Sunday Times - 1 Oct 2000
By John O'Donnell

Alison Robinson's Artizian Catering has grown by adopting trendy food from the high street and serving it in the workplace.

ARTIZIAN Catering Services has a gastronomic mission: to make eating in the office canteen an exciting experience. The company's recipe is to transform drab canteens into stylish restaurants where diners can choose from a menu and have their meals freshly prepared. It may sound far-fetched, but Artizian's annual sales, set to reach £3.3m this year, suggest that its formula is working.

Alison Robinson founded Artizian three-and-a-half years ago. Since then she has combined quality chefs with what she claims is a unique food offering to transform lunchtime for hundreds of office workers. Colourful fittings and furniture replace the typical dull and impersonal surroundings.

Robinson says: "We run restaurants rather than canteens where the food is fresh and looks appealing. We want customers to feel they are stepping out of their office when they go to the canteen - eating is such an emotive thing and it should be fun."

Customers are catching on to the appeal. Ogilvy & Mather, the advertising agency, recently gave Artizian an £800,000 contract after an Ogilvy director sampled Artizian's fare during a visit to another customer. Clients also include Alfred Dunhill, the luxury-goods firm, the British Bankers' Association, Gartner Group, the information-technology consultant, and Morley Fund Management.

The key to the Artizian eating experience lies in the firm's adoption of high-street eating trends. Robinson says: "A lot of the companies we work with are in IT and are based in America so we have to be ahead of the latest trends. We find out what the latest ideas in America are and bring them back."

The company also does research closer to home to stay ahead of the competition. Artizian chefs regularly dine out to learn about the latest eating trends and Robinson insists all her managers find out about local eating alternatives for canteen users.

"We have to be aware of what is around locally and what the customer is used to," she says. "Our managers eat out in restaurants and talk to potential customers and then come back with their ideas." The best of these are adopted.

Artizian has managed to overcome one of the biggest difficulties in catering, that of recruiting staff. When the company wins a new contract it sends a team to the local job centre to promote the firm. Such unconventional tactics have produced 18 of Artizian's 91 workers.

The Berkshire-based company has also cut the cost of worker illness, another problem endemic in the poorly paid catering sector. Artizian offers above-average pay and other benefits to boost morale and help reduce stress.

Robinson is confident her company's rapid growth will continue. But she is determined that expansion will not be at the expense of service, so she is keeping high levels of managerial staff, employing three area managers to look after her 13 contracts.

She says: "When I was an area manager with Granada I had 28 contracts and I was stretched. All you end up doing is focusing on the finance.

"We want to bring back the focus to food and the quality of food. But we can only deliver that if our managers have the time to do it."