The concept of Robert Alvarez' catering service is fast gourmet
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food. He and his team drive to a site which could be a field or a chateau and produce hundreds of meals from the trailer kitchen.
Robert Alvarez describes his line of work as a "theatre of food" but this Northampton-based corporate caterer rarely has time for rehearsals. He has to be on site, in the limelight, serving freshly cooked gourmet food within minutes of parking up.
Next month, for example, he'll drive his 401t trailer on to a Finnish carrier docked in East London, park in the main hold and prepare a meal of Finnish food for 400 guests. He's even ordering an ice sculpture to set off the bar. It comes as no surprise that he uses some very specialised equipment.
Alvarez, 35, owns and runs Phoenix Catering of Northampton. He started his career arranging risks as a Lloyds broker, but changed direction and completed his City and Guilds chef's qualifications at 21. Cutting his salary in l'af, he got a job with Trusthouse Forte as a 6W' lee manager, ending up as food and beverag,..3 manager at one of its four-star hotels, Burford Bridge Hotel in Surrey "I had the wanderlust and so went travelling, feeding race teams and sponsors," he says. The caterer he was working for at that time shut his business with bad debts, "so Phoenix Catering rose from the ashes of another bloke's demise".
Alvarez now specialises in outdoor event days, many of which are themed, and corporate hospitality. That could mean preparing and dishing up Cajun stir-fried chicken for 600 hundred people in a field, or classic British food such as venison sausages braised in ale, Irish stew and colcannon and bread and butter pudding for a Midland Bank conference in Fontainebleau, France. "We make all the food ourselves. There's a pile of raw ingredients in the fridge; we get on site and cook it," says Alvarez.
Capacity
He and his operations manager, Mathew O'Donnell, do the preparation and cooking in two trailers which are equipped as professional kitchens, with cookers, steamers, hot cupboards, work surfaces and sinks The 7m twin-axle trailer has doors in the side and rear and has capacity for preparing 100-120 hot meals, It used to be towed behind a Range Rover but is now pulled by a B-reg Dodge reefer which was bought in 1994. This has a tail-lift and, when hitched up to the trailer, extends to 17.5m. "Not exactly your shy retiring bit of kit," says Alvarez. "The kitchen fridges work off the Dodge. It's not over train weight and it creates the right image. When you turn up, people see you've got a fridge unit" And image is all-important when it comes to food, says Alvarez: "People are trusting you with the catering for their big day. It doesn't matter if it's a wedding or six hundred to a thousand people—they want to feel they're dealing with a big business."
The Dodge only has 6,000km on the clock but while it's been "an outstanding bit of kit", Alvarez says its days are numbered: "Enough is enough. It either needs tender loving care or repainting. On the mechanical side it's in firstclass condition, but I don't think the clutch will last another season, so we're after an Hreg 24ft fridge or freezer body with a tail-lift that's reasonably clean and tidy" I-le intends to take the box off the Dodge for use as a static store and sell the chassis for export or breaking.
Mobile kitchen
The other mobile kitchen is contained in a 40ft trailer, in which 250 hot meals can be prepared. It has a 10x8ft fridge at the front and 301t of ambient space at the rear. "We cut two doors in the side which are hinged.at the bottom so we can drop them down." These doors have alloy steps on the sides of hinged panels for easy access. This trailer is pulled by a tractor rented from W Right in Cog-enhoe, Northampton.
Depending on the location of each job Alvarez usually drives the artic himself but sometimes makes use of a traction service from Drapers in Long Buckby.
Alvarez bought his Ford Cargo last October when he needed a 7.5-tonner with a tow hitch for a particular job and couldn't find one to rent. "So I said I'd buy one," he says. "I was going to sell it but it's proved to be indispensable. It went straight on the 0-licence and never came off." He also has a non-HGV 8x6ft twin-axle fridge freezer trailer.
Vehicle maintenance is handled by Cuttle Mill Engineering in Towcester, which does a very good job, says Alvarez: "We have a vehicle defect book so if there are any problems the top copy goes with the keys straight to them so they know what they're doing." Alvarez gives Cuttle Mill carte blanche on his vehicles. While he's paying for the vehicles to be kept in a safe condition, he also wants reliability: "If we're in the middle of a field at 5am and the lorry won't start, it doesn't keep you in a good frame of mind."
Vehicle maintenance is a subject close to Alvarez's heart. He spends a disproportionate amount of time worrying about the condition of his vehicles, "probably because I'm paranoid about it," he says. "There are
inure ways they can send me to prison over the vehicles than on the catering side. The penalties outweigh the time involved in checking and double checking."
He has the brakes on the small non-HGV trailer checked even though he is not required to do so by law. "But I have it done for peace of mind," he explains. "It doesn't affect the quality of the food that ends up on the plate, which is how learn my living. Haulage has its share of cowboys, ready to run without documentation and the such-like, but we face the double prospect of the man from the ministry and also the environmental health officer—and it's sod's law that the latter normally arrives as Pm lying under a lorry!"
Turnover for the year ending 31 October 1998 will be £450,000 but will shoot up to Lim the year after because of the increase from 4,000 Christmas meals last year to 15,000 booked for this year.
Because some sites are booked by the hour there's not much time to set the kitchens up. Alvarez says he could hire kitchens in which to prepare his food, but he likes the convenience of his own transport. He reckons transport cost him around £25,000 last year, including the £2,500 he spent on the hire of the tractive unit. He's now hoping to buy his own artic: his chef is in training for his HGV licence.
He's toying with the idea of an Nem Ford or an MAN: "They're reasonably well-specced vehicles, but they don't have huge residuals bemuse by the time I've finished with them, they'll be too old to go into haulage."
0 by Nicky Clarke
FACTF1LE:
FOUNDED: 1992. CONTACT: Robert Alvarez, proprietor. FLEET: A 16-tonne B-reg fridge Dodge and a 7.5-tonne Ford Cargo. One 40ft trailer converted into a kitchen and two non-HGV trailers. SPECIALITY CONTRACT: Corporate catering. TURNOVER: £450,000 a year.