Sodexho: Products/Projects

Sodexho has thousands of food and management services contracts worldwide from multiservice contracts with IBM in Peru, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia to contracts with the International Peace Maternity Hospital in Shanghai.12

In the UK, some examples of its products and projects include:

Sodexho Defence Services, based in Aldershot, from where Sodexho run around 60 projects for the military across the UK including at the Aldershot Garrison. Sodexho are also the lead contractor at the new Colchester Garrison private finance initiative (PFI). Other contracts including the Catterick Garrison, ARCC Germany, Falkland Islands, Dover/Shorncliffe MAC and RAF High Wycombe.13 See www.sodexhodefence.com for more information.

Catering services in the UK span from two halls of residence at the University of Huddersfield, to the 'Kitchen Mondiale' at University College, London. From 170 private schools to numerous state schools. For more information as well as lists of schools worldwide that are catered for by Sodexho, from Chile to China, as well as in the UK, see www.sodexhoeducation.com.14 Sodexho also serve meals to around 45,000 patients in the UK each day15 and run coffee shops in hospitals under the names "Strollers" and "Just Trading".

Sodexho provide inhouse catering at hotels, commercial restaurants and in corporate canteens such as Ford, British American Tobacco and Toyota. It also provides catering services at prestigious events including Royal Ascot, Henley Royal Regatta and the Stella Artois tennis tournament.16 Sodexho also provides 'cook-chilled' and frozen meals through its Tillery Valley Foods division17 and vending services.

Sodexho has provided remote services to all the major oil, gas, construction and mining companies including BP-Amoco, Halliburton and Rio Tinto. See www.universalsodexho.com for a complete list of projects and clients.

Sodexho also own Parisien-style boats that do sightseeing tours on the Thames, as well as a restaurant boat, Naticia. See www.bateauxlondon.co.uk

Sodexho offer conference and banqueting facilities at numerous locations around Britain. From the Royal Agricultural Showgrounds at Stoneleigh (which is quite an indictment of the Royal Agricultural Showgrounds and their commitment to UK agriculture!), to The Tall Ship in Glasgow harbour and Mill Hill school. For a complete list see www.conference-online.co.uk.

Safegard is a specialist division of Sodexho, that operates as an autonomous consultancy on health and safety issues both for Sodexho and external clients. More can be found on www.safegard-online.co.uk

Facilities management span from the NHS, where Sodexho is one of the largest laundry providers - with a capacity to launder 364,000 items a week,18 to the Ford Motor company at 33 locations in the UK. See www.sodexhofm.com. This ranges from grounds mantainance through Sodexho Land Technology, where clients include the Royal Park at Kensington Gardens, Cheshire County Council, Birmingham International Airport and many private clients and Local Authorities19 to the 'Healthworks' division which manages corporate gymnasiums for, amongst others, Shell UK, Clydesdale Bank, Land Rover, Glaxo Smithkline Pharmaceuticals and Norwich Union.20

Sodexho's provision of services to the UK Government span from providing tea at the Scottish Parliament to winning government contracts under the Private Finance Initiative to manage prisons and immigration detention centres. This connection has its own little pop-up website with the slogan "Sodexho: a more human approach to corrections" when you load up www.sodexhoalliance.com. There is very little information on the main site, though. Some of these facilities are run outright by Sodexho and others it runs jointly with other companies. In the UK, Sodexho operates in the prison industry through its subsidiary, UK Detention Services.

Besides 'Strollers' bakery brand and 'Just Trading' food retailing units, other Sodexho brand names include 'Caffe Toscana' kiosks and full coffeeshop units; 'Pasta Gusta' pizzas and pasta sauces; 'Promise' sandwiches, baguettes and wraps; 'Spitfires' fast food breakfast solutions being developed for the education sector and 'Donut warehouse'.21

References 12www.sodexhoalliance.com/16sxoatny/pdf/RA_2002_us.pdf (viewed 1/12/03)

13www.sodexho.co.uk/segments/defence.htm viewed 10/11/03

14www.sodexho.co.uk/segments/education.htm viewed 10/11/03

15www.sodexho.co.uk/segments/healthcare.htm viewed 10/11/03

16'Inside track Sodexho: A 60-second cribsheet on some of the country's largest employers of graduates' by Nick Pandya. The Guardian 11/10/2003

17see www.tvf-online.co.uk/enter.htm viewed 10/11/03

18ibid.

19www.sodexho.co.uk/segments/landtech.htm viewed 10/11/03

20www.sodexho.co.uk/segments/healthworks.htm viewed 10/11/03

21www.sodexho.co.uk/segments/brands.htm viewed 10/11/03