The big interview: Compass One

The King’s coronation led to the largest ever one-day mobilisation by the Met Police – and there supporting throughout was Compass One, as managing director Mark Webster tells Jane Renton...

Ever since ESS, the specialist government and defence services arm of Compass One, won the three-year contract to deliver catering services to the Metropolitan Police in London last year, it knew it was also destined to play a significant supporting role in the forthcoming royal coronation. Except, in reality, that supporting role sometimes felt rather more conspicuous at times.

Mark Webster, managing director of Compass One, recalls the out-of-body experience felt by colleagues who found themselves being given a conspicuous police escort down heavily crowd-lined Royal Mall, as they desperately endeavoured to manoeuvre van supplies to one of several assigned delivery stations. “It all felt very surreal,” he remembers. “They were right in the centre of events as they unfolded.”

‘Operation Golden Orb’, as it was designated by the event planners, was one of the largest and most significant security operations ever undertaken by the Met, as well as its biggest one-day mobilisation in decades, involving more than 11,500 officers. As part of its new contract, Compass served some 35,000 meals to the Metropolitan Police. It also supplied an additional 17,000 to the military and Commonwealth troops involved, as well as food and drink at the evening concert at Windsor Castle.

However, that specific endeavour on the day was only the tip of the iceberg. ESS had already been heavily involved in providing meals, drinks and snacks to the military throughout earlier Coronation rehearsals. Some 60,000 meals were supplied to UK and Commonwealth troops as they rehearsed prior to the event. In addition, it supplied the Royal Navy with 50,000 meals, as the senior service undertook rehearsals at HMS Excellent, HMS Collingwood and HMS Salton.

To give some idea of the scale of involvement in the Coronation, Compass, the world’s largest contract caterer, supplies some 700,000 meals a month in the UK and Ireland. As Webster observes: “You can see how extraordinary it was for us in terms of being able to serve not only the armed forces, but also particularly the Met. It was a real privilege to be able to do that.”

ESS specialises in working in high-security environments, including those involving government and defence. The Met contract, which it mobilised in October last year, involves supplying catering to all of its London HQ buildings, including New Scotland Yard. It also involves running micro-markets at various police stations across the capital, as well as the catering at the police training college in Hendon.

Although ESS was not yet running the Met contract in the run-up to the late Queen’s funeral last September, Compass was nevertheless heavily involved in ‘Operation London Bridge’, the arrangements surrounding the late Queen’s death, through its work with the military. This involved Compass’s government and defence teams working around the clock for almost two weeks, delivering more than 75,000 meals over the period.

That experience would stand ESS in good stead when it came to the Coronation some eight months later, as Webster observes: “We are really quite well-versed in these type of events.” =

But how do you feed the police at an such an event of heightened vigilance and security? Many of the officers involved were working long shifts far from their normal operational sphere. Again, ESS’s extensive involvement with the military provided the blueprint. That and its ability to involve its catering and nutritional teams in one seamless process to supply specially formulated, high-nutrient packed lunches to officers on active service. These included honey and chicken salad pots, coronation chicken sub rolls and slow-release, high-energy flapjacks, as well as isotonic gels to rehydrate.

“You've got some officers who are supporting the coronation or lining the streets, you've then got other officers who are sitting in the operational watch rooms, who are more sedentary,” Webster explains. “It’s about ensuring we provide the right type of menus to reflect those very different needs across the Met.”

But even the best-laid plans can go awry on such occasions. The event also highlighted the need for extreme flexibility. At one stage, ESS found itself having to prepare 3,000 meals with just nine hours’ notice in readiness for the following morning. “What it meant was that we had to work very closely with our supply chain to deliver what was needed,” Webster says.

In the event, it involved the ESS team concerned undertaking a 60-mile round trip to pick up what was required, an expedition that took five hours to complete with all the roadblocks and street closures on the day. As Webster points out, it might have actually been quicker to transport the delivery by foot, certainly for the last few miles.

But Compass’s extensive operational presence in London was an added bonus. “We have many accompanying sites in other sectors,” Webster says. “As an example, we’ve also got the ExCeL contract. That meant that when we needed additional access to hot drinks, we were able to draw upon the wider organisation and provide support very quickly and dynamically.”

This support was greatly appreciated and the feedback from the police was highly positive, as Webster says: “We were struck by just how appreciative they were, for the thought and effort we had put into their enhanced packed meals. At the fixed stations, they were also able to have a hot meal.”

Webster believes the whole exercise has underscored the importance of food, not just in the workplace but also at such large-scale events like the coronation, a belief further substantiated by a recent Compass survey, Global Eating at Work. Food, and good food in particular, is a highly-emotive subject and a hugely motivational force, the report concludes.

Webster, who has been with the catering giant for the past 20 years (he initially worked as an accountant at KPMG), has found what he calls his “spiritual homeland”. He spent six years in various director roles, becoming managing director of Compass One just over a year ago, having previously had the same role at ESS. “I really love this job,” he says. “I have no problem getting up and going to work every morning to support the people who keep the country running.”

One of the first things he did on assuming the healthcare business as part of his new role was to visit his staff at King’s College Hospital. “One of the things that struck me was how our porters were the first people there to support people who came through A&E after the Grenfell Tower disaster, or to welcome the arrival of the air ambulance,” he recalls. “The team was and is extraordinary.”

He specifically mentions Graham Singer, a culinary chef for ESS in Scotland who worked on Operation London Bridge and COP26 in Glasgow last year, who also wanted to be part of the team working at the coronation. He also praises Tony Murphy, winner of this magazine’s 2023 Executive Chef of the Year award, and the recipient of our Rising Star Award at this year’s Contract Catering Awards, Izabela Ginter.

“This was a great team effort and those taking part, they just wanted to be part of history and felt really privileged to be involved,” Webster says proudly. “It was also a unique opportunity to broaden their experience.”