do, my wife says I’m always watching what’s going on. I like to sit so I can see into the kitchen or reception,” he said.

“You must be aware of current trends.

“In care homes, it used to be meat and two veg, but now pastas and curries are filtering through.

“As a business, we’re always keeping an eye on the horizon for possible company acquisitions.

“A lot of people got into difficulties in the recession, but it’s a fragile market and we don’t want to rush into buying something of the wrong size and scale, thereby replicating the mistakes of those others. Yet we want to have that professional element of a corporation without losing our touchy-feely approach.”