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MEALS ON WHEELS • or how to cater in coaches

23rd March 1973, Page 37
23rd March 1973
Page 37
Page 38
Page 41
Page 37, 23rd March 1973 — MEALS ON WHEELS • or how to cater in coaches
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

by Martin Hayes

1N-COACH catering could be the way to give your tours or express services a new boost — and the difficulties may not be so great as you imagine. After all, a whole section of the catering industry is built on providing pre-packed meals for airlines. All that is needed — as an investigation I have just completed reveals — is an initiative from operators. They must alert the catering industry to the benefits which could be derived from applying this ready-made technology to coaching.

The advantages of in-coach catering are many. One of the most important is the potential saving in time. A full meal stop for a loaded coach may take up to hours, as many operators know to their cast. With ever more stringent drivers' hours regulations being enforced, savings on any non-travelling journey time could be critical for a trip's success and profitability.

On inclusive tours there could be valuable cost savings involved • in do-it-yourself methods, as indicated by the prices quoted in this article

But it is in the field of promoting the coaching image that most operators would look to serving their own .meals. Ways and means of increasing the number of passengers using coaches are at ' the forefront of operators' minds, at present and many agree that one surefire method• 'is to improve the image. The theme of one. recent

conference was the lessons operators could learn from the airline industry. One of the most obvious is surely catering for passengers while they are in transit. Indeed, it is the companies geared to producing meals for airline passengers which appear best suited to providing similar facilities for coach travellers.

On the way

Mr Geoffrey Steel, operations manager, British holidays for Wallace Arnold Tours Ltd told me recently that he was sure that meal-service would be a routine part of coach operation in years to come "but it is still a little way off". He pointed out that for the full time-saving benefits to be accrued it would be necessary to fit toilets to vehicles. "If you are going to do it you must do it right," he said. For a large company like his it would obviously make sound economic sense to introduce meal service on a large scale rather than piecemeal — no pun intended.

But in fact service of meals on British coaches is not new. The Standerwick wing of Ribble began serving meals on its express services way back in 1959. Double-deck coaches were used on routes from Preston to London, Bristol and Scotland and equipped with both toilets and galley. These concentrated on serving light refreshments and drinks. In 1963, some 260,000 items were sold on the coaches. Such was the• success of this venture that full meals were served to passengers on some excursions and tours. In an experimental trip to Keswick 50 passengers were served with a three-course lunch and coffee in less than 30min.

Mr J. R. Mitchell, Ribble's catering officer, admits that its meals service "died an unnatural death". The service, which proved very popular with passengers, was discontinued on express services when the motorway service areas became fully functional. But Mr Mitchell thinks there is still scope on tours work where quick, reasonably-priced meals can be difficult to come by.

Before we go any further, perhaps it would be sensible to consider just what type of meals are feasible and how much vehicle modification would. be necessary to serve them. Though Mr Mitchell successfully experimented on a small scale with hot meals, for most operators cold meals, very

similar to those served on short-haul airline services, are likely to be the most suitable. Obviously hot drinks and soup could be served as well.

Most aircraft meals are consumed within about eight to 10 hours of their Collection. There seems no reason why coach meals should be any different. However, suppliers of this type of meal say that they can be kept for up to 48 hours, though 24 hours would be a more feasible limit. Either way the meal merely needs to be kept cool. To ensure this a simple container in the vehicle's boot cooled by rechargeable dry ice would be adequate. Mr Dennis Foster, marketing manager of Willowbrook, told me that this could be installed for as little as £50.

It was on a Willowbrook vehicle that I have had my only experience of eating a meal on a coach. On a trip to Paris (reported in CM on December 1) we were served a cold meal in a lay-by near Calais. On this occasion most people balanced the plastic meal trays on folded travelling rugs on their knees. This arrangement worked remarkably well but is clearly only practicable when the vehicle is stationary. For meals eaten on the move — and then only on motorways — individual tables would be required.

Mr A. 1. Adams, chief designer of the Chaprnans seating concern, told me that putting tables on the backs of coach seats was by no means impossible. Costs would vary depending on the degree of sophistication required and seat pitch would need to be quite generous. He did suggest that some form of removable table which clipped on to the armrests might be a cheaper alternative.

On our trip to Paris, three dozen people were served with, ate and enjoyed a perfectly adequate meal in half an hour. Mr Foster estimates that a similar meal would have cost three times as much and taken at least twice as long to consume if it had been served to us at even a basic motorway service area.

As I have said, availability of suitable meals seems to be restricted at present to the in-flight catering companies. During my recent inquiries it has become clear that most caterers have never seriously considered the coach market. Several companies I contacted expressed interest in the idea and said that they could well be interested if there were sufficient demand.

In fact, coach operators interested in

providing in-coach meals for their customers cOuld do worse than contact the caterers listed in the Yellow Pages. Obviously it will be number and frequency of meals required that will govern cost and availability. If you want 40 meals on one-off basis, then it will be expensive. If the same quantity is required for 10 consecutive weeks during the season then the response should be a lot more satisfactory

By far the largest flight caterer is the Airport Catering Services wing of the Trust House-Forte empire. It prepares 15m meals a year and has the advantage for coach operators of having a national spread of outlets. These are located at all of the UK's 14 major airports (together with Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome and Brussels).

ACS is able to offer a wide range of meals at an equally wide range of prices. Price per head could vary from 55p to £1.50 which is thought to be a "realistic" maximum. These prices would presumably be subject to discount for large quantities. The other cost variable is the equipment specified. All-plastic disposable trays and cutlery would cost between 11+p and 14p per head on top of this. An alternative would be for an operator to purchase or lease better quality re-usable trays and stainless steel cutlery but there would then be a washing-up problem. Plastics have the advantage of disposability but suffer from an image problem, though plastic cutlery is common enough on aircraft these days. On the staff side, disposable meals are supplied in packs and can quite easily be served by a driver without the need for a hostess.

Of course aircraft have facilities for heating liquids. Using an ordinary coach albeit with a toilet — then vacuum flasks are probably the most sensible answer. On "executive" coaches there would be no problem and most coachbuilders should have little difficulty in including a water heating device on even a basic-specification vehicle.

In-coach catering is unlikely to get off the ground until enough operators decide they want it. Only then will the advantages of bulk buying and national distribution be fully realized. But, as Mr Steel of Wallace Arnold said, serving meals on coaches must come. The spur to operators who are interested will be competition for passengers — both those in the executive market and those on the inclusive trip field.

Meals on wheels inay be one of the most effective means of disposing of the old-fashioned image of coaching — not least through being identified with modern airline traveL •


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