Served. by Kanpla

Fifteen years ago a Lidl sold you bulk. Today it sells you a croissant and a coffee on the way in.

Alexander Breuckelmann thinks that is one of the more consequential things to happen to workplace catering in a decade, and that most of the industry is still not counting it as competition. He has been COO of Compass Group Deutschland GmbH for a year: roughly 600 restaurants, 800,000 guests a week. Before this he was at Selecta, before that he ran operations and the franchise business for Burger King Germany, and before that he grew up commercially inside Lidl, starting in logistics.

In a sector where most senior people have spent an entire career under one roof, he reads the market with retail and QSR eyes. It produces a noticeably less comfortable diagnosis.

Technology in hospitality is ten times better than it was two years ago. Satisfaction with it has barely moved.

Chris Fletcher, founder and CEO of Tech On Toast, has the numbers. His study of over 150 hospitality leaders, run with Bill's, Rosa's Thai and technology partner Square, found that 94% only adopt technology when it becomes absolutely necessary. Just 6% buy ahead of the curve. More than half are dissatisfied, and only 18% would recommend their current system to anyone else.

Toby Bonnett sat down with him to work out why. After 25 years in operations across Whitbread, Hard Rock Cafe, Carluccio's and Compass Group, Chris thinks the problem sits somewhere other than the technology.

School meal funding has always been tight in the UK, but in England it has now fallen badly behind. At £2.61 per child, per day, it lags Wales by 79p, Scotland by 69p, and Northern Ireland by 49p. The actual cost of delivering a quality school meal, according to a recent industry report, is £3.45 and climbing.

In this Served. panel talk, we sat down with two experts who work both the kitchen and the campaign trail: Luke Consiglio, CEO of The Pantry UK Ltd and a director on the national board of The School Food People, and Bryan Lygate, Chief Operating Officer of Impact Food Group (which feeds over 1,700 schools and colleges across England) and vice chair of The School Food People.

Why food waste is designed into menus, planning, and leadership decisions.

Food waste in contract catering doesn’t start in the kitchen. It starts with decisions made long before service.

Menus are planned. Volumes are padded. Safety margins become the norm. The result is one of the most expensive and persistent problems in foodservice.

Each year, around 1.05 billion tonnes of food, nearly 20% of global production, is wasted (source: link). In European contract catering, foodservice operators have already achieved roughly 25% waste reduction, proving that food waste is not inevitable, but a result of how systems are designed (source: link).

In this episode of Served., Peter Baech, CEO and Co-founder of Kanpla, is joined by Vojtech Vegh, Anti-Food Waste Chef, Author, Speaker, Zero-Waste Plant-Based Chef at Surplus Food Studio, and Zero-Waste Culinary Advisor at Winnow.

Drawing on more than 15 years of experience across professional kitchens and multi-site contract catering, Vojtech explains why food waste is rarely an operational failure. It’s a leadership decision.

2025 didn’t just pass - it exposed the fault lines in contract catering.

Some operators moved forward. Others stood still. And a few quietly fell behind.

As 2026 begins, the gap between front-runners and everyone else is widening - driven by data & AI, consolidation, experience design, and a growing demand for transparency.

To understand what really changed in 2025 - and what will actually matter in 2026 - we brought together three leaders with a front-row seat to the industry:

• Peter Baech, Co-founder and CEO, Kanpla
• Simon Elliot, Co-founder and Managing Partner, 4xi Global Consulting
• Chris Stern, Founder & Managing Director, Stern Consultancy Ltd

Hosted by Toby Bonnett, the conversation cuts through the noise to examine what actually shifted in 2025 - and what will separate the front-runners from the rest in 2026.

When Sodexo left Denmark during the pandemic, Christian Lunner faced a choice: walk away or build something new. In this Served. Founder Story, the CEO and Partner at SERWIZ shares how a management buy-out became one of Denmark’s fastest-growing FM and catering companies.

In this episode of Served. Founder Stories, Peter Baech sat down with Simon Houston FIH, Co-founder and Director of Houston & Hawkes, to explore his journey from university placement to leading one of the UK’s fastest-growing independent caterers.

Founded in 2019, Houston & Hawkes has become known for its people-first culture, independent ownership, and B Corp certification - all achieved while navigating a global pandemic.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have always been part of the contract catering world - but in recent years, M&A activity has accelerated. From billion-euro exits to independents joining forces with larger groups, consolidation is reshaping the landscape. Newest example being Compass Group's acquisition of Vermaat for €1.5 billion.

In this Served. panel talk, we sat down with two experts who know both sides of the table: Graeme Smith, Corporate finance specialist at AlixPartners, and Ruston Toms FIH, Co-Founder and Former Director of Blue Apple Workplace Catering , who sold his business to CH&CO which then got acquired by Compass Group.

In this episode of Served., Peter Baech talks with Tony Johnson, CCXP, former Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Aramark and now CXO at 4xi Global Consulting. With more than 14 years in one of the world’s largest food service companies, Tony shares what he's learned about building a culture of service that actually works in contract catering.

From what great service really means to balancing tech and human touch, Tony makes one thing clear: if you want better customer experiences, you have to start with your people.

She started by making sandwiches at 5am. Now she leads global strategy for Sodexo. In this wide-ranging conversation, Catharine Barras shares career lessons, food tech trends, and her predictions for how we’ll eat and work in 2035.

“If you don’t put your hand up, you’ll never be recognised.” - Catharine Barras.

In episode 8 of Served., we sat down with Catharine Barras, Global COO for Strategic Accounts at Sodexo, to explore her leadership journey across continents and companies.

We cover:

• Her rise from bar shifts to boardrooms
• The reality of being a female exec in a male-dominated industry
• Global vs local catering models
• How tech, AI, and dark kitchens are reshaping corporate food service
• And what 2035 might look like for the next generation of eaters, chefs, and clients

Insightful, grounded, and refreshingly forward-looking - this episode is a must-read (and must-watch).