The big interview: Aramark

The Queen’s funeral gave Aramark an opportunity to demonstrate what it could do over and above its contractual obligations, defence and judicial sector director Glyn Ingram tells Jane Renton...

Was there ever such a spectacle in living memory imbued with so much pageantry, ancient symbolism and genuine sorrow as the funeral of our late Queen? Ten 10 days of mourning, six of which were devoted to the lying-in-state at Westminster Abbey.

People stood in a queue some five miles long, enduring a wait of more than 10 hours to pay their respects. As the country came to a standstill on the day of the funeral, we grew accustomed to broadcasters talking of ‘gentlemen at arms’, resplendent in swan feather plumes and yeoman of the guard standing vigil over the catafalque.

Perhaps the most abiding image was that of the pallbearers, the young men from the Grenadier Guards, Household Division, who so fastidiously carried the sovereign’s coffin on the various stages of her journey to her final resting place in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. All told, there were some 6,000 military personnel taking part in the funeral alone, but a total of 11,000 additional troops were brought into London to deal with one of the highest-level security events ever to take place in the capital.

All of those additional troops required feeding and accommodation, along with other domestic services. They also needed stabling for their horses.

All those tasks fell to Aramark, which since 2017 has assumed full responsibility for running those services in the south east – including in London with its eight military barracks – as part of a five-year contract with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO). As part of that deal, Aramark always knew that it could be called upon to play a highly significant supporting role in the event of the Queen’s death. It was something that the US-owned foodservice and facilities provider, like the BBC, always discreetly planned and periodically rehearsed for.

“We started planning as soon as we won the contract five years ago,” explains Glyn Ingram, whose organisation undertook the operation with a tightly knit team of just 500. “It was very clear that [such an event] would be a key part of the London contract.

“All of the team had been security-cleared and trained, as well as highly attuned to the exacting and precise demands of their specific roles. And there were many different and diverse demands placed upon them. There was no scope for enthusiastic volunteers from other parts of the Aramark empire, given the high security nature of what they were undertaking.

“We organised the marquees for the troops to sleep in and dine in London’s eight military barracks. We cleaned their accommodation and also them through the night when they were taking part in rehearsals.”

Those responsibilities extended beyond Aramark’s traditional catering skills to include tailoring and any mending of uniforms, and stabling of horses and other equine demands, such as blacksmithing. Ingram’s team of cobblers even fixed rubber soles onto the shoes of the pallbearers to silence any awkward squeaks while carrying out their slow funeral march. He himself talks of the ghostly experience of watching the men move in the shadows in the dark of night, as they practiced with an empty weighted coffin.

Logistically this whole exercise was always going to be challenging, no matter how many times the Aramark team and its client practiced their respective roles. Continuity and flexibility of supply required careful advanced planning, especially given the constraints imposed on supply chains as a direct result of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. This especially called for reliance on long-standing relationships with key suppliers.

It also meant working very closely with Aramark’s military client to gain a full understanding of its requirements, as well as full and frank discussions about the risks involved in necessarily holding such large quantities of supply. “This meant queuing up a number of suppliers, to have certain stock levels in holding,” says Ingram. “It necessitated a collaborative approach and a very open and honest relationship.”

But no matter how meticulous the planning, Ingram – a catering industry veteran, who also spearheaded Aramark’s involvement at the Olympics in both London and Beijing – knew from past experience that events often pursue an entirely different trajectory on the day. “I warned my team that everything would be very different once we went live,” he recalls. “There would be much more emotion, stress and pressure, but that they had to work around that and not get involved.”

As he reasons, the plan that is anticipated is very rarely the plan that actually unfolds. There were simply too many moving parts involved to guarantee adherence to the original schedule. Security changes resulted in sudden road closures and unexpected troop movements. And no matter how tightly knit the chain of command between Aramark, its military bosses and suppliers, the job of conveying supplies and people to where the soldiers had now moved became considerably more complex.

Despite those difficulties, they held the line. Strong nerves, as well as a clear chain of communication between the key players involved on the Aramark side, the military and the DIO carried them through. “There had to be absolute clarity of relationship and communication – everything else was just ‘noises off’, an unwelcome layer of additional complexity,” Ingram asserts.

One of his immediate concerns was to go over Aramark’s prepared and amended plans to ensure they remained relevant and capable of being executed in line with requirements. Any changes had to be assessed for their likely impact on the overall operation.

He was also heavily involved in arranging accommodation in the city for colleagues, so they could focus fully on the immediate operations underway. Operational command was undertaken by Keith Metson, regional operations director for Aramark, London and the south east. His general managers at each of the military barracks had to relay any changes back to Metson so he could update and appraise his immediate military contact.

During that period, Aramark served some 50,000 meals, including breakfast, lunch and dinner. It also fed the police and the BBC and ambulance crews, as well as the Commonwealth troops taking part in the ceremony and rehearsals. They additionally fed the troops between midnight and 3.30am as rehearsals got underway.

The entire operation ran seamlessly, at least on the surface, but the discovery of a refrigeration failure late in the evening at one of its barracks caused unexpected alarm. “One of our chefs warned us at about midnight that he wasn’t certain that the external refrigeration we had brought in was going to hold up,” says Ingram. “We decided to live with it for the time being, but at 3am we decided we had better check it once more only to discover that the temperature had fallen still further.”

That meant a long hard slog in the early hours emptying out the fridge and transporting supplies to wherever they could fit it in. “Every single person just dropped what they were doing, whether they were front of house or back of house and just helped,” says Ingram. “I was carrying boxes of sandwiches. It was a case of all hands to the pump.”

Despite those unexpected setbacks, Ingram is adamant that he and his team got as much out of the experience as they put in – perhaps even more. “For me personally, it was about reputation within the defence market, within the government sector,” he says. “Yes, we can provide 10m meals a year – that’s what we’re contracted to do – but this allowed us to show what we can go over and above when we’re called to arms.”

There were also a number of magical moments that, for Ingram, dwarfed even the high-octane adrenalin rush of being involved in not just one but two Olympics. These included camping out at RAF Northolt for several days waiting for the Queen’s coffin to arrive, and the surreal apparition of mounted soldiers of the Household Cavalry, where Ingram’s own father had once served, returning to barracks in the early hours of the morning.

The sight of hundreds and thousands of spectators respectfully camping out to catch a glimpse of the funeral procession filled Ingram and his colleagues with admiration and a shared sense of humanity. “Seeing people sleeping in parks, lining up to watch the parades and just talking to them was a huge morale boost for everyone,” says Ingram.

So would he and his colleagues do this all over again? Well, they are going to have to do so, albeit in a far happier guise as the Coronation of Charles III gets underway next May. “This is what makes our job so special – and not many people get a chance to do something like it,” concludes Ingram. “Our teams were genuinely bouncing afterwards – I swear they’ve all grown two feet in height.”

And they were comforted too, no doubt, knowing that when the call to arms came through, they responded over and above the line of duty.

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