Catering boss bounces back with spraying and anti-bacterial fogging service

Left to right: Jake Phillips, Ian Windsor, Ian Wallace, James Kettle, Imran Hussain, Radoslov Radev

A company which offers a spraying and anti-bacterial fogging service to commercial clients allowing staff to return to the workplace after the Coronavirus lockdown has been launched.

Spray it Safe, based in Warwickshire, has been formed by Ian Wallace, a director of catering firm Grace & Flavour, which saw its work all-but wiped out by the crisis.

The firm has delivered catering for staff and conference guests across the region for 10 years and developed into a £2m turnover company but, in March, Coronavirus closed all event and catering venues around the UK.

Wallace realised that the sector would be one of the last to recover and identified a need to re-deploy some of his team, protecting the core event and contract catering business for the future and building a new one offering disinfectant cleaning services.

Spray It Safe uses ultra-low volume (ULV) foggers and electrostatic sprayers to cleanse offices and other work spaces allowing companies to prepare for a return of staff.

Wallace said: “We had built up Grace & Flavour over 10 years and provided catering for a number of leading international and national companies but all that was threatened to be wiped out in a matter of weeks as the government closed all hospitality operations.

“I’m sure there will be opportunities to deliver world class event catering and staff dining in the future, but right now we need to keep all of our options flexible.

“We have always put great emphasis on training and skills and it was a question of refining those attributes and using them in a different way to help other companies and organisations who are hoping to return to the workplace and want to do so knowing they have the highest hygiene and safety standards in place.

“We have put our staff through a full and rigorous training programme and have already had orders from hospitality and education organisations who see the benefits not only in ensuring the highest safety standards as they return to normal service, but also using this level of cleansing will bring reassurance to staff and customers which is vital as we start to recover.”

Spray it Safe, which is based in Leamington Spa, is also developing a managed service which allows client businesses to deliver the chemical spraying themselves using their own facilities teams but supervised through a management, supply and training framework put in place by Spray it Safe on a subscription basis, and aimed particularly at restaurants, hotels and retail settings.

Operations director Jake Phillips added: “It has been great to see some of our original G&F team using the skills we have helped them develop, in a totally new way with our exciting new company, Spray it Safe.

“It will hopefully save jobs and also allow companies to resume their operations with confidence after what has been a torrid time. Lots of our previous event and hospitality clients are key players in the Midlands Engine and we are confident that we will be able to support them with this new service.”

 

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