Farrscatering
Junior Member
- Joined
- 7 Sep 2018
- Messages
- 45
Good Morning all. I trust you are all well.
So as you’ve all seen we were able to publicly announce our new partnership with OUFC. We are now working directly with OUFC with the combined goal to push the match day experience further together.
Apologies for not jumping in sooner but we have been flat out our end, and I’ve only just had time to sit down and go through it all.
After reading some of the feedback I would like to take this opportunity to share our side of the events and where we currently are.
So as some of you may not know we had very little time to to get ready this year. 3 days prior to the start of the season myself and OUFC finally came to an agreement. Needless to say as a small business I was not in the position to commit resources and money to a contract we had not signed. This ment we had an extremely short time to get prepared. But we just about managed it, coupled with the need to install new tills, and get all the wifi infrastructure in place on Friday night ment we undoubtedly experienced issues Saturday, as I’m sure some of you experienced.
I’m glad to say the tills worked brilliantly on Tuesday, something I’m very proud of.
Now for the other issues, as you are all aware there is product shortages and a shortage of staff at the minute, it’s not just us experiencing this shortage, the whole country is. Coupled with the fact 95% of our staff Saturday and Tuesday have never worked for us before, they were all new and in-experienced, this obviously brings it own issues, but we’re hoping to get these new staff trained quickly and up to speed.
As for Lager, usually we use plastic bottles, these are by far the quickest way to serve, but due to bottling plants dropping plastic at the beginning of lock down, like the microchip shortage, they are taking they’re time to get plastic bottles of lager out to us. This is completely out of our hands and the next best alternative is cans, is it perfect, hell no, is it a complete pain in the a**e, hell yes, do I wish I could have plastic again, absolutly, but there is no plastic bottles of lager in the country, trust me I’ve searched.
Now yes there has been hiccups, and there has been issues, but I want to make one thing very clear, my staff are trying they’re best. And we will absolutely not tolerate any abuse of our staff, to the people who found it acceptable to swear and abuse our staff, and the gentleman who decided to physically assault a member of staff you will be refused service and reported to the club, what ever the issues it does not give anyone the right to throw items at our staff.
So what’s happening moving forward.
Till System, the new tills are working well, and we will look to expand the number of tills and enable the ability to activate online pre ordering. We will soon no longer be taking cash, and will move to card only, so please pay by card where ever possible.
Burgers, so we’ve heard, and we’re looking to change, we are looking at better packaging and finding ways to make the product better.
Prices, yes prices have gone up, unfortunately we have had no choice, but to put it into context we are now at the same prices centre plate was charging 7 years ago.
Half time queues, it is a fact of life that serving 6000-7000 people in 20 minutes will inevitably see queues, it is simply not possible to serve that weight of people that quickly, not even McDonald’s can pull that level of service off. Now my self and the club are looking at different avenues to see what can be done, but with the design of the stadium the way it is we are limited by what we can do. For what it’s worth we are serving more people then centreplate ever could, and year on year the speed of service has increased.
Staff, it is no secret we have always struggled to find staff, this is despite having 4 - 5 agencies trying to find staff, paying above living wage for our own staff, and spending a small fortune on advertising. Oxford is notorious for Being difficult to find staff. Coupled with ping gate and a current lack of casual workers willing and able to work we are struggling. So if you know of anyone looking for work please point them our way.
Product availability, we are pretty much back to full capacity on all products, but that’s not to say lines won’t run out or be unavailable. We will do everything we can to ensure this doesn’t happen, but ultimately if we can’t get it we can’t sell it.
New products - starting today we are introducing a new larger steak pasty, and we are working with chunk to introduce a vegan pasty. We are also exploring options to add a vegan & gluten free unit outside, but we need to make sure it’s right. We are also working with the club to see what new products would be suitable for match days.
As OUFC have stated we are working together and it is our honest intention is to improve the match day experience for fans, and I am dedicated to that commitment.
I look forward to seeing you all today and here’s to a great season.
Kindest regards
Bailey, Rebecca & Boys.
So as you’ve all seen we were able to publicly announce our new partnership with OUFC. We are now working directly with OUFC with the combined goal to push the match day experience further together.
Apologies for not jumping in sooner but we have been flat out our end, and I’ve only just had time to sit down and go through it all.
After reading some of the feedback I would like to take this opportunity to share our side of the events and where we currently are.
So as some of you may not know we had very little time to to get ready this year. 3 days prior to the start of the season myself and OUFC finally came to an agreement. Needless to say as a small business I was not in the position to commit resources and money to a contract we had not signed. This ment we had an extremely short time to get prepared. But we just about managed it, coupled with the need to install new tills, and get all the wifi infrastructure in place on Friday night ment we undoubtedly experienced issues Saturday, as I’m sure some of you experienced.
I’m glad to say the tills worked brilliantly on Tuesday, something I’m very proud of.
Now for the other issues, as you are all aware there is product shortages and a shortage of staff at the minute, it’s not just us experiencing this shortage, the whole country is. Coupled with the fact 95% of our staff Saturday and Tuesday have never worked for us before, they were all new and in-experienced, this obviously brings it own issues, but we’re hoping to get these new staff trained quickly and up to speed.
As for Lager, usually we use plastic bottles, these are by far the quickest way to serve, but due to bottling plants dropping plastic at the beginning of lock down, like the microchip shortage, they are taking they’re time to get plastic bottles of lager out to us. This is completely out of our hands and the next best alternative is cans, is it perfect, hell no, is it a complete pain in the a**e, hell yes, do I wish I could have plastic again, absolutly, but there is no plastic bottles of lager in the country, trust me I’ve searched.
Now yes there has been hiccups, and there has been issues, but I want to make one thing very clear, my staff are trying they’re best. And we will absolutely not tolerate any abuse of our staff, to the people who found it acceptable to swear and abuse our staff, and the gentleman who decided to physically assault a member of staff you will be refused service and reported to the club, what ever the issues it does not give anyone the right to throw items at our staff.
So what’s happening moving forward.
Till System, the new tills are working well, and we will look to expand the number of tills and enable the ability to activate online pre ordering. We will soon no longer be taking cash, and will move to card only, so please pay by card where ever possible.
Burgers, so we’ve heard, and we’re looking to change, we are looking at better packaging and finding ways to make the product better.
Prices, yes prices have gone up, unfortunately we have had no choice, but to put it into context we are now at the same prices centre plate was charging 7 years ago.
Half time queues, it is a fact of life that serving 6000-7000 people in 20 minutes will inevitably see queues, it is simply not possible to serve that weight of people that quickly, not even McDonald’s can pull that level of service off. Now my self and the club are looking at different avenues to see what can be done, but with the design of the stadium the way it is we are limited by what we can do. For what it’s worth we are serving more people then centreplate ever could, and year on year the speed of service has increased.
Staff, it is no secret we have always struggled to find staff, this is despite having 4 - 5 agencies trying to find staff, paying above living wage for our own staff, and spending a small fortune on advertising. Oxford is notorious for Being difficult to find staff. Coupled with ping gate and a current lack of casual workers willing and able to work we are struggling. So if you know of anyone looking for work please point them our way.
Product availability, we are pretty much back to full capacity on all products, but that’s not to say lines won’t run out or be unavailable. We will do everything we can to ensure this doesn’t happen, but ultimately if we can’t get it we can’t sell it.
New products - starting today we are introducing a new larger steak pasty, and we are working with chunk to introduce a vegan pasty. We are also exploring options to add a vegan & gluten free unit outside, but we need to make sure it’s right. We are also working with the club to see what new products would be suitable for match days.
As OUFC have stated we are working together and it is our honest intention is to improve the match day experience for fans, and I am dedicated to that commitment.
I look forward to seeing you all today and here’s to a great season.
Kindest regards
Bailey, Rebecca & Boys.
