A Sligowoman is in charge of serving 3.5 million meals to hungry athletes during next month’s Olympic Games, writes Clifford Coonan in Beijing

ORGANISING A meeting with Catherine Toolan, executive director of catering giant Aramark’s Olympic business, is not an easy task. But then, the Sligowoman does have 3.5 million meals to prepare for hungry athletes at next month’s Beijing games.

“We had our first major test events in the Olympic village two weeks ago, where we served about 20,000 people in six hours. That was the first of our challenges. It was fun – a good learning experience,” she says.

The catering company is going to use a lot of food to feed the Olympians – one million apples, 200,000 loaves of bread and 100,000 kilos of seafood. And it will need it. “At peak period on any one day in our five venues we can serve up to 100,000 people. There is lots of planning required,” says Toolan, who previously worked for Irish group Campbell Catering, which was bought by Aramark in early 2005.

Privately-held Aramark employs 230,000 people and is the largest caterer in the US, with sales of $12.6 billion (€7.95 billion) last year. The company first entered China in 2004 and lists the US embassy in Beijing among its clients.

The catering industry in China is worth €110 billion. Philadelphia-based Aramark is keen to have a piece of this market, and is buying up key local players.

Catering for the Olympics is part of the firm’s goal of expanding in China and elsewhere in Asia. Toolan’s energies, however, are focused on ensuring the thousands using the Olympic village, the international broadcasting centre, the main press centre and two media villages have enough to eat.

This is Aramark’s 14th Olympics, but it is the first time it has managed five venues.

Food safety is a big issue in China, particularly with the eyes of the world on the country during the Olympics. Aramark takes no chances and has been working with growers and suppliers for two years to secure the volume of product it needs. The firm has a partnership with a distribution centre in the south of the city and, as it is a non-competition venue, there are high levels of security.

Toolan studied hotel management in Galway, then worked at Heathrow and Dublin airports with the Forte group, before doing a master’s in UCD in strategy and organisational psychology. She followed this by studying at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Doolan then joined Campbell Catering, where she ran Bewley’s coffee shops in Dublin. But in 2005, she jumped at the chance to return to China. Her first big event was the Formula One Grand Prix in Shanghai, where the company served 200,000 people over one weekend, although that was mostly hot dogs and beer.

For the Olympics, Toolan’s team will provide more than 900 dishes with 1,000 ingredients. Because they are serving a global audience, they will have to consider halal, kosher and various regional preferences. They also need to understand the eating patterns of athletes, and whether they have large meals or prefer to graze.

Training is crucial to ensure the chefs follow specific menus. Aramark also has a food production system whereby every menu is tested so that accurate nutritional information can be provided.

“One of the biggest challenges is to understand the scope and scale. You’re not able to find solutions on August 8th if something needs fixing, it’s all about having a strategic vision,” Toolan says.

For the Olympics, she is managing 7,500 staff with a team of 230 international managers from the 11 countries where Aramark does business, including 11 Irish people.

Aramark’s local partner is Beijing Tourism Group, which provides another 390 managers. The rest of the staff are local, many of them from hotel schools around China, with specific focus on language abilities and international food service experience.

“There are a million books written about how to do business in China but, I can tell you, I live it every day – working with different government bureaus, ensuring that we’ve met all the standards and requirements, and being aware of what standards have to be in place,” she says.

“We take a manufacturing process view on production – you start producing and designing and laying out a kitchen area with a view to your busiest day. Our kitchen and dining room in the athletes’ village is 22,000sq m and seats 5,048 athletes at any one time, with 1,000 staff. We have to work on how many people are queuing.”

These days the only time Toolan wears kitchen whites is when she visits the kitchens – as executive director, her role is more co-ordination and organisation.

“I wouldn’t be here [in China for] three years if I didn’t like it here. I like the dynamism, the fact it’s shaping so much of what’s going to happen in the world, that I’m part of something that’s changing so dramatically,” she says.

Beyond the Olympics, Toolan’s immediate goals are to go the Asian GAA games in Malaysia in October, and then to Everest base camp. “Although obviously it would be great to go the London [2012 Olympic] Games after China. To be on a plane to Sligo in 45 minutes is an exciting prospect.”