Catering students invited to cater for royalty for Pitch@Palace

Sunderland College catering students have recently catered for 400 people at the Pitch@Palace event in Newcastle.

The college was originally approached by Sunderland Software City to cater for a Pitch@Palace event to be held in The Boiler Shop. The event involves inviting entrepreneurs ‘pitch’ their ideas to a panel of judges including HRH Prince Andrew, The Duke of York.

The first year professional cookery students took the event in their stride, despite involing a huge amount of organisation. The students prepared food for 400 people onsite, then arranged for it to be transported to Newcastle for the event. In addition to this, the team catered for 12 VIPS which was to include HRH Prince Andrew who unfortunately wasn’t able to make the event due to adverse weather conditions. The event enabled the students to develop skills preparation, organisation and working as a team.

Rob Stewart, Sunderland College Catering, Tourism and Hospitality Curriculum Manager said:

“Events like this one are invaluable to our learners. They would never get to see this side of the industry without them so to be involved in something with such prestige is going to be truly memorable for all of them. Very few people can say they were invited to cater for royalty especially this early on in their careers. They should be extremely proud of what they have achieved!”

Kellis Hall Level One student in Introduction to Professional Cookery added:

“I love events like these. They can be a bit stressful but my confidence is growing and I know I’ll remember the eve nts more than anything else when I finish college so I can take the experience and skills learned with me.”

Billy Webber, COO Sunderland Software City continued:

“We worked with Rob and the students on the first event back in January 2017 and were keen to get them on board again. It’s great to have them involved and the students did a brilliant job.”

This is the second Pitch@Palace event Sunderland College have been invited to cater for and they hope to have the chance to cater for a third time if the event returns to the North East.