UKHospitality’s CEO Kate Nicholls was recently awarded the Casual Dining Special Award for her outstanding contribution to the casual dining sector. That was just before the Coronavirus outbreak escalated and subsequent government restrictions hit the lives and livelihoods of the people and businesses working across hospitality, foodservice, catering, leisure, travel, tourism, and more.
We’d like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Kate and her team for their continued dedication to this wonderful industry.
Here’s their message to you (written by Charna Walfall):
What steps have you/are you taking to support your members locally and nationally?
We are talking to the Government on a daily basis to make sure that our members have the most up-to-date information possible. We have spent many, many hours over the past few weeks highlighting the particularly difficult position that the hospitality sector has been put in, and we have been a vocal advocate of support for businesses and their team members. Much of the support that has been announced would likely not have been were it not for pressure from UKH and other industry bodies.
What information and resources are available to your members?
We have a dedicated COVID-19 information page on the UKHospitality website providing up-to-date guidance for businesses. Anyone, whether member or not, can sign up to our daily update and our members continue to receive regular guidance and support. We have also partnered with Caterer.com and we are supporting Harri to launch employment platforms for the redeployment of furloughed hospitality workers. We have also launched UKH Pathway with CPL Learning to provide a training and E-Learning resource for hospitality team members.
How can we collectively help the foodservice and hospitality industry?
Many outlets are doing their best to diversify and provide services for communities despite the difficulties. We are seeing venues moving into takeaway and click and collect. Other outlets are supporting NHS staff and key workers in the NHS. We can support these businesses by continuing to give them our business as much as we can.
Anything you’d like to add?
It has been great to see the way in which our sector has responded to the crisis. Many businesses have worked to ensure that food stocks have been re-routed to key workers, hotels have offered rooms to NHS staff, other key workers and the homeless, live wellness and training streams have been launched, resources for mental health and wellbeing from the Licensed Trade Charity and Hospitality Action, and numerous initiatives have sprung up helping to find jobs for hospitality workers who have been furloughed or laid-off. When businesses are under unprecedented pressure, it is great to see people in hospitality working hard to support their colleagues. We will need plenty more generosity and ingenuity in the weeks ahead.
