With almost two decades worth of experience, catering firm RoyalSechaba has become a leader in the outsourced food industry. Exec learns more.
By Hannah Eiseman-Renyard
RoyalSechaba started life in 1990 as Royal Food Services, and quickly became a leader in the outsourced food industry. In 2000, Royal joined forces with the blackowned Sechaba Catering Services, allowing it to serve a broader market and increase its product range.
Today, the company’s main support office is in Centurion, but its catering services operate wherever they are needed. From hospitals, which need dietician-supervised healthy meals for their patients, to challenging remote sites for which RoyalSechaba even needs to organise water purification. However, the company takes all specialised requirements in its stride, living out the company motto “we serve the best”.
In 2005, the fast-growing, ambitious firm was bought by the Mvelaphanda Group Limited, South Africa’s leading Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) group, and it hasn’t looked back: “Being wholly-owned allows our strategies to be more focused than if there were numerous shareholders,” explains Fiorella Mugari, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director of the company. “It is also our pride and joy to be part of the Mvelaphanda Group as this group is South Africa’s pre-eminent broad-based, black-controlled and managed diversified group.
“RoyalSechaba is committed to living by our mission,” adds Mugari. “We want to be Southern Africa’s leading caterer; a fast growing, progressive and innovative company that shows a commitment to our people, our customers and our shareholders. We want to be a company that offers great opportunities, and is a place where people like to work.”
PILING ON THE PRESSURE
The need to be progressive and innovative is increasing all the time. As worldwide fuel and food prices increase, biting into margins, this pressure could flush out small players. However, as Mugari observes, “the largest players with adequate resources and innovation will survive,” and RoyalSechaba is definitely one of the latter. It is currently the third largest in its field, and aims to become the biggest. A combination of cost minimisation and supply chain focus ensures RoyalSechaba’s business model is efficient and competitive, while menu engineering and a focus on service quality differentiates the company from its competitors.
As the company understands, the key to this service quality is with the staff. “People are the number one priority for business success,” says Mugari. To this end RoyalSechaba supports the principles of the Skills Development Act and gives preference to targeted groups as contained in the Employment Equity Act. The company is also committed to using the National Qualifications Framework to ensure a skilled and motivated workforce and recognises the importance of learning programmes, using recognised and accredited providers for external training and development needs where necessary.
“We also provide a Wellness Programme using a professionally qualified dietician,” continues Mugari. “Quality control procedures go hand-in-hand with our management approach. We subscribe to a Quality, Health and Safety Management System which allows us to maintain a consistently high standard of hygiene. Our service quality excellence is assured by the use of a catering committee, customer surveys and a robust service level agreement.”
All employees are involved and incentivised to continually improve the level of service which they offer. To this end, within certain contracts RoyalSechaba uses an owner/operator model so that the project manager shares in the risks and the rewards of running the operation. This optimises the commitment from staff and in turn rewards them with the successful outcomes.
A CHALLENGING INDUSTRY
In an industry which is described as “challenging on a daily basis,” RoyalSechaba believes in delivering a high standard at affordable prices. It provides high-quality catering in the hotel and leisure sectors, at universities, as well as corporate head offices, special events, and the ever-growing and logistically challenging area of remote sites.
“Remote sites business is the next big thing due to numerous infrastructure projects in the pipeline” says Mugari. “Our remote sites business was a star performer during the course of the year.”
With Africa’s Electricity Supply Commission, Eskom, currently expanding its infrastructure in many projects at remote sites, this market is rapidly expanding. Moreover, with its own Remote Sites Services Division, RoyalSechaba is primed to take full advantage of this new boom area, though remote sites certainly throw up extra challenges: “Barriers to entry into this industry are low or non-existent as we compete with major players as well as self-employed individuals,” the firm says.
Already, the business provides a tailored model to each site, which involves camp management as well as a variety of refreshment possibilities, from the sit-down Diner to the Grab n’ Go kiosk, to the Games Room and Sports Bar, which allows for pool tables, big screen TVs and juke boxes.
MORE REMOTE SITES
So what does the future hold for Royal Sechaba? “The future strategy includes growth in remote sites – this is the most appealing as it not only includes contract catering but the full suite of services that come with camp management services: food delivery, cleaning services, ablution facilities, and entertainment services, amongst our other services. Our company is seeking to achieve this growth by implementing a specialised strategy for penetrating this sector on a grander scale,” says Mugari. “The companies in the industry that survive will be those that accept that the only constant is change and adapt as change happens.”
View Digital Corporate Profile of RoyalSechaba in Exec Africa November 2008