The Team

Mark Philpott - Owner | Managing Director

Mark started his life in the catering industry as a pastry chef in five star West End hotels. Having moved into contract catering he worked his way up the management hierarchy to eventually become Managing Director of the London arm of one of the country's largest caterers. He earns utmost respect from all Vacherin's staff because he has been there and done it all!

Mark's passion is food quality and provenance and the intelligent use of prime ingredients to create food offers to meet individual client tastes.

What Mark loves about Vacherin: I love the fact that we are achieving our dream of creating a company full of fantastic people, delivering exceptional food and service to a portfolio of truly lovely clients.

Clive Hetherington - Owner | Finance Director

Clive's passion for food led him into the catering industry over 20 years ago. He held Finance Director roles in two large independent London caterers prior to establishing Vacherin.

Clive believes in straight forward and simple but robust accounting solutions and has an acute appreciation of operational needs. His systems are designed to help our teams manage efficiently and effectively without taking the focus away from their primary focus - that of delivering great food and service.

What Clive loves about Vacherin: "I believe we have achieved our aim of concentrating on and delivering our clients' requirements and thereby driving our commercial success rather than allowing commercial considerations to determine the style and level of service we offer as so many of our competitors do".

Phil Roker - Owner | Commercial Director

Phil's developed a passion for excellent service and a keen eye for detail as an operator in first class hotels. He gained invaluable experience in commercial contract catering when working in sales for the world's two largest contract caterers, prior to joining Vacherin.

Phil is committed to creating bespoke solutions for any new business opportunity and stays close to all our contracts to ensure that we are delivering the best commercial results for us and our clients.

He is passionate about sustainability and working with suppliers and clients to minimise the impact of our services on the environment.

What does Phil love about Vacherin? I love the fact that we are so close to our clients - we are able to carry through the promises we make at tender time because we are all in the operations regularly, making sure it happens.

Dan Kelly - Director | Food

Dan provides inspiration, guidance and support to our exceptionally strong team of chefs. He leads by example, promoting innovation, seasonality, craft skills and excellence in preparation and presentation

Dan describes his own cooking style as focusing on using the best seasonal produce to create great tasting imaginative dishes. Taking traditional flavours and adding his own modern twists. He intuitively knows what style is right for each client and is always pushing the boundaries to create an exceptional dining experience.

What does Dan love about Vacherin? Being able to use exceptional suppliers, without restriction enabling all of our chefs to be passionate and creative with all the food they produce, benefitting all of our clients as well as the company with its constantly evolving style and focus.

Debbie Loxley - Director | Operations

Debbie joined Vacherin from running some of London’s largest and most demanding contracts for one of our largest competitors. Commercially very astute, Debbie balances the client’s commercial needs with the customers’ to maximise sales and minimise subsidies.

Debbie has exceptional experience within London contracts for the World’s two largest caterers, so she is relishing the intimate environment of Vacherin where she can ensure that best practice developed in one site can quickly be transferred across all relevant operations.

What does Debbie love about Vacherin? Having come from a big company where everything is standardised it is so refreshing to be able to really put the client and customer first, with unique solutions for each one.

Tom Rule - Manager | Operations

Tom’s experience prior to joining Vacherin includes senior management roles in challenging corporate contracts as well as high turnover retail environments. His previous responsibilities as financial champion mean he brings a sharp commercial outlook to his contracts.

He brings a dynamic, creative and energetic approach which enthuses his staff, clients and customers.

What does Tom love about Vacherin? Vacherin is made up of real foodies – this passion for providing cutting edge food is so exciting to see, with inspiring events happening within out sites every single day.

Steve Farmer - Manager | Operations

Steve joined us in 2012 having spent 5 years with the McLaren Group running commercial and in house operations including F1 Grand Prix events and hospitality. This highly demanding, fast-paced environment has prepared Steve well for looking after the requirements of a diverse portfolio of clients with Vacherin.

He brings an acute eye for detail, exceptional service standards, commercial acumen, and above all a dynamic, innovative approach that guarantees to keep driving the services forward in his contracts.

What does Steve love about Vacherin? I love the fact that Vacherin delivers unquestionably on its ‘small enough to care, large enough to deliver’ ethos by removing the red tape and focusing on the specific requirements of each contract, then innovatively evolving.

Anna Morris - Support Manager | Operations

Anna is our support manager and coffee aficionado. She supports our operations team in all activities but several years' experience running high street branded coffee houses and restaurants means she brings valued expertise in specific areas of marketing, merchandising and coffee service.

Anna has a unique flair and style which she uses to ensure that all our cafés and restaurants present a professional, contemporary image to enhance the customer experience and boost sales.

What does Anna love about Vacherin? The level of creativity and innovation gives a huge buzz - everyone is always on the lookout for new trends and products so that they can be the first to feature them, before we share the idea across other Vacherin operations.

Dale Thompson - Director | HR

Dale is our longest serving employee, having been General Manager of our very first contract, so he knows the company and its employees inside out! Dale has a passion for training and motivating staff, so having undertaken the CIPD personnel qualification while still running his operation it was a natural step for him to join us as our first dedicated HR resource.

Dale now spends his time ensuring that we recruit and retain the best staff in the business and that we get the best out of them.

What does Dale love about Vacherin? The people! We say we want to employ interesting people who are interested in what they do and it’s true from the top of the company all the way down. There’s a great family spirit which shows itself every time the staff come out to party!

Premier Crew

Premier Crew is our ever-expanding team of support staff, including chefs, porters, front of house staff, hospitality hosts, managers, administrators and receptionists. The Crew are employed directly by Vacherin and trained to our exacting standards so that whenever they are required to cover for absence or to serve large events our clients are guaranteed a seamless level of service.

We are always on the lookout for good staff and will recruit into Premier Crew if there are no specific unit job vacancies so that we have a ready pool of talent when vacancies do arise.

Keeley Haworth - Manager | Business Development and Marketing

Keeley grew up in restaurants, so she has food and service in her blood! Having moved down to London from Lancashire she worked in food buying for Fortnum & Mason’s, then for one of the country’s biggest food producers and more recently promoting fine foods from local artisan producers.

Keeley is responsible for spreading the good word about Vacherin through traditional and new media as well as assisting the ops team in maximising sales through effective marketing of our staff restaurants and cafes.

What does Keeley love about Vacherin? I wanted to join a team with a real passion. Everyone I have met in Vacherin is incredibly proud of what they do and of the company, so I know I’ve found what I was looking for.

Hazel Symeon - Manager | Procurement

Hazel is responsible for ensuring that we get the best possible products at the best possible prices. She forms the link between our units and our suppliers and works tirelessly on our clients’ behalf to ensure that we get the full benefit of our considerable purchasing power to deliver best value.

Hazel is instrumental in introducing new products into the units and is also always on the lookout for new suppliers who will help us in our quest to stay at the forefront of innovation.

What does Hazel love about Vacherin? We’re very loyal to our suppliers, so I have the opportunity to build great relationships. But equally we’re not tied to anyone, so we are able to put the customer first in terms of quality, price and service.

Ann Ryall - Manager | Accounts

Ann supports the operations in all aspects of their trading & accounting. She is involved from mobilisation, training new staff in our systems, and providing ongoing support to any smaller units.

Ann also delivers our commerciality workshops – training the teams in how to maximise sales and manage cost to minimise subsidy.

What does Ann love about Vacherin? The fact that all our contracts are so close together means that I can get to any site very quickly, and I know what is going on everywhere all the time.

Sarah Norman - Manager | Office manager & PA

The friendly voice at the end of the phone – Sarah is the one who keeps the office running smoothly and keeps us all in check!

Always ready to help out whether in operations, sales, HR or organising our legendary charity social events, Sarah is scarily organised and the one member of staff we truly couldn’t do without.

What does Sarah love about Vacherin? We have such lovely clients! They are all from such different businesses and backgrounds, yet they are all so friendly and seem to be very into their catering.