Jocko speak? ((Laughs))
Yeah that's it.
With five options, a big team, how much"¦ of your time would you say is administration, managing the business, and how much of your time would you say is hands on, on the business?
I would say that I need my working week just to do the paperwork side of it, the administration role, and a lot of that is communication, email, dealing with customers, doing whatever it is I have to do"¦so that means coming in, in the morning, during the day shift covering the business side of it and then in the evenings looking after the customer base really and that's probably the best way to describe things, depending on where the business is, either at the Strathearn, private dining, The clubhouse or over here Deseo today.
What would you say are the biggest demands now on the hotel chef? Is it food costs? Is it staffing or is it lots of different things?
I think the expectations are certainly from a multi-resort based situation you're a manager first and foremost. If the numbers don't add up you're not going to be there too long. If you don't make the food costs, payroll costs, and make the operating margins then the errors can have a big effect on the bottom line for the whole business, do you know we push to take more in F and B here than in rooms so we have got to make it happen. We are a five red star resort, there are huge expectations from the customers because whether it is Andrew's (Restaurant Andrew Fairlie) with two Michelin stars or any of the other restaurants, customers are paying good money to stay here as a resident here at Gleneagles or Glenmor they equally want the very best experience. They might not expect necessarily a Michelin experience but they're looking for a very good experience each time they dine in any of the restaurants, this of course can put pressures onto the cost as we try to impress guests or give them an enhanced experience. In addition to that there are the internal dealings for future guests requests whether that is for a large group looking for choice menus for their 140 meal or perhaps a request for some lad's birthday party that's coming up and they want that answered quickly because they don't want to let the client down. So that's my job sort of!
Absolutely. How many guys do you have in the team across all of the outlets? How many chefs do you manage?
At the moment we've got a team of 70 Chefs which is broken down approximately that the Dormy House, soon to be re-named The Clubhouse Bar and Grill when it reopens has a team of 15 or 16 chefs, Deseo, our Mediterranean restaurant, again a team of 16, and the remainder sits within what we call the main kitchen brigade, which incorporates pastry, breakfasts, Strathearn, private dining and the bar. Each area has a head chef and most a sous chef as well, there's obviously a fair level of management structure in place allowing us to operate properly and these guys are all very committed.
Let's talk about the annualised hours. I think it's probably something that maybe a lot of people don't know about but I think I'm right in saying that chef de partie and below you guarantee a certain hourage per week is that right?
No"¦..per year.
Sorry Alan, per year. What do you guarantee your staff per year, do you know?
1801 hours.
So you take 1801. And what? Do you divide that by 52?
It works out that theoretically if someone works 35 hours a week they wouldn't get any holidays they would be doing 52 weeks at 35 hours a week or if you imagine every hour that they work over 35 becomes basically accrual for more time off. People shouldn't work less than four hours or more than a 12 hours a day. So if we're bringing someone in we need to guarantee four hours work. We're very fortunate that the guys within the kitchen team are extremely understanding if they come in and for whatever reason they are not required they will go or if they are required to stay longer they will. The team work the hours required"¦you know if I need someone to work 60 hours in the week they work 60 hours. That's fine, they write their hours down but in real terms it goes into positive hours. At the end of the year if it's not been managed correctly they'll get a paid there accrued time. If it's been managed correctly to within 50 hours positive or negative, which really is only an hour a week, over the 39 hours a week they would then work less or more hours over the following year. If someone's has excessive over hours they'll get paid out at the end of that year, but it's up to the management to ensure that this is minimal
So simplistically then if the business is busy your staff are busier and therefore do longer, so the business is doing better because
you're busy.
Yes "¦you only have people in the business when they can make money for the business so you don't bring people in 5 days a week if it is not necessary "¦
Does that rely on you though? To make that work does that rely on you having a full brigade?
In reality yes"¦.
Okay.
You need the right level of staff I mean right now we are sitting with a positive hours of about 5,000, but the payroll is better than budget
Okay that's across 70 staff?
Yes. So you kind of look at it and say, "Well that's where we're at." In real terms, considering that we've just come through the summer season, we're now going into the kind of quiet six weeks or quieter six weeks anyway.
So you can alter some of that can you and get those hours back or down?
Well what happens is when it is quieter a large part of the team go on holiday, hours gets cut down and then we regroup again for the next phase. The reality is that we had a much busier time through our private dining in the last few months, higher than expected, some of the guys in that area have quite high hours, so they will have to be managed down somehow
Why are we not hearing more about this across the industry and why are more hotels not following this lead?
I think the reality is that it costs
Everyone we talk to in the industry says, "We've got to do less hours, if we want to attract more people in we've got to do less hours." Gleneagles should be championing this, but why are other hotels not 
saying, "Look what Gleneagles are doing why are we not following that?"
I think in fairness, there are a few places now that are beginning to look at it. I certainly know that anybody I ever talk to, if I talk to students or anybody else I'll always be bestowing the virtues of annualised hours "¦and if anybody else comes here for an interview, I'll always talk to them about it because I kind of see it as a real benefit to employees. I think the reality says that maybe it's easier to make it work with 70 people than it is to make it work with a team of say five, you know, but I think long gone are the days that people want to give up their time for nothing.
Yes but we shouldn't expect them to give up their time for nothing either should we?
Absolutely not, no way, but the perpetual challenge is one of cooking is by it's nature very labour intensive and cooks want to get it right and that takes time
Absolutely.
"¦So things have to be looked at"¦sometimes you have to, when I say make compromises, you have to do things differently, outsource certain things to take the time pressure off so again you've got people in place working at the times required to deliver to the customer. I think the good benchmark of something that is outsourced is either whether it can save you time and not effect the final dish or is of a better quality than you potentially can produce yourself consistently. It has to be asked are you fooling yourself to make everything in house - just to say you do - that's probably the biggest difference between a large hotel or group chef who's going to be looking at it matter of factly and from a business standpoint and someone working in a small country house or restaurant, because not everyone
ked very well for us within the Strathearn restaurant it has given us a consistency of product on service which is really what we need you know, if you're going to do in excess of 300 covers within a restaurant in an hour of an evening, we need to remove the element of risk wherever possible and deliver to the guests expectations
So in your role then are you tasked with saving efficiencies, be it labour, be it energy, is that part of your role?
Yeah, yeah absolutely it's part of the role as I said there's a budget that's set for each area which feeds into the overall kitchen budget, if one of the kitchens is not delivering on energy costs that brings down the overall budget, so it has to be controlled as a business we are green we are pushing hard "¦
Yeah you're quite green!!!!
"¦to be better, better at waste management and to look at energy efficiencies wherever possible, such as induction and ask is it the right way forward for our business? I'm kind of glad we didn't go with induction personally, purely because as much as it's an instant heat, our current range gives us actually a lot more flexibility and that was our main reason for choosing it. We have gone for more electric which theoretically is more expensive but because of the way our range is set up the things are not switched on until half an hour before service or parts of it are not switched on when it is quiet
So gone are the days when you came in at seven o'clock in the morning and turned the stoves on"¦
Exactly.
"¦and then used them at seven o'clock at night?
Exactly so the mentality has changed. The guys clean their own stove at the end of their shift so you can guarantee they're not going to switch it on until or if they need to"¦
Absolutely"¦.
So that in itself has saved money and energy. We have things like a de-waterer for the food waste, the idea behind that is that when we looked at the tonnage of waste that was going to landfill, the biggest majority of it was actually in one way or other was food waste.
So over-production on buffets or whatever"¦.
Yeah or lack of consumption, I would look at it as lack of consumption, it's kind of a balance for example, we can do 400 breakfasts, we need to have product out there and we need to have a product there until the last customer leaves and so from that perspective there's always a level of waste.
But it's managing that I guess.
It's managing to the minimum but there is also what people will take from a buffet they will always take more than they need because it's there and they leave it, the idea of placing these de-waterers throughout all of the restaurants we were able to reduce food waste by around 80%"¦you put the food in and it takes all the moisture out and then it puts it out like a, I don't know like a risotto almost.
Okay and then what you sell it as feed or"¦
Well we get somebody who comes and picks it up. That's at this stage"¦
So this is something you're looking at?
No, no we've got them here.
Oh you've got them?
We've got them, but then the next stage is that we are looking at another system which will be able to turn this food waste product plus some other waste products from around the business and then hopefully be able to convert this into energy to run the activity school, which I would say is pretty green .So there's a lot of work goes into that. We have a waste group and it can be quite challenging to get people to buy into the recycling at work, which is frustrating as people do it at home, but it is important for the business
Last but by no means least I can't come to Gleneagles and not ask you about the Ryder Cup so how as executive chef where is your role within the 2014 Ryder Cup?
I think the Ryder Cup in itself is going to be huge for Scotland, it's hosted and played here but the whole of Scotland will benefit from The Ryder Cup"¦I was in Louisville (Kentucky) two years ago"¦
Can I just say Mr Gibb that it's an outrageously expensive trip to go and learn Colonel Sanders 11 secret herbs and spices by the way.
Yeah, yeah ((laughs)) it was a junket yeah.
It was all right over there but jokes apart "¦I helped with the gala dinner for1200 people and in reality we don't have facilities here at the resort for that so"¦
Sure.
"¦I would presume that whatever happens it's going to be in Glasgow or Edinburgh so I think it's for the greater Scottish economy it's going to be massive and because of the huge media interest and great for tourism too.
How many people are you expecting to feed on a daily basis?
Well in reality I think the numbers won't be huge for us because I would see that the outside or the "˜on course' catering will not be done by the hotel. I believe that is correct, as we are not experts in that field. So I would presume that we will have one corporate area which we look after within the course and we'll be looking after the players and then the rest of it will be residential business which I think will be sponsorship business or perhaps players too. That's my understanding of how things are going to work. It's still a long way away and we haven't really discussed the operational side of it, what we have looked at is that it's a bigger thing than Gleneagles. I think it's not going to do any of us any harm and it will certainly not do Scotland any harm
Alan, listen, thank you for your time it's been wonderful to talk to you. I wish you every success for the future of your role and Gleneagles and thank you very much.
Right well thank you Mark. It was a pleasure.Small Contribution. Big Impact.
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