Over the last four decades, independent family-owned business Superior Catering, has established itself as a leading corporate catering serving the North West of England. Known for quality food and exceptional service, the company has partnered with Sabert Corporation Europe to enhance the presentation of its packaged offerings by using innovative solutions.
FM Magazine spoke with Dan Whitley who is operations manager for the Widnes-based caterer to learn more about the successful collaboration.
[Dan Whitley] “Our food and its presentation – which very much includes the packaging – consistently receives great feedback from our customers.“Superior Catering is one of the North West’s largest and most well-known sandwich distributors, delivering thousands of high-quality sandwiches, pies and pastries to offices every day.
“A major element of successfully delivering on-the-go and takeaway food is choosing the most appropriate packaging.
Choosing the correct packaging is an operational necessity for all food service businesses.
Studies into the ‘Food-to-Go’ market – and its previous iterations, the ‘takeaway’, ‘take-out’ and ‘fast foods’ markets – frequently cite presentation as a key factor for consumer purchases, and we were keen to establish why Superior Catering had selected Sabert as its packaging supplier.
“We chose to work with Sabert, because they are a reliable supplier, and so easy to work with. Plus, they always seem to be one step ahead of other suppliers and they’re steadily introducing new packaging solutions which deliver great food presentation”, says Whitley.
According to recent research by DS Smith (reported by Food & Wine magazine in October 2024), over half of plastic food packaging can be replaced with more sustainable alternatives, and FM Magazine was keen to enquire whether the sustainability of packaging was a significant consideration for the partnership.
[Dan Whitley] “We use a tremendous amount of sandwich platters and plates, plus bowls for salads and pastas. The Superior brand is very important to us, so the fact that the majority of Sabert’s packaging can be printed is a real bonus. We’re even now looking at getting our recyclable paper cutlery branded, as we take every opportunity to reinforce our image. First impressions count and this is a very competitive market, so a high level of consistent branding gives us a definite edge.“Packaging has been through a difficult time, with single-use plastic bans and taxes, and our customers are smart and are well informed about sustainability and ethical issues. Working with Sabert has ensured we have always stayed ahead of changing legislation and been able to offer our customers a consistently high-quality range of sustainable products.
“Operating in the most sustainable ways we can is a priority for Superior Catering and alongside choosing packaging which has material provenance – such as being FSC® approved – and ensuring that it can be either recycled or commercially composted, we have begun to focus on reducing food waste.
“Our food and its presentation – which very much includes the packaging – consistently receives great feedback from our customers, so we are also beginning to think about ways to involve them more in our sustainability story. So that’s another benefit of being able to print messages as well as branding on our packaging.
“Choosing the correct packaging is an operational necessity for all food service businesses. Food preparation and our whole back-of-house operation is where so much time can be saved. Sabert supplies practical, functional, stackable, nestable, easy-to-use packaging, which makes food look great and gives the consumer a positive experience, which is essential. Alongside the branding benefits I mentioned earlier that kind of sums up what packaging from Sabert delivers for us.”
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