15th Oct 2008 - 00:00
Abstract
Last night two Compass projects were recognised at the Institute of Grocery Directors (IGD) awards against a highly competitive field, which included key high street brands such as Sainsbury's and Birds Eye.
Their 'One Compass Welcome' induction programme took the top spot in the J Sainsbury award for Learning and Development, beating Muller UK and The Co-operative, while the marketing team's work on customer research and food concepts took one of only two highly commended awards given on the night. Ian El-Mokadem, Group Managing Director, Compass Group UK & Ireland said: "The award for the One Compass Welcome is a fantastic endorsement of our focus on 'Great People' and recognises our commitment to health & safety and customer service". "From the outset, we were determined to create a project which would make a real difference to people's first days in our business and which would better support our managers as they recruited new colleagues. We have achieved an enormous amount with the Welcome so far, giving over 10,000 people a fantastic start to their new roles and a solid framework from which to develop their Health & Safety and customer service skills". The 'highly commended' prize in the 'consumer understanding' category recognises the impact of our insights programme on the development of food concepts and promotions, which has assisted the business in achieving an average sales growth of 2.5%. Ian El-Mokadem added: "This award demonstrates that Compass is raising the standard of what clients should expect from food service providers and will enable us to further demonstrate to clients our expertise and understanding of our markets and consumers' needs. We are particularly proud of the fact that we were the only catering company to be short-listed in any of the IGD award categories." The IGD is a leading research forum for the food industry, which is dedicated to ensuring best practice throughout the entire supply chain and recognising excellence. Their awards regularly attract entrants from all of the top retailers and food manufacturers.