Registration for ceda Conference 2021 is now open!

The Conference is the premier event of the Catering Equipment Industry calendar, attracting design houses, project houses, distributors, service and installation companies, suppliers, manufacturers and representatives of other associations representing major end user groups.

This year’s event, held in association with Cedabond, will take place on Wednesday 24th and Thursday 25th November at The Majestic Hotel, in the heart of beautiful Harrogate. The Conference 2021 is a Wednesday/Thursday affair, as opposed to the usual Thursday/Friday, however the format across the two days will be familiar.

The Conference will begin on Wednesday with a networking lunch, followed by a series of meetings in the afternoon – the ceda AGM, a ceda Academy meeting and ceda Technical meeting, and Cedabond will be hosting Members and Suppliers meetings.

This will be followed by the ceda Legacy Awards Dinner on Wednesday evening.

Thursday will be the return of the highly anticipated ceda Conference Business Day, which is open to all! A brilliant programme of expert industry speakers for us to listen to and learn from as the industry rises from the challenges of the last 18 months is currently being worked on. The roster of speakers will be revealed very soon! ceda Partners and Associates will also be exhibiting at the Business Day, highlighting their exceptional products and services.

Thursday night will be the Gala Dinner featuring the Grand Prix and Rising Star Awards.

The Awards and Gala Dinner host, across the two evenings, is Chris Brazier, the charismatic Event Director of Diversified Communications. The Business Day host is, once again, the affable Peter Martin of CM & Co.

ceda’s Adam Mason is looking forward to getting back to an in-person Conference. He said, “Our last physical Conference was back in April 2019. Whilst we have connected on webinars, Teams and Zoom, as well as our superb Digital Event & Awards in March of this year, there’s nothing quite like a face-to-face industry event.

“The ceda Conference 2021 will be a return to the format we all know and love with live, in-person presentations from leading industry figures covering the most important issues facing our industry. And let’s not forget the ceda Legacy Awards and Grand Prix and Rising Star Awards Gala Dinner!

“Despite the pandemic, the Awards have been very well supported by the membership and are currently going through the judging process.

“There will be extra networking time factored in across the two days as we appreciate that reconnecting will be so hugely important for everyone attending.

“We can’t wait to see you all, in-person, again in November and we are looking forward to welcoming you to the ceda Conference 2021!”

For more information about the ceda Conference 2021 and to Register for the event, please visit ceda.co.uk/conference2021/. More details and speakers are being added regularly, so please check back for updates.

This is a great opportunity to come and see the UK team from CHARVET (Friday and Saturday), to finally meet up in person, to touch and feel these wonderful heavy duty cooking suites.

Ask us about the evolution of our workhorse PRO 800 cooking ranges.

Hall 5P – Stand R17 S20

Same heavy-duty quality, but now with innovative additions: –

• Pro 800 Multizone Induction – replicating the traditional solid top – launching with a GN2/1 oven under.
• Pro 800 Six Burner Range with a choice of large oven, open base, or bridge unit.
• Pro 800 660 mm X 580 mm Smooth Griddles and Smooth and Chrome Plancha in gas and electric.
• Charvet has also launched new Pro 800 110 litre gas and electric boiling pans in direct heated and water jacketed versions.

Charvet’s Premium Finish – a palette of ready-made colours – is also included, to show chefs how they can economically and tastefully colour their range to suit the decor or logo.

Commercial Catering Spares have launched their brand new Ancillaries Catalogue, featuring their extensive range of pre-rinse units, taps, basins, water hoses, pumps, gas interlocks, gas hoses, grease management and fly killers.

All Ancillary products are available to view in their state-of-the-art web shop: www.ccspares.co.uk/en/webshop/login

Their catalogue is available to view online: www.ccspares.co.uk/en/catalogues_ccs

SpaceCombi Magic Team combi steamer wins Innovation Award

As the Commercial Kitchen Show in London closed its doors on 24 September 2021, the MKN UK team left not only with a smile on their faces having enjoyed that long missed trade show feeling but also went home as gold winners. Trade show visitors and the Innovation Challenge’s renowned expert panel had jointly decided to award gold to MKN’s SpaceCombi Magic Team combi steamer.

The award recognises innovative products and technology that enhance today’s professional kitchens and increase efficiency. This sums up the SpaceCombi Magic Team perfectly. Equipped with two separate cooking chambers and having a width of only 55 cm, the appliance offers sufficient flexibility to cater for any market trend. The integrated MagicHood for extracting odours lets it operate self-sufficiently and it is not dependent on any ventilation system. You can just cook without limits wherever you are. The innovative appliance features and endless possibilities offered, fully convinced the expert panel of the Commercial Kitchen Challenge. According to Katie Tyler, Commercial Kitchen’s event manager, MKN’s compact combi steamer was also praised as being energy efficient and space saving.

While proudly accepting the award, Wayne Bennett, MKN Regional Vice President, UK & Ireland explained why he is especially thrilled to receive this particular prize: “It’s a great honour to receive this award as the showcased products are not only scrutinized thoroughly by an expert panel but also by show visitors. We couldn’t ask for better market feedback”.

In a jam-packed three days at the end of September, First Choice Group, together with sponsors, MKN and Hobart, hosted a chef mentoring event for NHS staff. The event, which took place from Tuesday 28th – Thursday 30th September, saw healthcare chefs take part in cook-offs, benefit from dedicated mentoring sessions, and even engage in recipe inspiration demos from leading speakers.

Hosted by First Choice, at the company’s state-of-the-art conference and event facilities, just over 50 chefs of the National Health Service’s brightest chef talents converged on Cannock. With sustainability being a key topic in our industry, the theme for this year’s event was ‘The Future of Food’ and included a talk on ‘The Net Zero Kitchen’ from the NHS Greener Team, as well as a live cookery session from Meatless Farm titled ‘Enhancing menu choice for healthy, low carbon eating.’

“The NHS Mentoring Event was a great way for us to show our commitment to those who’ve given so much to our nation in recent times. From world-class mentors to an impressive line-up of speakers, the event delivered a fantastic agenda. We were also keen to raise awareness of the need to support the future of food, with many of the sessions and the live demos, hosted in the dedicated First Choice kitchens, centred around ongoing sustainability.”

Stuart Brereton, Business Development Manager at MKN.

Across the three days, the events saw guest speakers, including Nick Vadis, Culinary Director at Compass Group and the Chef Ambassador to NHS Supply Chain, Phil Shelley, Chair of NHS Food Review 2020, Emma Brookes, Head of Soft FM Strategy & Operations at NHS England and Dr Rupy Aujla, an NHS GP who started ‘The Doctor’s Kitchen’, deliver a raft of engaging sessions. The delegates were also introduced to key industry mentors, each able to support the chefs to serve a quality menu to patients and visitors in their care settings.

“We were delighted to welcome chefs from across our National Health Service to a dedicated mentoring event hosted by First Choice. At Hobart, we wanted to show our support to those in our industry who’ve worked tirelessly by providing an invaluable service to our nation. What better way to do this than to bring together a celebrated line-up of guest speakers and a group of well-respected mentors to give something back.”

Simon Gardiner CFSP, Regional Manager, Hobart UK Equipment Division

Using First Choice Groups purpose-built event facilities, which include conference space, break-out rooms and a fully functioning professional kitchen, the event culminated with a light-hearted Ready, Steady ‘Plant Based’ cookoff to pit the delegates against one another, all in the name of competitive fun.

“It was a real honour to host the NHS Mentoring Event, in association with MKN and Hobart at First Choice. With everything our great health service has put up with over the past 18-months, to be able to give something back by way of a dedicated mentoring event, including some fantastic speakers and a fun cook-off competition was just a small way of us saying our thanks.”

John Whitehouse, Managing Director at First Choice Group

To find out more about event sponsors and leading catering equipment manufacturers, MKN or Hobart, please visit www.mkn.com or www.hobartuk.com.

For more information on the genuine OEM spare parts, accessories and consumables from First Choice Group, please visit www.firstchoice-cs.co.uk.

Hobart Equipment Division has appointed Tracy Southwell as its new Sales & Marketing Director. Tracy, who has almost 25 years’ multi-channel experience in the food and beverage industry, replaces Tim Bender, an ‘industry stalwart’ who retired during the Summer after many years of service.

On her appointment, Tracy commented: “I’m absolutely delighted to join Hobart Equipment Division at this pivotal time in the company’s evolution. Our market-leading business has successfully and skilfully navigated its way through the pandemic and is now faced with a raft of new and exciting opportunities. Our dealer partners remain an integral part of our next level growth journey, as do all our customers, as we jointly sustain the success of our core brands: Hobart, Bonnet and Ecomax.

“A key priority will be ensuring our brands continue to be the primary signpost for reliability, professionalism and performance in the catering equipment industry.”

Commercial Catering Spares has reopened its training centre for the very first time since the global pandemic began. At the end of September several engineers attended the very first Rational Training Course of 2021 with tutor, Stuart, who has over 18 years’ experience working as a field service engineer for a Rational Service Partner. The announcement of the reopening was well received and had a great attendance.

Commercial Catering Spares continue to implement hygiene and safety measures to ensure all staff and customers remain protected. More dates for the Rational Training Courses will be released in the near future. If you are interested in booking on a course or hiring our training centre for your own use you will find more information at www.ccspares.co.uk/en/training_ccs. Alternatively email sales@ccspares.co.uk.

The first ceda Catering Equipment Project Coordinator training standard certificate has been awarded!

There has been much confusion surrounding Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) Cards over the last few years, and how managers in the foodservice sector can qualify for one. After tireless work by ceda’s Technical Support Advisor Peter Kay, the Catering Equipment Project Coordinator training standard was launched back in May of this year.

Rod Wood (pictured opposite), Contracts Manager for ceda member company Keemlaw Group is delighted to be the first approved Catering Equipment Project Coordinator and is keen for others in the industry follow suit. Rod enthuses: “I’m pleased to have completed the course. A dedicated training standard like the one offered by ceda is a vital resource for the sector and I hope my peers in the sector sign-up for the course.”

The Project Coordinator training standard is one of three CSCS-specific courses available.

As Peter Kay explains, “Following on from a survey of our members’ project managers, it became apparent that there were two different roles that fell under the same title of Project Manager. Many Project Managers fulfilled a coordinator function, collating information from colleagues and suppliers whilst the other Project Managers were more knowledgeable and qualified technically. ceda therefore developed training standards for both roles, as well as a dedicated one for our Installation Engineers.”

The training standard modules are all available through the ceda E-Learning platform, free of charge to ceda members, and include:

·        Project management essentials

·        Health and safety – the basics

·        Introduction to Risk Assessments

·        Using different communication styles

·        Non-verbal communications

·        An introduction to BIM

·        The Art of Delegation and Empowerment

·        Creative Problem Solving

·        Effective Time Management

·        Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The following modules must be delivered and assessed by the employer based on templates produced by ceda:

·        Company structure including job responsibilities and levels of authority

·        Reading and understanding drawings – Employer

Once all the modules have been completed and evidence received, ceda check and verify the application and issue a ‘certificate of satisfactory completion of an industry training standard,’ which will be accepted by JIB-PMES for the application for a CSCS manager’s card.

Rod concludes, “Many of the modules are set at a beginners standard and others are more advanced. Together they make up a broad range of topics and level of detail that I feel is more than adequate for managers in our industry. Those familiar with online training courses will be well versed in the format; it’s easy and straightforward to follow and complete. I fully recommend all project managers sign up to the ceda standard to ensure their CSCS Card application is successful.”

Members can find out more about the Catering Equipment Project Coordinator training standard via the ceda E-Learning platform. Those outside of the membership can contact Peter Kay for more details. Please email peterkay@ceda.co.uk.

We are delighted to announce that the initial applications for the ceda Grand Prix Awards and ceda Rising Star Award 2021 are now open.

The Awards criteria and entry forms can be found and submitted via the Members Area of the ceda website.

The entry guides should explain, in detail, the application process for both the Grand Prix Design Projects, Project Management Excellence and Outstanding Customer Service Awards, as well as the Rising Star Award.

The deadline for the initial applications is Monday 20th September 2021.

If you have any questions about the Awards, the application or judging process then please contact Adam Mason on 01386 793911 or via email adam@ceda.co.uk.