C&C managing director loved scrubbing floors!

The KP of the Year competition, sponsored by Winterhalter, is all about celebrating the contribution that kitchen porters make to the hospitality industry.

Lots of top chefs and foodservice operators started out as KPs – and there are plenty of captains of industry throughout the catering sector who began their working life scrubbing floors and washing dishes.

Take Peter Kitchin…
Peter, Managing Director of C&C Catering Equipment, the multi-award winning specialist kitchen contractors recalls his KP jobs, as a teenage schoolboy, first at Little Chef and then in the Royal Infirmary, Chester:

“I mopped floors, worked in the wash up (we had no utensil washer in those days), helped stack the flight dishwasher, and cleaned the fryers and hot ovens. Then I progressed to peeling bags of spuds in a rumbler and making hundreds of salads.

“We worked extremely hard, sometimes we’d do 12 hours a day, but I loved it. I am pretty sure though, some of the chefs used to burn the custard pans on purpose just to make things more interesting for me on the pan wash. After work I’d cycle home – those were the days!”

Peter was so enamoured of the life that he chose not to go to college, but to carry on working in the industry. He now runs one of the most successful kitchen houses in the UK – and he fully supports the aims of the KP of the Year competition:

“The idea of a KP competition is a great one. These guys work early and late and graft all day, it’s good to see them valued. Well done, Winterhalter.”

Entries by 1 August
The KP of the Year competition closes on August 1st. The winner will receive £1,000 in cash and a celebratory dinner for up to 12 guests. The winner’s establishment gets a Winterhalter DeMatik, the new ‘cleaner, meaner, greener’ warewasher, worth over £8,000.

To enter click here

This article first appeared on the Hospitality & Catering News website in July 21st 2014.