Balls to the Olympics!

Speciality Bites with

Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

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Don’t take that too literally, I am going to start taking about our ball and finish on the Olympics

Well, we did it!  The first ever Summer Ball has happened and went fantastically!  We believe it was the first ever Summer Ball organised by a Speciality Food Company for those predominantly in the industry, but correct me if I am wrong.  It was a great night for customers and suppliers alike, but more importantly raised a huge total for the Bala Children’s Centre in Kenya.  Our target was £10,000 but we have smashed that by at least £6,000 with a total of £16,000 – probably more as we are still getting donations sent in.

The whole event re-affirmed to me that the sector doesn’t really get together enough for events like this.  Sure we always see each other at trade shows and the like, but we don’t really socialise as much as we should.  There were customers and suppliers swapping ideas and getting new ones and networking as most industries do, but the speciality food sector doesn’t enough.  This is partly because many of the companies involved are small-ish and run by the owners, but we must make time for talking to each other to prevent us getting too set in our ways.  That’s that part of the rant over, back to the event itself.  I was delighted that in addition to the many generous products we had been given for the auction, two suppliers, Awfully Posh and Daioni came up with some great sports tickets to auction during the auction itself which raised another £500.  Thank you!

We have decided that every year might be a big ask, but now plan to run the Cotswold Fayre Charity Summer Ball every two years, so pencil in the first two Fridays in July 2014 in your diaries now and we will confirm later this year.  Now back to running the business!  I hear the weather is going to get better next week – let’s hope so!

Now onto the Olympics!  I can’t say too much at present, but do you remember a couple of years ago what a large song and dance was made off the fact that speciality food suppliers were going to be chosen to be LOCOG to supply some of the Olympic events.  I remember how pleased some of them were to be chosen.  Sadly some of them are regretting ever getting involved.  The orders have been tiny compared to the original forecasts.  Various middle-companies have been involved who have treated some of the suppliers absolutely appallingly, threatening to destroy £1000s of stock for no good reason in some cases.  Hopefully more will come out in due course, but at present I am sitting here feeling really angry on behalf of the speciality food suppliers who have been treated terribly by the Olympics.

Paul Hargreaves
Managing Director