Catering through Covid

What’s for dinner?

A great event rests on four pillars – a welcoming venue, great company, memorable entertainment, and – of course – incredible food. Niche spoke to Atul Lakhani, the CEO of Sanjay Foods, to learn how his event catering business survived through Covid

WORDS BY TOM YOUNG

Event catering is big business, and rightfully so. To be entrusted with the responsibility of feeding large groups of people requires a lot of skill. Get it wrong, and it’s the thing everyone talks about for weeks after… but get it right, and it makes the event.

Sanjay Foods was founded by Atul Lakhani as a food production outlet for ready meals. Feeling that this wasn’t his passion, the business was reorganised for event catering.

“Having attended a few prestigious events in London, I was bitten by the bug and wanted something equally as glamourous, with the chance to create jaw-dropping experiences for guests.”

It’s now grown even further, becoming a fully-fledged event management company, helping clients to design and deliver weddings, corporate parties and charity events. They have catering rights at over 120 venues across the UK, even acquiring one in 2019 – the multimillion pound IXL Events Centre. It’s now a popular location for weddings, car launches and big seasonal events such as Christmas.

“To go from being one of seven caterers, to winning the exclusive rights, to then taking it over – it wasn’t something we’d ever expected, and it still blows me away, to be honest.”

It’s been a long journey, but it’s not over yet. Successful growth has come from Atul’s belief in focusing on his own business and his own team.

“We empower our staff to uphold the high standards we expect. You’re only as good as your last event, so we heavily invest in training with this in mind.”

Atul’s investment in and loyalty to his staff became crystal clear during the pandemic. With the hospitality industry shut down, and at risk of losing all his profits, Sanjay Foods managed to avoid letting go of any of its staff by reforming into a takeaway business.

“We have state-of-the-art kitchens at our Leicester unit, so we made sure they didn’t go to waste, and the reaction was great. We also embraced the Zoom revolution with virtual live cooking experiences.”

Having seen the devastation Covid had ravaged upon the industry, Atul was nominated to chair the Large-scale Weddings working group on the UK Weddings Taskforce. This presented information to the government about the industry’s urgent requirement for financial support and helped shape the roadmap out of lockdown.

“I was concerned that we would lose all our staff. The government’s furlough scheme provided a lifeline, but the longer the pandemic continued and the wedding industry remained closed, we were inundated with demands for refunds and utility bill payments. Thankfully, our lobbying led to the Prime Minister’s announcement that our industry could reopen in July 2021, giving us a lifeline.”

The future is brighter, but there are certainly fresh challenges in the present.

“This is the new normal, with unprecedented demand, supply shortages and bottle necks, huge increases in costs and Brexit-led staff shortages. My team and I are very resilient and – despite suffering huge losses – we have bounced back, and are planning to expand our operations.”

You can find out more about Sanjay Foods’ catering and event management services at sanjayfoods.com.

MY TEAM AND I ARE VERY RESILIENT AND - DESPITE SUFFERING HUGE LOSSES - WE HAVE BOUNCED BACK