Just wanting to share my own experience of working within a sub-contracted catering operation "back when I was a lass".
Once upon a time a young Sazzle had a part-time job to supplement her income during college and University. And what a job it was...
I worked in a Tesco cafe which was branded, unsurprisingly, as a Tesco cafe. However, I was contracted to and paid by a company called Avenance/Elior UK. The cafe was pre-existing and had recently been contracted to Avenance, with the Tesco employees formerly working there being reassigned to the deli counters within the store.
Joe Bloggs who came in for their 7 item breakfast and paid £1.99 had no idea, nor indeed any care, for who was buying the stock, operating the kitchen or staff canteen, or paying the staff. We were Tesco cafe, and we were branded as such - nothing customer facing gave any indication of a contracted operation.
Contracts for this kind of thing work on a risk/benefit balance. If the Tesco cafe team were short-staffed for whatever reason, that wasn't Tesco's problem. If the Tesco cafe missed a delivery for any reason or had a stock problem, that wasn't Tesco's problem. If the Tesco cafe broke all their plates and had to pay a large sum to order more, that wasn't Tesco's problem. Tesco gave their name to an operation that was neatly packaged up as someone else's contractual obligation to get right, for a fee that they felt was fair - catering isn't often a hugely profitable operation when you're looking at mass produced fast-food.
My concern here is thus. Merlin give their name and permission to an outsourced operation who take an already minimal quality operation, and try to make it even more profitable. Profit often comes with a sacrifice, and I feel that that may well be quality. The eye-watering prices for fast-food (and indeed the very few sit-down options) across the UK Merlin parks blows my mind when I know the cost price of the products they're serving. I imagine this is what was attractive for the outsourcing company, as they could potentially see a profit margin to be exploited further. 10p on every burger might not be noticed by a park guest, but multiply that by the amount of burgers sold every day at every outlet at every park...
I'm sure the company did their homework, but I really question whether they understand the huge challenge of recruitment to this sector at the moment. When F&B offerings are closed in the park, guests really feel it and so did Merlin. It's not their problem now. Consider: Merlin could even make it a KPI and write it into the contract that there must be X amount of outlets open per day "or else"...? Definitely one way of managing a contract.
Interestingly as a final point that "back in the day" at the cafe, as staff we did not benefit from any Tesco corporate benefits; no staff discount, no pension, no shares. Although our uniform was 'similar', it was not provided by Tesco and was... cheaper. I wonder if the F&B staff will attract any Merlin perks? If not, they may find recruitment even harder...
Merlin may of course provide the staff (we have absolutely no idea what contractual arrangements are in place) but I would doubt it. Staffing is one of the biggest challenges of any organisation and I imagine Merlin will be glad to hand that over!
