Bader International Study Centre - Tender for Catering Services

The Bader International Study Centre (BISC) is the overseas campus of Queen's University, Canada, one of the academically elite U15 Canadian research universities. We are located at historic Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, and the campus occupies a 600-acre estate, which includes a range of academic, residential and recreational facilities. Our primary mission at the BISC is providing study abroad and specialised academic programs for undergraduate and postgraduate students from Canada and around the world. We are also dedicated to making the historic estate, its buildings and grounds, available to the public, to provide interpretation and public education, and to preserve the site's vital heritage.

The catering function forms part of our trading subsidiary, Herstmonceux Castle Enterprises Ltd (HCE), which is responsible for running the gardens and grounds, corporate events and other functions. The primary purpose of the catering provision is to provide a day to day breakfast, lunch and supper provision for circa 150 students in our Fall and Winter terms (1 Sept to 30 April) and 100 in the summer term (1 May to 30 June) in addition to lunch for around 20 staff. The student body is typically between 17 -21 years old and are all resident onsite for between 2 and eight months during their time with us. The majority are Canadian students representing a diverse cultural background typical of the major metropolitan centres in Canada, as well as a significant proportion of international students from China, Japan and the USA. The current student food provision is open dining at fixed times of day, but we are open to considering a hybrid model of open dining and pay-as-you-go options off hours. The commercial catering requirements include our Visitor Tea Room (approximately 23 000 visitors come through the site from March to October) and our conferences and events, which include about 15 weddings and a similar number of special events during the year. We are looking to actively grow our commercial business and make better use of our underused conference and catering infrastructure and are seeking a partner who can assist us in this endeavour.

There are several revenue streams outside the core student provision (which has a budgeted expenditure of 665 000 GBP for the financial year to 30.4.2019).

Chestnuts tea room and the headless drummer/ballroom bar have an annual income of around a 100 000 GBP and 50 000 GBP per annum in turn.

The conference and function area (including weddings) have an annual income of around 125 000 GBP and there are minor ancillary incomes from vending machines in the order of around 6 000 GBP.

We believe there is scope to improve this income and we are looking at a profit share model to assist us increasing the revenues and profits for our Herstmonceux Castle Enterprises business operations.

Further information is provided in the SQ Documentation.

Additional information: Interest in the selection process should be expressed via email only to [email protected] clearly stating within this email which contract / notice you are referring to. Please also provide, as a minimum, a contact name, full company postal address and telephone number.

The Selection Questionnaire and associated documents can be obtained at: http://www.litmuspartnership.co.uk/project/bader_international_study_centre

The closing date for receipt of the Selection Questionnaire is 5.4.2019 (12:00). Suppliers are required to ensure that documents are obtained and returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to [email protected] by the above closing date and time.

Documents in respect of economic / financial standing (where indicated in the Selection Questionnaire) shall be returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to [email protected] by the above closing date and time.

It will be the Supplier's responsibility to obtain any necessary documents in order to submit a response by the closing date and time.

The contracting authority reserves the right not to award any or part of the contract which is the subject of this Contract Notice and reserves the right to terminate the procurement process at any time.

The contracting authority will not be liable for any costs incurred by those expressing an interest in tendering for this contract opportunity.

The contracting authority will consider variant bids, evaluating them (so far as the variant or the evaluation of the variant is in the opinion of the contracting authority practicable) on the same basis as a conforming bid, but shall not be obliged to accept any such bid in preference to a conforming bid even if the variant bid scores more highly. No variant will be considered unless the bidder simultaneously submits a conforming bid.