Jan Matthews meets Olympic catering challenge

She leads a 22,000 strong team, which is set to oversee the serving of 14 million meals during six weeks to the 17,000 athletes, 200,000 workforce and hundreds of thousands of visitors when the Olympic light is set ablaze in July. The head of catering for the London Organising Committee for the Games gave yesterday's Arena Spring Lecture at the Savoy in London with her talk entitled Catering for London 2012; Myths, Legends and Legacies. "We feel that we are now in a position to put on spectacular show from on the catering front," said Jan giving statistics detailing the six billion global TV audience watching the 15,700 athletes from 205 nations competing for 26 world championships at more than 170 venues. The Games are forecast to generate £2 billion revenue to the UK. "And one of the biggest operations of its kind in the world will be providing the catering," she said after taking up her role in 2009 and "working flat out" ever since. "With the eyes of the world on us it is crucial that everything runs smoothly and efficiently. To ensure this one of the major items at the top of our list has been ensuring food safety and hygiene is first class. She outlined the choice of food, diet and balance of diverse cooking requirements to be operated at the range of 833 concessions across the Olympic sites and said that sourcing every single item had to undergo verifications using key bodies such as Red Tractor, Marine Conservation Society and FairTrade. On the educational front Jan's team has worked with private, junior, and secondary schools as well as colleges with a contest to design dishes to be used by athletes being entered with "great enthusiasm" by 6500 students. "We have been driven with an emphasis on the food division with support from the sponsors who have all been absolutely brilliant. Coca Cola will serve 23 million drinks while McDonalds is using 100% British and Irish beef in its burgers and also only chicken from UK farms. "This change is a huge victory for British farmers from times in the past when only a small percentage of chickens came from these shores. Free range eggs will feature on menus. "The legacy we will be leaving behind from the Olympics is already becoming apparent with the procurement policies we have introduced being used by London councils. And we have seen the number of catering butchers using Red Tractor symbols doubling since our operations began."