Young people get the message that there are great careers in hospitality

"The films, very impressively put together by the county council, are helping us to get our offer out there and attract the people we want."

A hospitality group is looking to invest its future heavily in young people as its seeks to rapidly grow the business in the light of lockdown restrictions easing.

Caviar & Chips was founded in 2017 by Jonathan Carter-Morris and Marc Hornby who created a bespoke wedding catering company when Jonathan couldn’t find a caterer to help him with his own wedding plans.

Since then, the business has taken over the 16th century Virgins & Castle pub in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, and an 18th century boutique wedding venue in Shropshire.

They took on the Virgins & Castle in March 2020, a week before lockdown was imposed. Despite the immensely challenging year that followed for the hospitality sector, they have grown the team in Kenilworth, opened the pub for outdoor service on April 12th and are now looking to enlarge their staff even further.

With that in mind, recruitment of the best young people is a top objective - and one in which the company has benefited from local business support.

They have worked closely with Warwickshire College Group and recently appointed a new apprentice. They also engaged with Warwickshire County Council's innovative Future Careers filming programme. This provides a free digital media opportunity for businesses to work with a filming company to produce two videos which showcase their current and future employment and career pathways.

Caviar & Chips co-founder, Marc said: "We are looking to recruit and it is great to have these really good, polished films which showcase our business and show young people what we can offer as a career.

"When Jonathan and I created Caviar & Chips, we said we wanted to create a great place to work. We also wanted to create a business that put our clients first and was led by their choices. I think that’s really helped us on our journey.

"We’re so grateful to have navigated our way through the pandemic so far and now want to create great opportunities for new people to join our team and make us even better. The films, very impressively put together by the county council, are helping us to get our offer out there and attract the people we want.

“The impact of coronavirus was just such a shock to the wedding industry. We were set to deliver around 100 weddings and events in 2020, but we ended up having delivered just three! Thankfully we’ve managed to help 99% of our clients to a later date in 2021 or 2022 and we are really looking forward to our wonderful teams getting out there and hosting again.”

Caviar & Chips, twice winners of the Wedding Industry Awards best regional wedding caterer, have won awards as a small business for the work they do in the community and the wellbeing work they do with their teams.

Co-founder and Executive Chef, Jonathan added: "I’m really keen that while we’re making this big investment in new team members and growth in our businesses, that we do it well and we always do right by our team. We’ve got such a great opportunity coming out of lockdown to reset how things are done. I’m really looking forward to working with the next generation of hospitality managers and leaders and can’t wait to get started.”

Fore more details on the Future Careers filming programme, please visit here.

To find out more about the opportunities at Caviar & Chips, please visit www.caviarandchips.co.uk/join-our-team or email julie@caviarandchips.co.uk