Shooting stars

Green Shoots Catering is a company with a difference. Not only does it provide a range of mouth-watering buffets and sandwiches to businesses in the Cardiff area, but it also employs and trains young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Green Shoots Catering is the latest successful social enterprise to be created by Innovate Trust, a Cardiff-based charity that has supported people with learning difficulties since the 1960s.

Green Shoots grew out of Innovate Trust's two other training enterprises, Baltic Café and Park View Café. Both of these were already profitable businesses offering a safe training environment for people with learning difficulties when Green Shoots was set up in 2006.

'With the success of the cafés and an increasing demand for our food came the idea for Green Shoots - an ethical catering firm that would provide fresh food to businesses,' says John Lomax, manager of Green Shoots Catering.

Doubling up

After receiving funding from the Equitable Charitable Trust (an education charity for young people), and support from the European Social Fund, the company showed significant growth. In 2008/09 Green Shoots more than doubled its annual turnover, reaching £250,000.

Green Shoots' training placements enable young people with learning difficulties or mental health issues to develop skills in an exciting, busy working environment. It has trained ten people to date, three of whom have become members of Green Shoots' eight-strong staff.

'We offer practical lessons in food preparation and cookery, health and safety awareness, cash handling, the importance of customer care and the benefits of team work,' says Lomax.

One of the benefits of this support is that trainees have the opportunity to work towards recognised qualifications, such as NVQs or OCN (Open College Network) accreditations. Every trainee receives tailored vocational tuition, and monthly targets are set in agreement with their social worker. Lomax is proud to announce that one former trainee now works as a kitchen porter at the Hilton Cardiff hotel, while another is working as a waiter at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff.

The right recipe

Green Shoots' success has not always been easy, however. Lomax explains that the biggest problem facing social firms, and Green Shoots in particular, is the competition from other non-social enterprise businesses.

His answer to this is simple - Green Shoots Catering must always provide the highest quality service, use the best ingredients in its kitchen and maintain a flexible approach with its customers.

'We offer a trolley service with bespoke catering, and much of our produce is either fair trade or sourced locally from our organically certified farm, the Amelia Trust Farm, in the Vale of Glamorgan,' he says.

Green Shoots knows the value of customer care too. Many of its customers are fellow social enterprises, which recognise the importance of its work - and like a good sandwich. It has also been successful in gaining big contracts, one of its largest catering projects was serving 350 people at the Welsh Assembly Government. Its next big job is to feed hundreds of people at the Disability Pride festival in Cardiff in June this year.

Another problem facing Green Shoots, like so many other social businesses, is its reliance on external grants. Presently, 75 per cent of its income is from sales, while 25 per cent is from grants. If it is to become a fully sustainable business, and not reliant on grants, then it will need to expand, and in to do this, further funding is required.

However, the immediate future looks bright. 'We have just purchased a second delivery van,' says Lomax.

greenshootscatering.co.uk