Catering contract for Commonwealth Games venue finalized

The Commonwealth Games organising committee (OC) has decided on the caterers for the various venues of the Delhi Games 2010. The decision comes after a series of RFPs (request for proposal) were carried out and rejected after selecting bidders. The OC had finally shortlisted a list of catering firms including Aggarwal Foods earlier last week, which was approved by the executive board on Thursday. Besides Aggarwal Foods, several other companies including Graviss hospitality have been chosen to cater at the VIP lounge in the Commonwealth Games 2010 venues.

Confirming the deal, Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the OC said, "The executive board approved the OC's suggestion of hiring M/S AFP manufacturing private limited for the catering of our workforce. The caterers for the VIP lounge at the venues has also been chosen." Incidentally, the deal is worth Rs 9 crore. According to Bhanot, the decision to hire M/s AFP was taken as it offered the lowest bid. The packaged meal being provided by M/s AFP will cost around Rs 80-90, considerably lower than that quoted by IRCTC, which was the earlier choice for catering as per the old tender. IRCTC had at that time, offered a packaged meal at Rs 150.

Added Bhanot, "The quality and cost of the meal was the best offer that we had received, so we decided to go with the AFP offer." The packaged meal is for the OC workforce that includes volunteers, staff and security personnel.

The catering contract comes after months of delay. The first tender was taken out as early as in June 4, 2009, when the expression of interest by OC was released. On June 27, 2009, 25 companies responded out of which, 13 companies qualified. Thereafter, the tender was delayed after changes in the RFP, with OC finally deciding to re-tender in March 2010. In May, six firms were selected, which again got cancelled. On July 24, the OC came out with yet another tender, this time with the contract broken into packaged meals for the workforce and hot meals for the VIP lounge at the various venues.

IRCTC bags CWG catering contract

Indian Railway Catering Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a Railway PSU, has successfully clinched the rights to confer its catering services to sportspersons at the Commonwealth Games venues in Delhi beside from selling tickets online for Commonwealth Games.

According to a Railway official that IRCTC has taken the onus to provide catering services to sportspersons as well as team officials as per their dietary requirement during the Commonwealth Games, and a special team has been appointed to oversee the food served.

He affirmed that the catering service will be offered by IRCTC in eight sporting venues during the course of the event which begins on October 3.

It is not clear as to whether catering contract will cover the Commonwealth Games village as well along with other venues as well. The details are further awaited. Earlier, the OC members have indicated that there would be 11 clusters in catering and each would be given out to one caterer. A lot of hospitality chains were in race for catering contract.

CWG 2010 catering contract enters penultimate phase

Awarding of Commonwealth Games 2010 catering contract is entering its penultimate phase. The upcoming Games are providing an unprecedented opportunity for the hotels to bid for the multi-crore catering contract with an opportunity to claim fame at an international event adding to their repertoire.

(Read: IRCTC bags Commonwealth Games catering contract)

The bidding process for the contract is still on and so far many hotels have bid for the same. The hotel groups in India are not revealing any information regarding the bidding though sources say that many hotels are still sending their responses to Organizing Committee's Request for Proposal (RFP) for the contract.

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Ajay Grover, head - catering, Commonwealth Games 2010, without disclosing the actual figures revealed that the contract will run into multiple crores. He said, "It is a moment that offers great prospects to the Indian hospitality industry for catering. The RFP would be accepted keeping in mind the techno commercial criteria. Various parameters would also be considered eg experience, varieties of menu, etc."

According to him, there would be 11 clusters in catering and each would be given out to one caterer. "It would also provide a consortium to work together as for one cluster there could be several sub-caterers. This would also facilitate a major shift in terms of approach and awareness in food and hygiene," Grover said. The event is also going to benefit the hospitality sector as it would create new benchmarks for all big hotels in India. "The successful Indian companies in the bidding process will come to know about the way big events are organised and how the catering format works. This would further generate awareness about food safety and standards. Moreover, the hoteliers would get acquainted to the global trends in new varieties of food which would help them come up with the same in their prospective areas," he added.

Speaking on the guidelines for catering, Grover informed that it would be on a B2B format and they want the best of hotels to come in for bidding. He said, "From supply chain management to consumption level, everything will be monitored in consultation with the health department of the government of India and third party, who will be certified auditors to do such kind of certification process." It was further said that global tenders had been floated to draw interest from international players having expertise in hospitality, in addition to domestic ones. Express Hospitality has learnt from its sources that apart from ITDC, Delaware North Companies, Global Infusion from UK, and Sodexho from France have been short-listed so far. On being queried about the same, Grover declined to comment.