IN this week’s SME Focus an entrepreneur running a successful catering business highlights the part that workers from other countries play in the industry in Scotland.

Name:

Barry Bryson.

Age:

41.

What is your business called?

Cater Edinburgh.

What services does it offer?

We produce high quality seasonal dining options for events, ranging from hand-made canapés and appetisers to formal contemporary dining and drinks-paired menus for product launches. We work with the best of Scottish seasonal produce from a small group of like- minded suppliers.

To whom does it Sell?

We work across a fairly broad range of venues including galleries, retail brands, law firms and cater for private clients for parties, dinners or weddings.

Regular customers include The National Library of Scotland, The British Council, Louis Vuitton, Santander as well as Edinburgh firms such as CMS, MBM Commercial and Dickson Minto. We’ve also catered for The Royal Bank of Scotland, Virgin Money, Santander, Handeslbanken and have been the approved caterers for the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the last five years.

What is its turnover?

This is our first full year of offering only event catering services, having run it in the past five years alongside a small portfolio of cafes in arts venues including Dancebase and Dovecot studios . This year our sales will be in the region of £225,000.

How many employees?

Two chefs work alongside me as well as a part time kitchen porter and a part time set up man. I will then have up to 20 waiting staff on at any one event for all my front-of house staffing.

When was it formed?

I started the arts venues café supply firm in 1999 and Cater Edinburgh was launched alongside that in 2011; in 2015 we became an event catering only firm.

Why did you take the plunge?

An opportunity arose at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh in 1999 to operate their café, I was 24 and felt I had what was required to re-develop it and take it forwards which I did very successfully for six years. I then moved onto buying a neighbourhood café project called Circle, which I ran from 2004 until I sold the business in 2010.

What were you doing before you took the plunge?

Waiting tables in a small fine dining restaurant in the South Side of Edinburgh called Kelly’s. I spent the first ten years after graduating as a chef on the other side of the chef’s pass and when I went back to it I felt I had gained a much more rounded view of the business.

How did you raise the start-up funding?

I went to my bank (Bank of Scotland) and I went to my mother’s best friend, both understood how committed I was to the project, and believed in the projections of income it would generate and loaned me the start-up costs, I had paid them both back within the first year.

What was your biggest break?

Having Graeme Murray, the former Fruitmarket Gallery director, take a chance on me and then his successor Fiona Bradley doing the same. More recently my work running a café for the Jupiter Artland sculpture park in West Lothian has been key in making new working relationships with others.

What do you most enjoy about running the business?

The sheer variety of challenges I suppose. One day it can be the most stunning house or gallery and the next a huge corporate environment with one hour to get set up for service or a marquee in the middle of nowhere. I really enjoy the client relations side of what I do as well as the amazing opportunity to meet, talk and work with suppliers, other chefs and venues. Eating out as much as I can is essential and hugely enjoyable. Ultimately though it’s cooking, and the sense of working with incredible food products I enjoy the most.

What do you least enjoy?

The logistics of traffic, access and delivery on a tight time schedule can be pretty stressful, as we have to travel with not only our menus but with a ton of varying equipment too.

What are your ambitions for the firm?

To consolidate the great working relationships I have started this past five years and continue developing what we offer them and, as we go forwards in that, creating new working relationships with others.

What are your top priorities?

Ensuring the quality and inventiveness of what we cook and offer and how we serve it and also making sure we charge fairly for it.

To grow the business in a way that suits what we do and who we work with.

To continue sourcing and cooking ingredients that are top quality and seasonal with provenance in mind and handling them well.

To make sure that the small team that work with me feel involved and appreciated and to get a bigger van.

What could the Westminster and/or Scottish Government do that would most help?

Right now opposing any hard Brexit plans I feel would be pretty key to the long term success of small businesses like mine, but in a larger sense and the economic uncertainty aside, it’s also recognising the key role that foreign workers play in the hospitality and services industry and how that has benefitted the Scottish economy and businesses as a whole.

What is the most valuable lesson that you have learned?

That there are still many lessons to learn, cooking is a never ending learning curve.

How do you relax?

Rarely, but the thirty minutes with my dog each morning in St Marks Park helps and spending time with Robin my partner and our friends which usually involves eating too much. I also love music so can happily lose myself in that when I get the chance.