Another major difficulty associated with mass catering is that companies like Abela cannot transform their offering in the same way restaurants might. As he phrases it: “There’s no closing down for a revamp for us, followed by the grand reopening. Large scale catering is a different environment compared with the conventional.”
Moving onto the challenge of maintaining high food safety standards when so many people's wellbeing is at stake, Campbell says: “Abela has made huge inroads in this respect, starting a decade ago when our kitchen in Al Awir [Dubai] was the first central kitchen to be HACCP-certified. The company as a whole, looking at the means and methods of production, has focused heavily on TQM (total quality management) and we have a quality manager who is one of the best [in the business], who has made huge strides. We have scaled up over time and now we have about eight people working in food safety. I’d say Abela has invested significantly in this area.”
Indeed, Abela & Co has gone a step further than most, by achieving the recognition to be an approved Food Safety Training Centre under Highfield Awarding Center for Compliance (HABC). This means the company is able to provide accredited food safety training internally.
Commenting on this accomplishment, Campbell says: “Being certified to train within the company, rather than outsource training, demonstrates our overall commitment to standards. There is extensive training and refresher training [for employees]. A great deal of resources goes into ensuring standards are where they need to be. It’s the nature of the business – it’s what we do — but it’s a measure of the integrity of the company that its committed to that kind of investment to ensure we deliver a good product.”
With this in mind, I ask Campbell how he feels about the mass catering playing field becoming more competitive, particularly in the run up to Expo 2020.
“Abela is committed to what we do and I don’t see us taking any shortcuts [despite competition]. We will weather any storm and we have stood the test of time, being around for nearly 50 years. Right now there are smaller companies coming in and I say ‘good luck to them’ but will they stand the test of time without making the investments [that Abela makes]?
“We have gone through various transitions and we have a long, very rich history. We aren’t going anywhere and in 2015 we actually had four people here celebrating 40 years working at Abela. That is pretty impressive, more so in this day and age — the global average used to be four years staying at a company and it’s probably even less now.”
Returning to the topic of Expo 2020, Campbell believes that hosting the event “shows Dubai’s commitment to making the city one of the greatest in the world; a city made by and for the 21st century”.
Elaborating, he says caterers that want to profit from the event have a lot to live up to: “Expo is a showcase and you want companies involved that mirror its image of technology, sustainability and quality — companies need to make the effort to meet that vision. A lot of smaller players in large-scale, bulk catering will come into the market, probably from 2017, trying to chip away.
“It’ll be interesting to see what’s going to happen after 2020. [For us] getting to the top of the hill is not easy and staying on top of the hill is tougher, but it’s the nature of the business.”
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