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Andy retired as executive director at Bidfood last year, having spent the previous 20-plus years with the UK food wholesaler, but having also had a significant impact on the wider industry.

In that time he has championed critical issues such as holiday hunger, universal infant free school meals, and nutritional standards in education. His campaigning has helped secure better outcomes for vulnerable children while pushing for improvement within the public sector catering food system.

The Public Sector Catering Awards, which took place on 9th April at the London Hilton Metropole, celebrated 19 winners from a range of categories across the public sector. Jayne Jones and Beverley Baker also received special accolades on the night after they both were given Industry Recognition Awards.

Beverley was one of the founders of the industry association LACA (now known as the School Food People), chaired the organisation twice and sat on its board for over 35 years. Jayne was chair of the Public Sector Catering Alliance but left her position earlier in the year to take over as chief executive of the Scottish Food Commission.

The Education Catering Award was won by Scott Graham from Education Authority Catering. With a career spanning fine dining through to large-scale public sector catering, Scott brings both culinary excellence and systems-level leadership to one of the UK’s largest school food operations, serving approximately 160,000 meals every day.

List of other relevant winners include:

• Innovation Award (sponsored by Hobart UK): Education Catering - Cardiff Council
• Health & Nutrition Award (sponsored by ACS): Valentina de Pascale - Palmer & Howells
• Marketing Award (sponsored by Radnor): Juniper Ventures
• Sustainability Award (sponsored by apetito): Andrew Cowan - Bury Council