United Kingdom

The significant restructuring over recent years is beginning to show benefits.

In the UK, operating profit was £108 million (2007: £107 million). As expected, we have achieved a similar level of profitability and margin to last year.

Over the last two years the business in the UK has been significantly restructured and simplified. The new leadership team is fully in place, blending existing industry experience with fresh ideas from other sectors, especially expertise in consumer retail.

There has been an enormous amount of activity during this period. We have successfully addressed loss-making and low margin contracts and much improved and tightened the sales process; completely reorganised middle management, driven significant cost reduction and improved cash control. At the same time, we have reinvigorated and relaunched our client and consumer offer. We have rebranded our entire Business & Industry sector business to Eurest Services, our umbrella brand for foodservice and support services. We have also driven increases in like for like sales across all our estate through structured promotional programmes such as ‘Best of British’ and ‘Wild Greens’, which are linked to menu planning and purchasing and supported by suppliers and comprehensive merchandising tools. Major contract wins have included The Bank of England, Abbey and Asda, as well as extending our contract to provide foodservice to Royal Mail employees through Quadrant, our joint venture with Royal Mail Group.

Our Restaurant Associates business continues to build on its reputation for culinary excellence, broadening its offer to hotels such as the new Sofitel at T5, Heathrow, where we manage all the food and beverage and deliver an exceptional dining experience for guests.

In Education we have launched Eat Learn Live, adapted for the UK market from a well-established programme in our business in the USA, to further demonstrate our commitment to providing well-balanced and nutritious meals for students. Major successes in the year include winning Cornwall County Council schools and renewing Wellingborough Independent School.

We are making good progress in introducing our retail offer into the Healthcare sector, providing ‘grab and go’ and convenience products to patients and visitors. We have also launched the WhiteOaks brand to develop our penetration of the growing senior living market.

There have been significant improvements in managing food costs through a focus on supplier and product rationalisation and compliance, and in-unit productivity and efficiency. A new online service framework will help to drive greater quality, consistency and efficiency in the way we deliver service.