Site visit: Lexington

As we walk around the hugely impressive BT – One Braham building, which sits right outside Aldgate East station in London, it’s pretty clear that, despite all of its recent expansion and advancement, Lexington Catering regards this as being one of its prime contracts. And it’s easy to see why. The fact that it borders both the street food central that is Shoreditch and the City of London provides a perfect encapsulation of where the Elior offshoot currently is as a company.

The business and industry (B&I) specialist was awarded BT’s wider workplace catering service contract, which is worth some £15m annually, back in 2020. This impressive win made it the sole catering provider for the communications giant’s 56 sites across the UK, covering everything from staff restaurants and coffee shops to hospitality and events.

This all dovetails nicely with the involvement of Sean Ritson, who is divisional director for catering and independent schools, having joined as operations director in 2019. “I essentially oversee the day-to-day running of about 70% of the business,” he says as we sit down over a lunch that is as healthy as it is tasty. “I look after some of the biggest and best corporate clients here in London and across the country, particularly BT, as well as our 18 independent schools.”

BT had been with the same catering partner for some 30 years going into 2019, with parent company Elior having enjoyed a small part of that business, so it was quite an achievement when Lexington was appointed. “Being told that news just before Christmas 2020 was amazing,” recalls Ritson. “Then, when we started on 1^st April 2021, we had to mobilise 56 sites from a lockdown situation.”

This may sound, well, less than ideal, but Ritson now regards it as having been a positive experience. “It was difficult,” he admits. “But looking back on it now, it is probably one of the things that we're most proud of, because the whole of the Lexington UK business came together.”

This holistic approach was required as a contract as big as this requires a number of different approaches. Lexington’s role was to align with BT’s Better Workplace Programme by providing bespoke curated experiences in each of the client’s high-end flagship locations.

This period may feel like a bad dream now to many, but for those in B&I, covid continues to complicate the picture. “I think every caterer will have the same story to tell post-pandemic,” says Ritson. “The big question for a lot of clients is, ‘Can we tempt people back to the workplace with great, subsidised food?’ The reality is that we can try. So what we are doing here is attempting to use it to get as many people together as possible to collaborate and stimulate productivity.”

As was previously alluded to, this offer focuses on health and quality, such is the way with modern-day B&I dining. As good as it clearly is, how exactly does Lexington go about keeping customers on-site, a task that must be particularly challenging in a location such as this?

“Our menu changes daily,” says Ritson, “albeit we have certain staples, such as fish and chips, pizzas and so on, “If you go to Pret, a restaurant or a quick-service outlet down there,” he continues, gesturing out of the vast window towards the incredible view it affords, “the menus are typically quarterly. So that's one way of encouraging the clientele to stay here.

“It's really about understanding the demographic, their behaviour and tailoring your menu accordingly. Here, being the UK head office, you've got the board here and it’s a white-collar building. Therefore, the majority of it is anchored around an amazing salad bar with great protein. Go to some of the other BT buildings in the UK, you might have a blue-collar call centre, so the demographic is very different.”

This leads neatly into my final question: what does the future hold for this huge contract, both here at the BT – One Braham building, as well as across the wider business?

“I guess the journey never ends with BT,” responds Ritson. “The plan for the future is to carry on trying to energise and fuel their workplace, trying to hit more of the people in the buildings than we have done before”.

“Any contract caterer that says they hit 100% of occupancy is lying, but we've got a very high percentage here. We’re at around 60% of the people who come into the building transacting with us. That is above average for the sector, which is fantastic, but we still want to try to get more of them.”

Looking to the bigger picture, Ritson also extends this attitude to claiming more clients, though he seems pretty happy with how things have gone since his trial by fire back in early 2020. “We've grown significantly, 20% since I joined, and gone national for the first time in Lexington’s history, with BT and then other clients across the country.,” he recalls. “We've got great presence in the law sector, in finance and in media but this contract is right up there in terms of prestige. BT is our biggest client It’s the jewel in the crown.”

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