Aramark hits the mark
- December 2010
When Susan Elston was offered a job with the food service company Aramark she looked forward to moving north of the border to Glasgow to deal with the catering needs of business and industry in Scotland’s central belt.
She never made it.
Before her move from Yorkshire, Aramark won from BP what was, and remains, the biggest hotel services contract in the North Sea and they asked her to look after it.
“We had already had an offer for a house accepted in Glasgow and it was a move from a retail to a contract environment and into the oil and gas industry – neither of which I knew much about,” she said.
“However I was persuaded to take the job in Aberdeen as business manager in charge of the contract.”
Susan admits she was naive about many things, including the Scottish housing market, and it was only later she and her husband realised how lucky they had been to escape from buying the Glasgow house because there were several other offers for the property.
“It was such an exciting opportunity, I didn’t think many of the things through initially,” she said. “I didn’t even consider how people travelled offshore and that I would have to take helicopters. Before I started I received details of the induction programme which referred to survival training and I thought I was going to be sent to the Outer Hebrides with a tent and it wasn’t until I received the joining instructions I realised what it was.
“My naivety was, in a way, what was wanted for the contract because it was someone coming in taking a completely fresh look at things. The first couple of years were a total journey of discovery. I had to go offshore and I was trying to learn about the business, the language and understand about safety.
“Before I joined Aramark safety for me was all about recording accidents in the accident book. I knew nothing about trend graphs, LTI’s (lost time incidents) and DAFW’s (days away from work) but I think I found a natural home.
“The oil and gas business is fascinating and it is an industry you can be part of regardless of whether you are just the caterer.”
Susan, Aramark’s Managing Director – Offshore, has enjoyed great success in her career in a sector she knew nothing about in a city she knew nothing about when she landed the job.
That success has been marked by winning the titles of Scottish Enterprise Female Director of the year and the Aberdeen and Grampian Director of the Year in 2008.
After 11 years Susan’s reputation is such that she is the first woman on the board of Oil & Gas UK. She operates in, and has been a major success in, what is traditionally a man’s world but thinks that more significant than her gender is the fact that she represents a catering company on the Oil & Gas board.
“You have MDs of major oil and gas operators and service companies - and a catering company – but the whole point of Oil & Gas UK is to be representative of the whole industry. In this world of more equality it was inevitable there would be a woman on the board at some point although it might have been expected that it would a woman who headed up an operator or a major contract company.”
She has seen many changes in the oil and gas industry over the past decade but that does not include the departure of ‘lobster and steak all the time’ from the offshore menus because “they were not on the menus when I arrived and I am not convinced they ever were.”
She says margins are tighter and the industry is much more supply-chain and procurement focussed and the catering sector is more professional.
“Relationships are important but there are processes and expectations which you have to meet. There is the double pressure in all businesses now that the client wants to pay less and the organisation wants to earn more. You are constantly trying to strike a balance between the two.
“There is a big focus on wellbeing and we spend more time on product sourcing to make sure we are using low fat and we try to reduce salt and sugar but without it being so overt that people don’t want to eat it because it is ‘all this healthy eating rubbish.’
“It is about creating a healthier environment so if you want mince and tatties it is mince and tatties which is as healthy as it can be.
“Our chefs now are for more commercial. They are now chef/managers and much more accountable in achieving food costs and they spend a lot more time in the office now which is a challenge because they want to go out and cook.”
She says the offshore work force is also far more discerning than even 10 years ago.
“Dining out wasn’t so much the norm then. People now go out for a meal just for tea and it doesn’t have to be a special event. You can’t please all the people all of the time but most offshore personnel recognise it is pretty good food. How many people have the choice of a full breakfast every day, or three to five hot choices at lunchtime and maybe four to six hot choices in the evening?
“In real terms we probably spend around a third of the money per person we spent 20 years ago but that is not because of a drop in quality or quantity. Part of it is better skill and less waste and part of it is definitely more professional procurement.”
Although Susan is responsible for the food – and the accommodation – of around 5000 men and women on more than 65 installations in the North Sea and the Middle East she is not tied to the kitchen at home.
Husband Brian is a chef, now retired, and he enjoys cooking for his wife.
“It’s not that I can’t cook but I don’t have much time and live with someone who likes it and is probably better so there isn’t much need.”
Brian’s challenge is to keep it high in carbohydrate to give her the energy to complete the running events which have become an important part of her life in the past few years.
“I started late in life so I am still achieving personal bests,” said Susan who has pledged to run 100k in total this year for charity. “I love running. I have done a number of 10ks including the Balmoral race and I have done the Great North Run. Next year I am doing my first marathon in Edinburgh. Running is a great way to clear your head and I manage to do so many things, like plan presentations, when I am running.”
Susan was born in Middlesbrough but is settled in North-east Scotland and doubts if she could persuade her husband to move away even if she wanted to.
However she is surprised at how slow things are to happen in Europe’s oil capital.
“I have been travelling to the Middle East for two or three years and although it is different environment and there is much more money things happen so much more quickly.
“You go on one visit and they say they are going to build a monorail, on the next visit it is under construction and on the third visit it is done. When I moved up here I mentioned the traffic problems and was told ‘It’s OK they are going to build the Western Peripheral Route. I didn’t realise they had been speaking about it for 20 years and 11 years on it still hasn’t started.
“We lost a lot of people when we moved six miles from the town centre to our offices in the Kirkhill Business Park simply because of the difficulty people encounter to travel just to here – and car parking is a nightmare – however I have absolutely no regrets about moving to Aberdeen rather than Glasgow.”
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