"Museum food service is key to Elior's image". The Elior Group turns the spotlight on its museum restaurants, such as the new Café Campana in the Musée d'Orsay, designed by the famous Brazilian designers. Jean- François Camarty, Deputy Managing Director of Elior Concessions, explains: "While our main restaurant battalions are to be found on motorways and as part of contract catering for businesses and various authorities, our facilities in the Louvre or Quai Branly museums in Paris are ideal showcases to portray our stand-out and upscale image to millions of French and international visitors". Elior serves 3.5 million meals a year in museums and employs almost 500 people in these cultural centres. Keeping margins tight, the average restaurant spend is €20- 22 for a high-quality product. Jean-François Camarty adds: "We have our own kitchens at the Orsay, Louvre, Rodin and Quai Branly museums; while there is a cost attached, the policy maintains innovation. The executive chefs at these sites have the opportunity to disseminate their expertise throughout the Group". Elior has decided to retain a single brand for its contract concession business in all market segments. Avenance, Eliance and Hôpital Service are amongst the brands sacrificed in the interests of ensuring clarity in its message, with three core businesses now included in the Elior brand: Elior Catering, Elior Concessions and Elior Services.
Elior, the largest group at Roissy Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, strengthens its commitment to quality and intends to be a leading "solutions provider" in the airport market. Elior's flagship concept is to offer city-centre franchise brands in airports, as it did on motorway service areas, where the travelling public can now enjoy brands such as Paul, Pomme de Pain and Quick. Elior caters for the needs of 15,000 to 20,000 customers per day at Orly. 2011 saw the group open seven new retail outlets, and two new Paul outlets are due to open in the first half of 2012. Alongside these catering outlets for the travelling public, Elior is increasingly developing its portfolio of airport lounge services.
Elior was selected to manage the new food service area in the Paris Gare de Lyon. The 10-year investment and operating contract covers nine retail outlets and represents estimated revenues of €200 million for the period. Travellers will enjoy a wide range of food service options: Red d’Hippo, Phileas, Paul, Berko, Daily Monop, Costa Coffee, Fauchon and Cafe Premier.
The Besancon and Belfort-Montbéliard TGV stations were inaugurated on 1 December, 2011. The new stations are "central to our strategy", says Sophie Boissard, Director of SNCF Gares & Connexions, adding: "We want them to be useful, efficient and enjoyable spaces". Jean-François Camarty is Deputy Managing Director of Elior Group Concessions, the station catering leader with its Paul, Quick, Pomme de pain and Bert’s franchises: "With the proliferation of convenience stores and new concepts comprising small restaurants, bars and local parcel collection points, we now offer a range of services to facilitate travellers."
Elior encourages the development of employee skills. On 29 November last, the Group awarded Professional Qualification Certificates to its employees through the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning. This year 48 employees in their current roles for at least three years obtained Chief Manager, Operations Assistant, Catering Assistant or Certified Catering Assistant diplomas. These qualifications are recognised by the French Joint National Commission for Employment in the Hotel and Catering Industry.
Marking its 20th birthday, Elior selected the Seenk agency to rebrand and create a new corporate visual identity for the company "to convey a unified image to its customers and guests". Elior has restructured its many brands around three core businesses: Catering, Concessions and Services. The Group's very institutional visual identity is changing to become more brand oriented, portraying "our performance goals, a passion for service, initiative and respect for our commitments."
On 3 October last, Elior announced its "acquisition of a controlling interest" in the Spanish contract catering company, Alessa. The transaction will allow Elior "to bolster its leadership position in Spain". Founded 25 years ago in Barcelona, Alessa is active in the corporate, education and healthcare markets. The acquisition was carried out through Elior's subsidiary, Serunion, in partnership with the Torelles founding family.
On 6 October 2011, Elior was one of the companies to sign up to a commitment to reduce salt in its restaurant. For the second consecutive year as members of the French National Union of Contract Caterers (SNRC) and with the support of the French National Health and Nutrition Plan (PNNS), these hospitality industry companies used the national awareness day to raise awareness of the dangers of salt in our food.
25 years after it first opened, the Musée d’Orsay is completing major renovations, including notably a redesigned Impressionist Gallery. The café was also entirely revamped by the internationally renowned Brazilian designers, the Campana brothers. Their design for the new cafeteria takes inspiration from marine environments, with blue aquatic colours, lustrous gold light fittings reminiscent of upside-down seashells and red algae-like filaments. The turquoise chairs designed for the café will be available for sale. The funds for the €20.1 million refurbishment were contributed by the museum's own funds (63%), the State (33%) and the restaurant concessionaire, Elior (4%).
In its 15th year of sponsoring students, the Elior Foundation "Acting for education " awarded 82 scholarships in 2011. It decided to continue its commitment and expand its sphere of action by promoting access to Sciences Po for students in priority education zones. In addition to awarding annual scholarships, the Foundation is committed to providing human and financial support to back the progress of students selected by Sciences Po through priority access agreements. Elior signed an agreement with Agefiph, a French association promoting employment of the disabled, to promote the integration and maintenance in the workforce of people with disabilities. On foot of this undertaking, the Group will hire 90 disabled employees over two years in its contract catering business, 20 of whom will be young people on work placement contracts. This commitment is in addition to the Elior Group's ongoing initiatives to promote access to employment. It currently employs 1,700 people with disabilities in Europe. The company's training section has set a target of to increase its average employment rate of workers with disabilities from the current 6% to 7% by 2012.
According to Robert Zolade, Chairman and founder of Elior, "although we are a very young company after only 20 years in existence, Elior has achieved sales totalling €4 billion, employs more than 80,000 people and manages 15,000 restaurants. Our strategy has been to restrict our focus, concentrating on 15 or so countries." He adds: "Clearly, the challenge ahead for our teams in the next five years will be to systematically and determinedly deepen our international footprint."
Avenance Enseignement announces that some 20 sites will be holding an Open Day between 4 and 8 April, for the Sustainable Development Week. The purpose of this event is to make good use of awareness actions and work in the field to reduce the ecological footprint and act in favour of the environment. This year, Avenance Enseignement is beginning to operate with cellulose fibers via degradable trays for preparing meals, transported by electric vehicles or NGVs. Talking about waste, Avenance Enseignement is offering sorting and reutilization solutions capable of recycling almost 40% of the waste resulting from meal preparation.
In less than 2 months' time, the city of Marseille will be renewing for a further 7 years the attribution of the school canteens contract to the 2 current service providers: Avenance and Sodexo. With this in mind, hundreds of families have joined the community of parents known as "Change the canteen" which for several months "is fighting for our children's canteen to become healthier, more sustainable and more transparent".
Elior has decided to sell its institutional restaurant activities in the Netherlands to the British group, Compass. Compass has already indicated, on 30 March according to Bloomberg, that is has agreed to this purchase at a price of around €70 million for turnover of approximately €100 million, according to Les Echos. As 4th operator on the particularly concentrated institutional restaurant service market in this country, Elior Nederland BV holds approximately 10% of the market shares in the Netherlands, after Sodhexo, which controls one third of the institutional restaurant services and Dutch company Albron, and Compass, each of which have 20%.
The rugby team from the Sporting Union Agen (SUA) paid a visit to the Agen elementary schools to share a meal with the city's schoolchildren. The visit was part of the wide-ranging growing competition entitled "I support SUA", organized by Avenance with the support of the city of Agen and its leading-light rugby club. To celebrate the event, Avenance had thought up a 100% South-West menu, combining eating pleasure with a balanced diet.
The 2nd snacking Congress will be held on 9 June 2011 in Paris. The event is organized by the France Snacking magazine with support from SNARR, Leaders Club, the Salon Sandwich & Snack Show and Geco. Noteworthy participants will be Elior, Groupe Flo and Casino Restauration.
Elior has opened its 4th Courtepaille restaurant on the A5 motorway. Philippe Labbé, Courtepaille's chairman intends to take advantage of the renewal of many concession contracts between now and the end of 2000. Elior's Autoroutes France operations are directed by Dominique Dubald, points out "Le Manager de l'Alimentaire".
On Friday 2 February, under the guidance of Guy Martin, star-bedecked chef of the Paris restaurant, Le Grand Véfour, the cooks from the school restaurant prepared a high-quality lunch for the students. Six hundred meals were served with a recipe based on 100% cheese. This lunch forms part of the operation entitled "Our colleges have taste", under the prompting of the General Council.
Tim Hammond has just been appointed Managing Director of Elior UK. He joined the Whitbread group in 2001 as Managing Director of TGI Friday.
Elementary school restaurants in Toulon, like the Claude-Debussy School, on Thursday 3 February proposed a special menu entitled "Chinese New Year". Valérie Séraphin, director with Avenance, stipulates: "We work with teachers to encourage sustainable development and educate students with respect to taste and flavour. The menus served, the decoration, the soft music and the chopsticks all add up to stimulate the children in new areas of knowledge. 10 000 "Chinese New Year" meals were served during the day at Toulon.
