Paula’s Pantry
Above and Beyond Catering
Paula’s Pantry is an independent catering business headquartered in Nottingham. The company specialises in event catering of all descriptions, from weddings and birthdays to cocktail parties, corporate functions, and boardroom dining.
‘Paula’s Pantry’ was first established in 2009 as ‘Paula’s Sandwich’, a trendy sandwich bar in Nottingham’s city centre, after founder couple, Paula and Steve Smith, lost their jobs during the Financial Crisis of 2008. Both had worked in the City of London for several years but while Steve was a banker, Paula was head chef in a well-known, up-market, restaurant. ‘At the time, we were feeling unmotivated, frustrated and financially fragile, but instead of rushing to find another 9 to 5 job, we saw our misfortune as an opportunity to prosper independently’. Indeed, Paula and Steve had always had the idea to be their own bosses and the crisis gave them the impulse they felt they needed to finally bring this idea to life. With Paula’s expertise and Steve’s business acumen (and substantial savings), they decided to start a sandwich bar ‘with a difference’ in the center of Nottingham, their hometown.
Paula’s Sandwich Bar offered innovative, delicious and healthy sandwiches for a fair price in a trendy atmosphere which people loved and quickly became a sensation. Their fusion sandwiches (blending, for example, English favourites such as Cheddar, Mexican jalapeños and Indian chillies) were particularly sought after, and the Teppanyaki grill-style bar wowed customers with its cooks’ culinary talents and excellent knife skills. The initial 5 employees working 10-15 turned into 20 staff operating between 7-19 in less than two years. The Sandwich Bar’s initial success encouraged Paula and Steve to consider opening a new branch near the city’s train station in 2013. However, the arrival of fierce competition had already started to dent profits and, rather than expanding, the owners decided to broaden their customer base by offering free deliveries which proved a hit.
Profits stabilised but, more importantly, Steve had spotted an opportunity: ‘Customers were willing to pay a premium to get our sandwiches delivered. What they were telling us is that they loved our product, even without the Teppanyaki experience… But what if we could deliver the sandwiches AND the experience?’ Paula and Steve quickly began to develop their new catering business: Paula’s Pantry.
The move onto catering – that is, the business of providing and serving food at a location separate from where it is prepared – proved to be an inspired one. At first, Paula’s Pantry offered ‘corporate dress-down sandwich lunches’ but Paula managed to turn the increasingly small sandwich bar’s kitchen into a versatile space in which, more and more varied gastronomic offerings could be prepared. Simultaneously, Steve recruited young, enthusiastic and dependable staff to deliver and serve the food across the city for all manner of occasions: weddings, cocktail parties, Christenings, graduation ceremonies, etc.
The business grew rapidly and soon the sandwich bar premises proved woefully inadequate. Paula’s Pantry moved into a large unit in a small industrial park just outside Nottingham’s city centre. Paula’s Pantry’s headquarters consist of head office where the owners have their separate offices, and administrators deal with purchases, accounts, HR, etc.; the main kitchen, where the bulk of the food for catering is made; a large warehouse where food supplies and equipment are stored; and a car parking for management and delivery vehicles.
The original sandwich bar remains in operation in the city centre, but it is now viewed as much as a sales arm of the catering business as a business in its own right. Within the bar, there is a ‘Paula’s Pantry at Your Service’ catering desk, often manned by one of the owners, advertising and advising customers on catering for all types of events. A great deal of business is generated here as Steve accepts pretty much any request that customers make (‘once we had to combine a birthday party for a 5 year old, with his mum’s 50s celebration, which required our staff to transform from nannies at 4 o’clock into bartenders in the evening… we always say ‘yes’ because we can always sort out the “how do we do it?” later on’), and Paula, passionate as she is about food, tempts them with ever more elaborate menus (‘which, the magicians that we have in the kitchen will always manage to make in record time’).
Confirmed catering orders taken at the catering desk are immediately sent for processing to the main office. Orders taken over the phone or off the website, are also processed in the main office. There, a group of catering administrators schedule them to ensure that supplies are in stock, and that the food is prepared 24 hours in advance of the event, never earlier. In the kitchen, chefs organise and supervise the work of cooks, kitchen and catering assistants. The kitchen staff see themselves as the core of the business as they design, prepare, cook, bake, and present the company’s diverse menus. The work here is surely varied, but can be challenging, and is often pressurised ‘with crazy deadlines, never a “thank you”, and always a couple of f*** o**s’ according to a junior cook. Staff employed in the warehouse, a sedated place to work in comparison, have sometimes been the target of disgruntled chefs when delivering supplies to the kitchen.
The food is delivered and served at the events by the driving and waiting staff respectively. Typically, orders are ready for dispatch about four hours before serving so that, for example, luncheon orders leave by 8 am to be served about 12, and dinner orders leave by 12 to be served in the evening. Until very recently, the company had two good sized vans (the ‘white one’ and the ‘purple one’), that can accommodate 2-3 orders and deliver across the city and nearby villages in good time. Once the deliveries have been received on site – for large events by a catering supervisor, for small events by one of the maîtres, or by a ‘senior’ waiter – they are prepared and presented by kitchen assistants and served by waiters who make their ways to events separately using public transport. Depending on the event, some of these waiters double as cooks, performing some sort of Teppanyaki performance to the delight of customers. After the event, either on the same day or the day after, the vans collect any equipment left on the event’s premises. Any overlapping or mechanical problem is usually dealt with by ‘driving faster’ says one of the drivers, ‘or rent vans from Sixt and collect our stuff the next day, which isn’t great obviously’ adds another.
Paula’s Pantry employs more than 50 permanent staff at headquarters including eight managers (including two admin managers, head chef, two kitchen supervisors, two catering supervisors, and a warehouse foreman), five administrators (accounts, IT, personnel, switchboard, etc), twenty kitchen staff (ten cooks and ten kitchen assistants), two maîtres, three warehouse staff, and four drivers. At the Sandwich bar, the company employs eight permanent staff (one supervisor, three customer assistants, and four sandwich makers). In addition, Paula’s Pantry employs a much larger number of atypical workers. These include ten to fifteen waiting staff hired on zero-hour contracts, always available to step in with increases in demand; and ten hourly paid kitchen staff on temporary fixed term contracts during the peak catering season (that is, the ‘wedding season’ in the Spring and the Summer, and Christmas and New Year). Steve argues that ‘our flexible approach to managing our workforce have allowed to deal efficiently with variations in demand (…) while a typical ‘good and busy’ Friday evening may include one or two medium-size office lunch/party, a graduation ceremony, and a wedding, for which we need, say, an additional five, fifteen, and seven additional waiters respectively; on a quiet Friday, we might have an office lunch for 5 people and that’s it.’
Paula and Steve divide their time between headquarters and the catering desk in the sandwich bar. Those employed in the main office work from 9 am to 5 pm. Permanent kitchen staff work from 6 am to 2 pm, although they are expected, when the work demands, to work later, without overtime payments, until the ‘job’s done’. The temporary fixed term contract kitchen workers typically the ‘twilight shift’ between 2-8 pm during the busy months only. Managers work the standard shift hours while the kitchen and catering managers cover the day and seasonal twilight shifts so that there is always someone in authority in the kitchen or in the events to deal with any issues that might arise. Such issues usually concern problems with orders, scheduling staff, ensuring the food is perfect before being served, and keeping an eye on the staff – some petty theft has been detected and there have been complaints about some low-level disruptive behaviour (like when some waiters were heard giggling at a wake). Staff in the café work between 9 and 7 pm. Naturally, ‘staff at the events know when they start but not when they end’ says Steve with a chuckle, ‘I mean, sometimes, parties last longer than expected and by the time they’ve packed up and ready to go sometimes they get home at 5 am… But obviously this is their interest as more hours is more money’.
Most permanent staff at headquarters are in their late twenties and early thirties. While back-office employees are mostly male, kitchen staff are mostly female. Similarly, managers are typically male and junior staff are usually female. Customer-facing employees -at the café and events- are typically male and female, young, often single, Caucasian, well-educated and often leading ‘cool’ and ‘fashionable’ lifestyles.
Paula and Steve have demonstrated little interest in becoming involved in the ‘people’ aspect of the business, apart from recruiting managers when necessary. Over the years, the practice has grown up that managers -chefs, kitchen and catering managers and maîtres- are responsible for personnel management of non-managerial staff. Once employed, new managers are told that, dealing with staff is straight forward, that no specific training is necessary, all they have to do is stress the importance of the ‘business’ aspects of the job, and to emphasise the company’s expectation that everyone would promote a ‘love of good food and good service no matter when and where’ and that, ‘without fail, staff were expected to do what was necessary to achieve customer satisfaction.’ It is presumed that a good manager will be able to ‘manage people’ effectively and there are no clear personnel policies or procedures. Consequently, managers recruit and select, discipline and dismiss as they see fit, but not necessarily consistently. Head Chefs and Catering Managers can be quite harsh and critical if they believe that there is any short coming in the performance of a member of staff. They do not generally believe that the employees have much to offer beyond turning up for work and following instructions ‘to the letter.’
Paula’s Pantry retains its managers by paying them wages that are high for the catering sector. In contrast, both permanent and temporary, kitchen and waiting staff are paid low wages. Catering as a sector does not pay high wages, but Paula’s Pantry is amongst the lowest payers. It is assumed that most kitchen girls are not particularly skilled to demand more, and that waiters see their work as a way of financing their lifestyle, rather than as part of a planned career progression, and consequently that they are content with how things are: low pay but with the flexibility to do other things offered by zero-hour contracts. However, low pay frequently causes grumbling among staff. But Steve is not prepared to let wage costs rise and argues that the firm looks after its staff better than most. ‘Our employees should acknowledge that, for example, we let them keep all their tips (it’s no secret that not all employers do this) and that we give them food hand-outs sometimes (…) True, that helps us reducing theft and food waste, but it’s free food for them… I don’t know, if they want to go, I am not going to stop them’ concludes him.
Over the years, discontent among staff has never spilt over into direct confrontation or dispute but nevertheless grumbling has been a problem which everyone recognises. There have also been one or two “incidents” which have usually resolved themselves when the employee involved resigned. There are no trade unions recognised in the firm and there has never been a claim for a union to be recognised. Without some prospect of increased wages, stability or promotion, staff will not stay for long. This clearly causes problems for the business, but it is one which the managers live with as the firm can replace leavers quickly.
But things began to change significantly in 2021. The company acquired the traditional Leicester-based ice-cream maker ‘Popsicle’ in a ‘bargain-deal for us. Popsicle struggled during the pandemic, the price was right and, as a kid, I always dreamed of having an ice-cream factory…’ explains Steve. ‘But most importantly, Popsicle’s traditional niche products fit perfectly our food and experience ethos; and some of their assets: warehouses, vans, etc., can help us expand south of Nottingham’.
Mr Singh, founder and CEO of Popsicle for over four decades, sold the company reluctantly and not after having secured a deal for ‘his people.’ A pillar of Leicester’s Asian community, Mr Singh considered the well-being of his employees a key responsibility, and made sure that all Popsicle employees were transferred to Paula’s Pantry. Because many of their terms and conditions exceeded those offered by Paula’s Pantry – Popsicle has been around since the 1940s and employees are considered family, and the employer has always made a point of being ‘an employer of choice’ – the company reluctantly agreed to ‘ring fence’ them and continued to pay them at a higher rate. Furthermore, Popsicle employees have always enjoyed an open-door relationship with their management. No union was ever recognised but the company always had cordial relations with UNIK, the catering workers’ union, largely because Popsicle has always set the standard for other companies in the sector.
The assumption was that ringfencing was not going to cause trouble because, after about five years, comparable employees in the rest of the organisation would have caught up with these higher levels of pay. However, Paula’s Pantry’s drivers and warehouse staff quickly discovered this and, unsurprisingly, are not happy: they grumble amongst themselves when they meet in the depots but have done nothing formally as they are quite sure who to complain to and how. Their grumbling to others, for example when they deliver to the events, has led to a surge of discontent with the way in which the company seems to take a number of staff for granted while others are apparently granted privileges.
Simultaneously, a recent, and rather unexpected, increase in orders in the normally quiet weeks of late August and September, led to take on seventeen Nottingham University students as temporary employees, but these were not replaced when they returned to university in early October. October and November were even busier and permanent staff were expected to cope without any additional manpower. Those left shorthanded by this exodus were upset but said nothing, not knowing how to raise the matter.
Most of the significant increase in demand at the end of the summer resulted from events held by higher-education organisations; in particular, graduation ceremonies at the two main universities in Nottingham. Spotting a new opportunity to grow the business, Steve tendered for new work at neighbouring Loughborough University. Located some 15 miles away south of Nottingham, Loughborough put up for tender a contract involving catering for an average of 3 weekly events between November and December (from recurrent research seminars to wine receptions after keynote lectures), and was ecstatic to have been awarded the contract. This meant that the company had to provide meals for about 2000-3000 more people than usual in the usually terribly stressful run-up to Christmas and New Year, and out of town.
Paula was not impressed. The unexpected rise in demand had shown that they did not have the manpower necessary and, she argued, ‘food will suffer as a result.’ Steve told her ‘not to worry.’ Convinced that the additional work could be accommodated by re-arranging the shifts, he drew up new work schedules so that permanent kitchen workers and managers would extend their hours into the twilight shift, and work on Saturdays and Sundays if needed; and that staff at the Sandwich Bar would ‘do their bit’ by staying late ‘an hour or two a day’ to help with the main kitchen’s extra work. ‘All we have to do is to change their contracts and give them 30 days’ notice of the change,’ he argued, adding that ‘in any case, I expect no grumble… I mean, more hours is more money, right? That’s what people want so they won’t complain about it.’ He also insisted that finding additional waiting staff to work the Loughborough jobs would not be a problem given the large number of students willing to work on a zero-hour contract basis. ‘And for very little cash!’ added Steve, now convinced.
However, a couple of managers have expressed disquiet at these developments. One of them, catering manager Joe, thought that Steve’s plan had missed something basic: The Loughborough jobs were out of town which meant that one of the two already stretched (and unreliable) delivery vans would be permanently unavailable to serve Nottingham. It’s true that the Popsicle guys had 3 or 4 additional vans but these were… well, old ice-cream vans! Not fit for purpose!’ But he did not dare contradicting Steve and said nothing.
Another, Head Chef Samira, decided to speak up. She suggested that they needed to recruit a much larger number of part-time workers, or even a new set of twilight shift workers, to provide additional manpower (‘effectively, we need to set up another kitchen!’), and argued that not doing so, would mean that employees will leave and that they will simply not have the resources to cope. Her idea was not taken up as it was regarded as unnecessarily expensive, although Paula and Steve did say that they will look at bringing in agency workers should people decide to leave. Privately however they can’t see why anyone would want to leave (‘if anything, they should be grateful to have a job!’) and think that Samira’s pessimism reflects her lack of business acumen. Samira regrets making her suggestion; she feels she is now regarded as not just unnecessarily fussy but as someone who is unable to get her staff to work the required hours. She has decided to look for another job.
Samira may be proved right: since the new work began in early November, two cooks and two kitchen assistants have handed in their resignation claiming that the new hours are detrimental to their social life, and the incidence of sickness has risen from 3% to 8%. Even office staff are finding they have to stay after their shifts in order to finish their work. Head Office manager, Mohammad, has started to come into the office at 6 am in order to get catch up on the backlog of work and he has told colleagues that he is worried that things are going to become even more pressurised since the recently bereaved accountant, Thomas, who lost his wife in a car accident, would like to work fewer hours so that he has more time with his disabled 12 year old son. Paula and Steve seem oblivious to these problems to the extent that when one of the girls working in the sandwich bar asked to reduce her hours so that she could look after her children, said; ‘if you can’t put in the hours needed for a successful business you will have to leave’.
Since the new work began, there have been a number of ‘rather stressful situations.’ Whilst most of the talk among managers have been centred on the day-to-day difficulty of ‘just getting the work done,’ for the staff, the usual grumble about low pay has turned rather more serious.
On one occasion, customers at a boardroom dinner were told to wait ‘just for an hour’ for their food. As predicted by one of the managers, the deliveries had been significantly stretched. Having to deliver in Loughborough day-in and day-out, effectively left Paula’s Pantry with one van to serve Nottingham. Unsurprisingly, by the time the food arrived, customers were long gone. To Steve’s total dismay, the client – Robert Morrison, owner of an important independent bookshop in town – twitted ‘Hired Paula’s Pantry for boardroom dinner… Just finished a rather DELICIOUS and TIMELY TAKEAWAY lunch courtesy of DELIVEROO. HALF price and NO embarrassment. Never using Paula’s Pantry AGAIN’.
On another occasion, a walnut cake was sent to a hospital charity dinner for people with severe nut allergies. Some staff in the kitchen noticed this and knew it would cause a problem with the client but said nothing. They later claimed that they had tried to talk to management before and had never got anywhere. ‘If a company assumes people only work for money and treats them as such, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy’ explained one of them. Infuriated by this situation, Paula and Steve sent all employees involved in this particular event without pay and told them they would be contacted once ‘we get to the bottom of it.’ One of the temporary cooks who was sent home without pay complained to his neighbour that no one in the kitchen had wanted to work the extended hours, that the stopping of his pay was unfair and that what made the atmosphere at work particularly bad was that the managers were verbally abusive when the work was delayed and then failed to listen and act on constructive comments.
To make matters worse, new manager Kevin noticed that one of the kitchen part-timers wore a Kara. (A Kara is a metal bracelet worn by Sikhs as a protection against evil. Their symbolic significance is such that the bracelets are worn continuously and never removed.) Eager to make a good impression on Paula and Steve, he asked Ms Anand to remove it because it was a ‘health hazard’. She pointed out that her co-workers wore rings and none of them had been told to remove their jewellery even although this could easily fall off into the mixtures destined to be added to the basic ice cream ingredients (unlike her Kara that would have to be cut off if she wanted to remove it). She was not working in an area where the bracelet could get caught in machinery and it was highly unlikely that germs would cluster beneath her bracelet ready to leap into the food at the soonest opportunity. Furthermore, she had worked for the company for two and a half years and in all of this time no one had said she, or her Kara, was a health hazard. After a number of verbal scoldings by her line manager, which Miss Anand did not heed, she was summarily transferred from the kitchen to the warehouse. This was, of necessity, extremely cold and Miss Anand was the only employee required to work there for her entire daily shift. (Other employees working in this department only did so for short periods of time, none for more than two hours duration.) She was so distressed by this turn of events that she became ill and was signed off sick by her GP. Protests to the company from the Sikh Foundation, insisting that the bracelet was not a health hazard, fell on deaf ears and were seen as intrusive. Ms Anand resigned.
After he was sent home without pay because of the walnut cake incident, Joe – one of the temporary cooks allegedly involved – complained to his neighbour, Jessica. Joe told her about Ms Anand too. Jessica – the cook’s neighbour – was sympathetic. She was active in her union (UNIK) and shared with him some of the findings of the union’s yearly Staff Survey of Catering Staff. These included:
While most kitchen staff enjoy their work with 64% agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement ‘I enjoy my job’, just over a quarter (27%) admitted they didn’t feel valued within the kitchen team. Among the serious problems highlighted by the survey, 13% of respondents were concerned about bullying at work from managers, while one on ten (10%) were concerned about bullying from colleagues.
Other serious concerns included workload (46%), pay (41%) and job security (25%). Alarmingly, half (50%) of kitchen staff report facing stress at work at least half the time, while a quarter (25%) feel stressed at work most or all of the time. Workload and understaffing featured highly as key contributing factors. Lack of time to complete the job was also repeatedly cited by staff, as were issues with unsupportive management. More than four in ten respondents (46%) complained that they don’t have enough time to complete their work within their contracted hours.
Consequently, staff regularly work extra hours for free to ensure that sufficient meals are prepared, served and cleared away. One in three (33%) respondents work between two and five hours of unpaid overtime each week to complete their duties. The regular practice of unpaid overtime is particularly shocking as a fifth (20%) of respondents said they earn the national minimum wage, and 20% of kitchen staff have a second job to make ends meet. Four in ten (43%)of kitchen staff are in debt (excluding mortgages), whilst one in five (21%) have had to borrow from friends or family over the past two years to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, Marie, one of the assistant cooks, was thumbing through a Hotel and Catering journal that one of the managers had left in the kitchen. She started to read an article about wages in the industry. The article said that the latest up-grading of the national minimum wage had come into force on 1 October. Marie was shocked to see that these rates were higher than what Paula’s Pantry paid. As she never thought of herself as very smart and was not too clear exactly what all this meant, she left it at that but took the magazine with her. A couple of days later, she dropped by Joe’s to see how he was getting on. After he commented on UNIK’s Staff Survey findings, she produced the magazine. They asked Jessica about it and she confirmed that Paula’s Pantry were not paying as much as they should.
Three days later, Steve was confronted by a demonstration outside the Sandwich Bar. About two dozen employees and supporters were loudly demanding that the company should pay the legally required minimum wages to the kitchen, sandwich bar and waiting staff. A large banner read: ‘NO MONEY= NO FOOD, NO DRINKS, NO FAKE SMILES.’ In a statement to the local newspaper, the demonstrators stated that ‘we didn’t want things to end up like this but there was no other way (…) we’ve tried for years to raise our concerns but the company won’t listen’. Telephone calls from the kitchen managers confirmed that they were also being confronted with the same demands from their employees in the kitchen, and from waiters at an event in Loughborough. These managers were seeking Paula and Steve’s advice on how to handle the situation.
Steve was beside himself – Paula had a hair appointment and was not answering her phone – and completely overwhelmed by what was going on. She angrily spoke to each manager accusing the workforce of disloyalty. ‘I am SO disappointed. Who do they think they are? We’ve given them work, to some of them for years, and this is how they pay us back! Traitors! I feel like quitting this whole thing: the more I do, the worse it gets; the more money we make, everyone wants a cut!’ Paula had no alternative but to shut down the sandwich bar for the day and quietly leave by the back door.
Upon arrival to the main office that evening, she found Steve with a letter from UNIK. ‘And to top it all up: now this!’ The letter read:
A number of recent problems involving Paula’s Pantry have been brought up to our attention (…)
As the largest union for kitchen and catering staff, UNIK wants to see all catering employers to stop over-burdening kitchen staff, leaving them with no choice but to do unpaid overtime to get their work done. This far too common practice has a direct impact on morale and can trap lower paid staff in a cycle of debt (…)
We therefore politely request a meeting to talk about how UNIK and Paula’s Pantry might be able to work together to improve employee wellbeing and address any issues where the company might be breaking the law (…)
After a long conversation, Paula and Steve reluctantly admitted that they needed external advice. They decided to hire an Employment Relations Consultant to assess the situation at Paula’s Pantry, hoping that she/he could help them understand what has gone wrong, why and what can the company do about it.
© F.D-P. based on C.A.B.
* This case study is fictional and has been written for academic purposes only. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
