MAGAZINE
It’s all about the accolades this issue, as the Garden Centre Association has been announcing its annual winners. Not only can you read about this in News (page 6), but the man at the centre of it all, GCA CEO Peter Burks, explains how this mammoth task is undertaken in his regular column on page 50.
A monumental feat of judging, the stats really say it all. Just four inspectors visit between 50 and 60 garden centres each during a three-month period, as well as each receiving three random phone calls. Some 218 individual factors are inspected, with a score of at least 50% being required to remain a member. However, the good news is that the top catering facilities this year achieved scores of over 90%. And they’ll be starting this process all over again in around six months.
We also, of course, run our own acclaimed awards, and you can hear from our Afternoon Tea winner, St Peter’s in Worcestershire, in our Operator profile on page 12. During our chat, head of hospitality and catering Robert Banks told me: “One of our values is about achievement and winning the Afternoon Tea award was a huge achievement for the team and the department. It was great to celebrate that with the rest of the workforce and the company, and the owners were so happy that it put us on the map in terms of afternoon tea. We were all extremely chuffed.”
If you want to follow in the footsteps of St Peter’s, though, you’ll need to be quick. You can still enter free of charge in all four categories – but the deadline is 27th September. Go to gardencentrecateringawards.co.uk to send us your submissions now!
