Catering services

Tender description

The contract for a new catering service is for two of the School's buildings: the Clinical School (main building) and Capella (opening mind-2018). It is our hope that in offering a large-scale contract, resources will be shared and economised allowing for a higher quality, cost-effective service across the two buildings. The Clinical School (main building) is looking for a catering service for its students and staff to begin 1.5.2017. The Clinical School will be increasing its student numbers from 540 to 840 (starting in 2017, gaining full numbers by 2019) and, together with roughly 100 administrative staff, this means the catering service will need to anticipate an increasing footfall in the café. The building itself consists of four floors: Basement, Ground Floor, First Floor and Second Floor. The café is located next to the entrance on the Ground Floor, which consists mainly of teaching and meeting rooms and the student common room. The Clinical School's library is on the First Floor and the Second Floor houses numerous offices and further meeting and teaching spaces. A challenge of the site is that clinical students do not spend all of their teaching time at Addenbrooke's but around other teaching hospitals in the area. Therefore, the catering provider will have to work with the Clinical School staff to predict these peaks and troughs in service. The newly refurbished café will have capacity for c.100. The catering provider will be expected to advertise the café and have innovative ideas for encouraging its usage and increasing its visibility in the school. The refurbished building has been designed to be a welcoming public space for all of the building's users and the catering providers must contribute to this goal. Core opening times will be between 9:00 and 15:00, providing a small selection of breakfast items but primarily focusing on a lunch and drinks/snacks service. The caterer may choose to open for longer if they feel this is beneficial and viable. In a survey conducted to gauge the potential future usage of the café, the results indicated that around 14 % of the building's users will use it every day, 25 % 3-4 times a week, and 35 % 1-2 times a week.