Artizian
Julian Urrutia is Catering Manager for Artizian, boutique contract caterer, at 111 Buckingham Palace Road. He and his team cater for the 800 personnel, mainly 25-35 year olds, that occupy the building from The Skylobby Café, the only catering facility on site. They serve around 320 breakfasts and lunches every day; the majority during the morning.
Julian says his main objectives are to ensure a smooth service for customers, making sure the standard of food is always high, while being innovative and on-trend. “One of our biggest challenges is keeping customers on site so we need to stay up to date with the latest concepts on the high street and ensure our entire offer is competitive, from speed of service to style of food served. This is not without its obstacles; we have limited space, we are in an open plan area with no extraction and queues can build quickly on busy days. Our most popular items are hot, freshly prepared ‘grab & go’ items such as the ubiquitous Panini and toasties but our homemade chicken fajita and taco beef wraps, are among the top sellers.”
Prior to using the Panasonic SCV-2 Julian had been coping with a Panini contact grill which was not only slow, it created smoke and a lot of smells and the food was always presented squashed flat. He describes how the Panasonic SCV-2 has helped improved his service; “Initially there were a few considerations that we had to overcome; the SCV-2 needs to operate with a 16amp commando plug but we presented our case to the client and they bought into the potential benefits and agreed to have the power supply installed for us. Since then, the benefits have been noted, one of those being how fast it cooks and with the internal grill, it also browns and produces a crisp finish, so customers are served quicker and the quality of the food is much better - nothing is squashed anymore! Thanks to the built-in catalytic converter, the SCV-2 has no need for external ventilation, there is no smoke and no strong smells either. This was important to our client as we are in an open atrium, with offices all around.”
So, has the Speed Convection Oven been a success? “Most certainly; we have been able to improve our service and enhance our menu,” says Julian. “Tim Futter, Panasonic’s sales development chef, worked with us on developing the menu offer and as a result, we’ve been able to include items on the menu that we couldn’t previously! I would recommend this oven to others, its performance has exceeded expectations, our customers have commented on the improvements and our client has noticed the reduction in queue time during busy periods.”