Catering during Conservative Party Conference

ICC General Manager Craig Hancox oversees a huge operation during the Conservative Party Conference and he has given us an insight into what it takes to cater for over 370 events in just four days.

What was the planning process for such a large event?

We started planning 12 months ago and we start with a debrief from Conservative Party Conference (CPC) team where they fed back to us on the last conference and any new initiatives they wanted to incorporate this year.

CPC is one big event with many smaller events within. We host over 370 fringe events in the four days and to put this into perspective we host around 350 events on an annual basis, so it’s a pretty hectic time. We also provide catering from retail outlets, VIP lounges and a business day dinner which was a high-profile event for us and they had a beautiful menu created by Simon the dinner is attended by members of the cabinet and business leaders across the country.

To manage this from a catering perspective, we create a specific menu pack for the fringe events based on the food that was popular in previous years. The SCS team at the NEc coordinated all of the fringe orders, with some of the more unique ones being organised directly by the catering managers here at the ICC

The bulk of the 370 events ordered in this way, and I’d say there was about 50 of them worked directly with us on bespoke menus, and this was mainly when clients were looking for themes to complement their event.

As you can imagine this takes a lot of co-ordination so the ICC is split in to zones each with a different colour. We then assign catering managers to each zone, so as the enquiries came through I would co-ordinate it into the correct zone so each manager could pick it up.

An additional element to the main ICC building were the marquees in century square, and to manage this we treated it as an extra zone, the renovation work of the square on the event zone were completed in time to house the marquees.

Then about a month before hand we would get into the details. This involved chasing up outstanding orders so two weeks before the event we knew what we would be doing and could start the final planning and ordering the food.

Outside of the specific events, what food was on offer across the venue for delegates?

I was always conscious of the retail catering areas because the feedback from the conservative previously is that the food was quite carbohydrate based, and maybe not as many healthy options as they would have liked. We took that into consideration and we went to the CPC with a plan of what our retail catering was going to look like and what we were going to serve the main bulk of the delegates.

We installed two of our popular concepts in the exhibition area which is in our largest hall and the main part of the conference all delegates visit. We chose our Oak kitchen concept which focuses on British ingredients and food, and a derivative of the “made café” called the “MADE grill” which focuses on hand-crafted naan bread wraps filled with chicken tikka lamb and haloumi, this was particularly popular during lunch time, served with mint yoghurt and sweet or spicy chilli dips.

How did you work around the security of the event?

Security is very high around this event so each member of staff needed to be accredited in advance. In total we had about 350 staff accredited. We created spreadsheets so we could filter each area by zone and from that we could schedule the rotas for the staff - we actually gave them coloured wristbands to match the colour of the zone so we could keep track of who was working where.

Our Executive Head Chef Simon Hellier leaves it to the last possible minute before he places the food orders and ensures the timing is spot on so we can get everything in correctly. We had fresh deliveries every day and all vehicles go through a comprehensive search before they are allowed on site, so all that had to be taken into consideration as well. We worked closely with the police on ensuring everything was safe and got in on time and Simon is very conscious of the food being the best it can be and checks absolutely everything before it reaches a plate.

How do you get so many orders of food from to the plate in time?

Simon doesn’t get involved until we have the final confirmations of menus, about 10 days prior to the event so there is no confusion when it comes to ordering the produce. He just knows he is going to have four or five very busy days and make sure he has his team in place to cope with the demands. He has nightshift chefs as well so the team can be prepping for each day.

He then allocated a Head Chef to each of the zones to work closely with the catering manager and event team so each day they know what they need and they are on the same page.

Another element is making sure that we had the right equipment and enough equipment in each zone. So our back of house manager who did an equipment list so we would have enough knives, forks, glasses and so forth in each zone.

Did you face any challenges during the conference?

The volume of delegates, particularly on the second day, was quite high as the conference was extremely popular this year with the political landscape being so topical. The lunch times were particularly busy for the retail concepts such as Starbucks, but the team there did an outstanding day beating all the records they had previously set for number of transaction per hour.

What were your highlights of the event?

The main highlight for me is being part of such a great team effort, it goes across the whole of the ICC workforce, but for my own particular team, seeing them at the absolute peak of business, and still managing to find a smile for an organiser, shows what a well-oiled machine we are, which makes you very proud to be a part of.