A unique catering partnership has been awarded a top prize for its work.
The Simon Rogan Academy and Kendal College’s hospitality and catering team emerged victorious in the 2023 Professional Association of Catering Education awards, taking home the accolade for Best Industry Partnership.
The awards, now in their second decade, recognise the efforts and successes of educational establishments across the nation. It is the representative body for hospitality and education, including schools, further education colleges and universities throughout the UK. The body’s aim is to encourage catering educational institutions to work together to manage the challenges of continual change in hospitality and catering education and training.
The partnership between the Simon Rogan Academy and Kendal College, won the award after it was judged by industry experts. Each initiative in the category being required to provide detailed evidence that demonstrated how their specific partnership has had a positive impact on the learning department, that it has helped increase student numbers, and that it also resulted in increasing the number of work experience placements and job prospects for participating students.
The collaboration between the Simon Rogan Academy, and Kendal College’s culinary department was created in 2021. It is an 18-month hands-on immersive learning programme, specifically designed to take students on a unique journey.
The programme is designed to equip them with skills that will escalate their passion for food and drink, as they learn through working directly with the teams in Simon’s Lake District restaurants. The placements are further supplemented with practical and theory-based learning, provided by the expert tutors from Kendal College, one of the UK’s leading hospitality schools.
Marcin Maryniak, Simon Rogan Restaurant Group’s head of HR and recruitment, said: ”Being presented with the award for the Best Industry Partnership Award is testament to the hard work and dedication of every member of our team and the culinary team from Kendal College, who have between them made the collaboration so successful, and long may we continue to build on this fruitful partnership as we develop the Simon Rogan Academy further.”
Richard Axford, head of faculty and service industries at Kendal College, said: ”This joint collaboration offers a fantastic opportunity for those wanting to embark on a career in hospitality, working with Simon and his team, while training at our state-of-the-art training facility. We’ve had a long a fruitful working relationship with Simon, and this enables us to come together to give young people a chance to pursue a career at the highest level in this amazing industry.”
