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Fate has played a very important role in the formation of BaxterStorey, with the paths of the major players crossing frequently before finally merging onto one road in January 2005. The Baxter side of the company is named for co-founder William Baxter, who started his first catering company in 1987, after gaining valuable experience running staff restaurants for Sutcliffe Catering, part of Granada. Alastair Storey of Wilson Storey Halliday (WSH) also started his career at Sutcliffes, where training and education were seen as paramount for staff – a lesson that both men have taken with them into their future roles.
William Baxter told me more about his early career. “It was a very difficult decision to leave Sutcliffes and set up my first company, as it was a great place to work,” he said. “Nevertheless, I started Baxter and Platts in 1987 with Robert Platts, a very like-minded individual, and after seeing great success we sold to Granada in 1997, just under 10 years from when we started. Robert then retired due to ill health, but I didn’t want to hang up my boots, so I stayed on as executive chairman for two and a half years.
During this time I was reporting to Alastair Storey, which is where this jigsaw starts to come together.”Before leaving Granada to once again step out on his own, William and Alastair discussed going into business together, but William felt the time wasn’t right, and set-up BaxterSmith in May 2000, with the managing director from Baxter & Platts as his main partner.
BaxterSmith was a specialist in contract catering, where for a defined period of time it would take-over and run a staff restaurant, catering for up to 2000-3000 people a day. “Normally our services would include restaurants, deli bars, cafes, and full hospitality services such as director’s dinning rooms, corporate hospitality and conferences,” explained William. “This is normally for blue-chip organisations at corporate head offices and this is where our real expertise is based.”
However, before going their separate ways, William and Alastair agreed to get together again in the future to discuss starting a business. “We agreed to go pursue our own careers, but to keep in contact and get together four or five years later. If we then felt the fit was right, we would look to join our businesses together and in fact, events have conformed to that plan,” explained William.
“The philosophies and ideals of our two companies are very compatible, plus we now have the best management team in the whole of the industry, with a huge wealth of experience, all in slightly different areas. I believe that the team’s weaknesses and strengths complement each other and we also will have much more robust systems behind the scenes. Alastair and I have a great relationship, which gives us a fantastic arena to go forward in,” said William.
The two companies found they had very complementary internal processes and cultures, as William explained. “WSH’s back of house services are more robust, and the credit for that has to go their financial director, Keith Wilson,” said William.
“Their IT systems were bespoke for the job whereas ours were off-the-shelf standard packages, which means the catering managers and those using the IT systems find WSH’s systems easier and therefore make less errors. Although BaxterSmith employed more than 700 people we didn’t have an HR department or even an HR person, and WSH had a whole department, headed by Linda Halliday, which has added to the training and development of staff.
“On our part, BaxterSmith brought perhaps flair, as we were slightly more entrepreneurial and creative, while WSH were slightly more corporate. The fit is extremely good,” said William. Within the new entity of BaxterStorey, William is deputy chief executive and Alastair Storey is chief executive, and William pointed out that this change has improved both his and Alastair’s day to day roles. “Some of the tedious parts of my job have gone, leaving me free to be with customers and staff,” he explained.
“We have got key people in the key roles, which leaves Alastair and I free to be more strategic. My main emphasis will be sales and marketing, how the company looks and feels, making sure the brand and corporate image reflect the actual business. Alastair’s focus will be looking after the two MDs on the operational side, and then we will collectively make sure we are going in the right direction. Day to day my role hasn’t changed significantly.”
BaxterSmith and Wilson Storey Halliday were both successful companies in their own right, but the contract catering industry is dominated by four key players, and to stand out in this market William and Alastair needed to create something new and interesting.
“One of the key drivers behind the merger is that we want to offer something that hasn’t existed before,” said William. “The market is currently dominated by Sodexho, Compass, Aramark and Avenance, followed by a plethora of smaller businesses ranging from £5 million to £50 million turnover, all offering a similar service, but all packaged slightly differently.
“We have put a cat among the pigeons by offering a middle-ground – all the resources of a large company plus the entrepreneurial style and flexibility of a patron-led business. This gives clients the best of both worlds and has never been done in this market before.” William confirmed that being flexible was a huge benefit.
“Without question, this gives us an advantage. In terms of purchasing we use local suppliers who have very fresh products and very good services, and they can turn up two hours before lunch and satisfy an emergency need – if you are using a large multinational it is very difficult to achieve that.
Also, if you are tied into large multinational deals you might be missing out on innovative new products that smaller local suppliers might find. Using local suppliers also helps the local community, which some corporate clients are keen on as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes.”
William had highlighted earlier on that his training and learning experiences at Sutcliffes had a big impact on his career, and this is reflected in the emphasis Baxter Storey puts on finding and training its people.
“When you buy a contract catering service, you buy the people really,” explained William. “The better they are, the better the service is, and so that is where we focus and invest, in a way our raw ingredients are our people. I am not sure if we will go for official Investors in People accreditation, but investing in people is key, especially in our industry. Sadly, catering is notorious for bad customer service and we are in a very competitive labour market, so there aren’t as many people as we wish coming into the industry.
“Consequently, when we find good staff, we develop and train from within and I really want to see people progress through the business. I find it personally motivating to see youngsters working their way up and making a good career for themselves.” Although his focus on training may be the same as Sutcliffes was 20 years ago, William noted that in many other ways the market had moved on completely.
“The way that we manage a decentralised business now is hugely different,” he said. “We employ over 2400 people collectively but less than 100 of these will be at head office with the rest out in the field. It is our job to make sure they still follow policy and procedures and actually do the job that we want them to do. A lot of this is enabled through technology that didn’t exist previously.
“The market has also seen an increase in the level of professional-ism within staff feeding generally, where there has been a migration from the canteen scenario to the high street environment of today. We see the high street as our competitors, with a high-profile company such as Pret A Manger as an internal benchmark.
“Customer expectations are also much higher, and supermarkets have had a big influence on this,” he continued. “If you think of the supermarket environment with the wide variety and availability of food, all displayed and packaged beautifully, this is the sort of choice consumers have so we have to make sure our services compete with that.
“Eating habits are also different, and although comfort foods are still popular, customers also want to see exciting things. This includes the whole cultural awareness of healthy eating and the changes in eating patterns. Nowadays, people in a very busy office environment don’t generally have an hour for lunch, they eat on the hoof or graze, plus they are conscious of what is in their food, as well as being more morally conscious.
In fact, we won a contract recently because of our Fair Trade coffee offering. “Even though organic ingredients are vastly more expensive, we do have a couple of clients who stipulate using these, so really we have to be aware of what is happening in the market.
“There are always fads coming and going, but healthy eating is a big change that will simply continue in its importance.”Identifying trends and future needs is one area where BaxterStorey invests considerable resources, at the same time as gaining valuable feedback on their existing services and offerings. William explained that this is another area where BaxterSmith and WSH had similar systems in place: “Both companies already had extensive systems for monitoring customer feedback when we merged,” he said.
“This information reveals both our strengths that we can build on and any weaknesses that we need to fix. We ask questions in a number of formats, including surveys, emails, customer comment cards, user groups and annual client surveys, to make sure we reach both those people buying the food at the till and the client who is buying our services. The results ensure we are convers-ant with what customers want and also give us an insight into how we are being perceived.”
William told me that he believes the similarities that existed between the two companies before merger are no coincidence. “Alastair and I both came from Sutcliffes and I don’t think that it is any accident that we came together again,” he said. “Our cultures and attitudes were born in those early days and we both built very successful businesses on these foundations.
“I genuinely believe we have now mixed all the right ingredients for a successful company at BaxterStorey, because the six key management roles are filled by people with the same goal - creating the best business this industry has ever had in all respects,” he concluded. FC
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