A closer look at the winners…

Petty Officer Andrew Bailey Winner of the Armed Services Award On joining HMS Tireless, PO 'Bill' Bailey was faced with the immediate challenge of an underperforming section, producing food to the minimum standard. This, combined with a significant financial deficit and high stock discrepancy ratio, led to a poor assessment at the boat's previous Base Inspection (BI). Quality of food is close to the heart of all submariners, especially during the gruelling conditions of a long deployment. PO Bailey worked closely with the Galley staff . Starting with the basics, he emphasised the need to take pride in what is served and stressed the use of fresh produce where possible. The improvement in the daily fare was recognised instantly and was greatly appreciated by the whole crew. He achieved this whilst transforming a negative catering balance of £1,300 to just £250 and reducing the stocktaking discrepancy ratio to less than 3%. In six months in the post, he exceeded all expectations achieving a strong assessment at the next BI. A natural leader, he was selected ahead of more experienced candidates for the roles of departmental coordinator, departmental training coordinator and senior rates' mess vice president. He has led his team with vigour, innovation and discipline. The departmental training routines he established were recognised by Flag Officer Sea Training as 'best practice' and have subsequently been incorporated into future training for the Submarine Fleet. His innovation, leadership and commitment to food quality at Tireless has both added to operational capability and increased the standing of its logistics department. Manchester Fayre School Meals – Manchester City Council Winner of the Education Award Manchester Fayre is the in-house school meal provider for Manchester City Council. The company caters for more than 150 nursery, primary, special and secondary schools across the city, serving around 32,000 meals a day. Under the leadership of Head of Catering & Town Hall Services Steve Southern, the catering team's aim is to address the health inequalities that exist in the city. The catering service provides school meals that are value for money and strive to improve the health of Manchester's future generation. Manchester Fayre is committed to ensuring all pupils have access to a healthy nutritious and freshly prepared school meal. This is facilitated by its extensive bespoke training and personal development programme covering all legislative developments and vocational subjects such as health and nutrition. This comprehensive training programme has aided the company in addressing the current economic downturn as investment in staff is returned through mentoring, leadership skills and multi-skilling. Manchester's school meals market contains many inner city schools with a range of diverse catering facilities. These include private contract grammar schools, Food 4 Life schools, schools with multi-ethnicity pupils and schools located in areas of high deprivation. The company developed Fresh Fayre, a concept that offers pupils freshly prepared, healthy and nutritious meals with more choice and a self-serve facility. The new concept has been introduced to 80% of schools with an average meal uptake of between 13 and 15%. At St Chrysostom's Primary School in East Manchester, school meal uptake has increased from 50 to 63.5% since its introduction. And in its second week at Crosslee School, uptake in pupils having school meals increased by 14.1%. Graham Walker – St Andrew's Healthcare Winner of the Healthcare Award Two years ago, as head of hotel services, Graham was enlisted by this charity to improve the on-site catering operation. The previous department was producing what has been described as average food with little regard to customer focus and involvement. Upon accepting the task, Graham's aim was for the catering department to become the national leader in: locally sourced and organic food for patients and staff ; foo