Graysons Secures Major Contracts in 2018, Expanding its Catering Excellence

Service with a smile

Graysons started 2018 strong, securing two major contracts worth over £2Mil, while continuing to cater for their core customer and client bases, which include the British Library and The Francis Crick Institute

Led by their founding principles of serving customers passionately by delivering creatively-prepared meals, cooked with the freshest and most local ingredients, Graysons has been thriving in the catering business for a decade now. The firm was established in 2008 by industry leader and innovator Sir Francis Mackay, and today they provide services to recognisable institutions such as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Royal Over-Seas League.

Graysons’ capabilities include running staff restaurants, cafes, and corporate hospitality suites on behalf of their clients, managing conference and event venues, and operating high street cafes and Mackay, and today they provide services to recognisable institutions such as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Royal Over-Seas League.

Graysons’ capabilities include running staff restaurants, cafes, and corporate hospitality suites on behalf of their clients, managing conference and event venues, and operating high street cafes and brasserie style restaurants seven days a week, managing the sales and marketing of the venues, delivering private dining, major conferences and awards dinners, weddings, and day-to-day meeting rooms. Their flexibility allows them to accommodate any requirement their clients might have, from setting up a meeting for two, to catering an outdoor event for thousands of guests.

Among the most popular high street restaurants run by Graysons, are two venues at the British Library, as well as the Café in the Crypt at Christ Church in Spitalfields and Hanbury Hall Coffee Shop on Brick Lane. It would be right to assume that catering for one of the most famous libraries in the world has raised the profile of Graysons significantly. They offer their services at both the St. Pancras and Boston Spa locations, and in the capital, the Library welcomes approximately 1.6 million visitors every year, who can be treated to a range of modern hot meals, soups, artisan sandwiches, and cakes in its Graysonsmanaged public restaurant. In addition to this, the caterer operates the Library’s main café, where they serve artisan coffee, light meals, and salads, and another café on the Piazza – an artisan coffee shop, also serving homemade cakes. Last but not least, Graysons manages the Members’ Room and Members’ Bar, where they serve salads and small plates, grazing sharing platters, afternoon teas, and trendy alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

In East London, Graysons began catering for Christ Church, Spitalfields, following a major renovation of the 18th century Anglican church. They now operate both the Café in the Crypt restaurant, and a separate café on Hanbury Street. The company has also taken the task to market the venue, and they manage events in the Nave, the Crypt, and in Hanbury Hall, ranging from intimate dinners to large-scale awards dinners, parties, music gigs, and numerous wedding receptions.

No compromise

Another important partner of Graysons’ is The Francis Crick Institute in London, one of the country’s largest biomedical research centres, which opened in 2016. Its state-of-the art building houses up to 2000 people, and in it, Graysons operate a sizable staff restaurant, an artisan coffee shop, and a public café. The company has also been catering for QVC since 2012, when the shopping channel moved its premises to its current location in Chiswick Park, in west London. Challenged to serve a busy media centre, Graysons has opened a new restaurant with an open flame oven, a deli bar, and a separate coffee shop in the reception area.

Graysons make no compromise with their principles, always ensuring that they source only the freshest ingredients, delivered by local producers. Their ethos says that food must be tasty and honest, and quality food can only come from exceptional ingredients. The company takes pride in their ability to cook from scratch, using authentic and natural products, prepared in ways that preserve nutrition and deliver healthy, but tasty dishes. Graysons are enthusiastic about educating and sharing with their customers their passion for quality seasonal food, and about promoting natural, sustainable, and enjoyable food that not only supports local British suppliers, fair prices, Fairtrade, and ethical sourcing, but also encourages creative food and drink, which is imaginative, flavoursome, and absolutely on-trend.

With an already impressive portfolio of clients, and the upholding of strong beliefs of how food and customers alike should be treated, the news that Graysons has secured two major contracts early in 2018, comes as no surprise. The caterer launched their services at Ricardo, an engineering, environmental, and strategic consultancy in Shoreham, West Sussex, in early January. The newly-signed contract is worth over £1.7 million, engaging Graysons to provide hospitality services for a period of five years.

The company also won a contract with IOP Publishing, a publishing house based in Temple Meads, Bristol, which is also a subsidiary of the Institute of Physics. The £550,000 agreement will see Graysons provide catering services for IOP Publishing in the next three years, managing the company’s staff restaurant, and taking care of the 340 employees working onsite.

Evidently, Graysons are enjoying an exciting increase in their workload, and a greatly enlarged footprint, meaning that we can expect them to remain in the centre of the catering industry in the near future, thanks to their outstanding customer care, inspired preparation of dishes, and prowess in event management and innovation.