Published on 15/09/2016

The requirement

Ramgarhia Sabha, a Sikh charity organisation in Reading, contacted ESPO in January 2016 to assist them with a project involving a full design, supply and installation of a charitable community catering kitchen that they required due to an increase in demand for hosting regular events. The new kitchen needed to enable hot food for 250 people to be served on site on regular occasions.

The solution

On the current Commercial Catering Equipment framework (98) there is a wide selection of suppliers covering a variety of services and products. Due to the nature of the customer’s requirement, ESPO assisted the charity in running a further competition to achieve the best supply solution.  This involved inviting all eligible suppliers who were able to offer kitchen design, supply and installation works (lots 1, 2 and 3), within the relevant geographical area. At the end of the tender process the customer received a sufficient number of bids and they were able to award the project to Whitco who offered good quality products and equipment at a discounted price.

The results

The installation was completed in the required short-notice time frame and the charity were pleased with both the quick turnaround time achieved and the professional conduct demonstrated by the supplier. In particular, the customer appreciated the complementary training on the more complicated catering equipment. This was of great benefit to the organisation as they rely heavily on volunteers who now feel more comfortable using the equipment as a direct result of this training.
 
The charity could see how the use of the framework led to cost savings as the discount levels offered by the suppliers were better than they expected; they were pleased to have a completed project for 6.5% less than they had originally estimated. Due to their experience of using an ESPO framework, Ramgarhia Sabha has now concluded that if another project was required in their local area, they would have no hesitation in using an ESPO framework again.

Overall we are pleased to have had access to this framework which enabled us to achieve our overall objective. The advice and guidance offered by ESPO was valuable and helped us deliver our project on time and within our budget.

Baldev Sian, President, RSR

Click here to view a printable version of this case study.

To view this framework, click here.

For further information, please contact:

Marketa Overton
food@espo.org
0116 294 4161