220 serves on a live site,
booked in three days.

The situation

John Holland came to us directly. The enquiry was about feeding a crew of 220 on one of their sites.

The number that matters here is three. Three days from the first message to a truck on their site with 220 meals coming out of it. On a construction program that is often the whole window there is. Dates move, milestones land early, and the decision to feed the crew properly tends to get made the same week it happens. Most of the work in a job like that is not the cooking, it is being able to say yes quickly and then actually turn up.

Our approach

We sent the Abu snack pack truck. Everything on that truck is halal. For a crew with halal requirements, that makes choosing a meal straightforward. Let us know about allergies and any other dietary requirements when you enquire so we can confirm suitable options.

The plan was a single truck across a two hour window, on their site rather than at an office. Self contained, as always: our own generator, our own gas, our own water. On an active site that matters, because it means nobody has to arrange a power drop or find us a tap on a morning they are already busy.

Then we did something they had not asked for. We brought extra stock of other products on the day, over and above the agreed menu, purely so anyone who fancied something different could have it. If someone wanted fried chicken on the day, they got fried chicken. It was not on the order and nobody would have known to miss it. We would just rather turn up with it than without it.

The challenge

On paper this is a demanding brief. Two hundred and twenty serves, one truck, a two hour window, and three days from the first message to service. That works out to an average of about two serves a minute across the window, with a menu and a stock order to lock in before service.

It is also the brief we are built around. Short notice is a scheduling question for us rather than a cooking one. Four trucks means there is usually one free, we know exactly what crew a job this size needs, and snack packs are a quick item to get out of a window at volume. Our fastest genuine turnaround is 24 hours, so three days left us room to move. We took the job knowing we could do it properly, and then we did.

The outcome

All 220 were fed inside the two hour window from the one truck. The feedback back to us was that they really enjoyed the food, the service was fast, and the volume was handled comfortably.

The part we were happiest about was the extra stock. It was not in the brief and it cost us something to carry, but it meant that if someone wanted fried chicken on the day, they got fried chicken. That is the difference between catering a crew and feeding people, and it only happens if you have decided to do it before you leave the commissary.