The Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO) is a joint committee of Local Authorities that acts as a purchasing agent for its member authorities including Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Cambridge, Norfolk and Warwickshire County Councils, as well as private and foundation schools, hospitals, leisure centres and civic catering and single service authorities.
ESPO’s role is to negotiate competitive food purchasing, source new products, monitor quality and ensure legal compliance. The organisation takes total responsibility ensuring the foods bought comply with all current food legislation.
By keeping their contract and supply system flexible, ESPO is able to provide a highly personalised service to meet its customers’ needs that is both professional and cost effective. Its total combined member procurement value is over £700 million per annum.
Ensuring quality standards
“Delivering value to our customers is a critical part of our service,” explains Karen Grewcock, Group Buyer for ESPO. “In order to do this to a high standard, we need to ensure that every one of our suppliers meet a set criteria so that we can deliver on our promise.”
“The processes we had in place to check the certification of suppliers and the quality of the products and systems the food goes through were ok, but were not in-depth or sufficient to ensure that our suppliers were going to meet the needs of both ESPO and our customers. They were not robust and certainly lacked an independent view.
“Furthermore, these processes were largely focussed upon large suppliers,” explains Karen. “This often resulted in smaller suppliers being unable to tender for contracts because obtaining certification to standards such as the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety were felt to be out of reach.“
ESPO was looking for a support service where the whole spectrum of their suppliers could be assessed to achievable but stringent standards.
“We needed an independent partner that could assess every one of our suppliers, regardless of size, to ensure that we are supporting both our customers and our supply chain effectively,” said Karen. “And that’s when we turned to STS. In STS we have found a professional partner that provides us with expert advice.”
A long term partnership
In 2003, ESPO selected STS as its food supply chain management partner focused on managing the certification of food suppliers and providing professional advice where required.
“Our relationship with STS has grown from strength to strength,” comments Karen. “We now use the STS Code of Practice for Suppliers to the Public Sector as the only accepted standard for all our suppliers to be certified to as part of tender requirements.”
Clients, suppliers and ESPO all benefit
Karen knows that this approach has benefited everyone in the supply chain. ”The quality of service that STS delivers to our suppliers means everyone benefits. The availability of professional advice from the team at STS means that we can call on them at any time to help us with food safety issues that arise.
“We are able to provide a quality service to our clients, giving them peace of mind that they are being provided with safe and wholesome foods at all times, from reliable sources and at competitive prices,” Karen continues.
“Our suppliers benefit from being professionally certified, not just in winning a contract to supply ESPO, but also in winning other contracts through demonstrating that high quality food safety standards have been achieved and maintained.
“In addition to all this, working with STS supports our risk management systems by ensuring suppliers that do not achieve the STS Code of Practice for Suppliers to the Public Sector are removed from the approved lists immediately,” Karen continues. “We can also promote that we are compliant with the 2008 Pennington report that recommended all public sector suppliers should be audited by third parties. And I’m pleased to say that since working with STS ESPO has not had any legal challenges due to the ESPO due diligence demonstrating the robust nature of the processes now in place.”
In conclusion, Karen believes that “the professional services and positive approach to food supply chain management by STS has helped to reduce food safety risks to our clients and also has helped to maintain our moral obligation to ensure that only safe and wholesome foods are sourced”.
ESPO
ISS Facility Services – Healthcare is part of the international ISS group. The group has grown over the past 20 years and they are one of the leading hospital support services suppliers in the UK.
The challenge
ISS Healthcare wanted to ensure that both their company and their suppliers were adhering to all the necessary food safety regulations. Without trained internal assessors in food manufacturer and supplier safety, they decided to use an external body.
The solution<
With years of experience with supplier assessment, STS was the ideal partner to also provide a comprehensive solution for the food suppliers to ISS Healthcare.
ISS Healthcare awarded their first contract to STS in 1987. Initially this was for training their cleaning staff and ward hostesses in both food safety and health & safety, and then the contract expanded to include development of company food safety documentation, and STS implemented a comprehensive auditing programme of each catering operation, a programme still undertaken annually.
Creating relationships
We have developed a successful working relationship with ISS Healthcare over the last 20 years.
With a vast knowledge of their company, services and suppliers, built up over the years, we give specific information and guidance that meets their exact requirements. STS continue to provide audits of their catering operations and supplier assessment to help ISS Healthcare meet and exceed high standards of food safety expected of hospital caterers.
ISS Facility Services - Healthcare
Thomas Cook is the longest serving, and one of the best known, brand names in travel. They operate in all parts of the travel industry – airlines, hotels, tour operators, travel and incoming agencies. They have a strong international presence across all sectors.
The challenge
Tour Operators and accommodation providers have a legal obligation to ensure the safety of their guests. The industry has taken considerable action to meet these requirements, including the development of a comprehensive Code of Practice, pro-active auditing programme and re-active investigations in the case of any illness outbreak.
With the demand for safe accommodation, the ‘blame-claim’ culture and legislative requirements, there is a need for Thomas Cook to set comprehensive standards for accommodation, assess performance and provide clear guidance. This includes standards in keeping of the country’s legal requirements.
The solution
There is a very limited number of companies with the experience and personnel to undertake such work. Thomas Cook identified the need to utilise qualified and experienced Environmental Health Officers with good communication skills.
STS have both the personnel and the experience, working with the Federation of Tour Operators to develop both the preferred Code of Practice and audit layout.
Creating relationships
STS have developed a successful working relationship with Thomas Cook over a number of years. We have provided telephone support for any queries, a worldwide auditing programme and where necessary, support for hoteliers implementing food safety management systems based on HACCP.
In the event of increased illness in a unit or resort we examine the illness figures to determine any trends, etc. and in appropriate cases travel to the resort to investigate and identify the potential cause.
Thomas Cook
Nottingham University is a well-established, reputable university. It has a student population of around 25,000. The university’s catering department is extensive and it alone has an annual turnover of £32 million+.
The challenge
Nottingham University has high standards of food safety and health & safety, and wanted to ensure that they were maintained and where possible improved across all of its catering outlets and halls of residence.
Due to the substantial number of halls of residence and restaurants, it was difficult to organise and monitor safety checks. Maintaining consistently high standards would involve investing considerable time, resources and finance.
It proved more cost effective and to employ the expertise of STS.
The solution
We were able to help the university in a variety of ways, all of which enabled them to maintain the necessary high standards, whilst saving precious time.
We first conducted an initial assessment of the university’s operations. By analysing and understanding their requirements, we tailored STS’ ‘Simply Safe’ Food Safety and Health & Safety documentation to the university’s own specific needs.
Management were trained on the system and subsequently the training cascaded down to all food handlers.
Ensuring ongoing results
To ensure that high standards were maintained in all areas, STS introduced annual audits. These enabled us to check that the correct safety standards were being followed. In each catering operation, documentation and practices are observed.
The auditor also spends valuable time with the manager, discussing practical solutions for areas requiring more attention.
STS understand that to maintain these standards the workforce needs to be motivated. This is why we provide each catering operation with a comprehensive scored report, based on their overall standards achieved. The units that achieve 90% or above during their audit receive the STS ‘Certificate of Excellence’. This creates healthy competition between outlets; which is encouraged, as it helps to drive standards upward.
Audits are unannounced throughout the year, to encourage team to maintain the highest safety standards all year round.
STS have provided further support to the university by responding to technical queries, updating documentation and development an ‘eye-catching’ HACCP poster for display in each catering operation.
Creating relationships
Over the years we have developed an excellent working relationship with staff and management alike. This, along with an established proven track record of success with the university, has meant that they were happy to renew 5-year contracts with STS, which are ongoing.
Nottingham University
