How we do it

We are an inclusive employer, improving equality, diversity and inclusion in the way we locally recruit, providing local jobs and training for local people around our communities whilst offering positive employment experiences. We are already a member of the Living Wage Foundation and we pay above the London Living Wage.

Seasoned has a personal connection with Chelmsford based Sanctus Charity having helped someone rehabilitate, get back on their feet, launch their own business. Seasoned gives food donations to help Sanctus serve local homeless and vulnerable people. In order to help spread our ‘Social Goodness,’ Seasoned has chosen to give £1 for every cover that is booked with us from now until the end of 2023 further supporting the hugely important work that Sanctus does supporting homeless and vulnerable people.

Managing Partner, Colin Sayers spent a night outside in the historic Guildhall Yard as a part of The Lady Mayoress’ Sleep Out event to raise awareness of homelessness in London, and raise money for The Lord Mayor’s Appeal and Spitalfields Crypt Trust. 90% of the net funds raised went to The Lord Mayor’s Appeal and 10% to Spitalfields Crypt Trust.

We support our team, their mental health and their wellbeing with services from PoetsIN. PoetsIN helps those that struggle with mental health and wellbeing by utilising their Creative Mental Health Programmes and Wellbeing Workshops whilst educating and advising those that don’t struggle but want to know more about mental health and wellbeing and how to keep their minds healthy. We introduced this new programme to enhance the wellbeing of our team and to help us create a working environment that is inspiring, inclusive, informative and one that recognises the individuality in each person, through one-to-one support services.

Seasoned also supports the Aldingbourne Trust, a registered charity that supports people with learning disabilities  and/or autism to reach their potential. Seasoned is working with the charity to help increase skills and offer work opportunities within our business such as working in our garden café and becoming trained baristas . We believe in strong partnerships between social enterprise and charity activities to enable people to have real choices and more independent and interdependent lives.

We support Hotel School to try and give meaningful employment to graduates from the school as well as work experience. We have now received our first batch of CVs and are the first event caterer to partner Hotel School to offer meaningful employment. Hotel School teaches hospitality skills to homeless and vulnerable people, matches them to sustainable employment, and supports them in their first steps into work. Hotel School is a joint venture between The Passage (London’s largest voluntary sector homeless resource centre) and London’s Five Star hotel, The Goring Hotel.

We are also committed to creating a sustainable future and we understand the importance of building today’s talent for tomorrow. For this reason, we introduced an apprenticeship scheme to Seasoned in 2011. We provide young people with invaluable catering, hospitality, and event management experience, working parallel to their academic timetables allowing them to broaden their career options and really discover their passion for a career.

The Seasoned team also works with FareShare, a food collection and distribution service, and has donated fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as perishable cakes, leftover from events.

We are proud to be able to take advantage of the rural setting here at Seasoned HQ by providing our talented team with a wellbeing allotment on our grounds. We positively encourage our teams to cultivate their own fruit, vegetables and herbs in our working allotment and it gives some welcome time away from their desks, helping with their mental health. It is also an excellent team building activity, encouraging colleagues to get to know each other while they work.

We also installed six beehives at Seasoned HQ in Essex where we are learning to keep our own apiary with fantastic support from the team at Bermondsey Street Bees. 60,000 bees are now residing at HQ – that’s 10,000 in each hive. The surrounding area is a perfect location for them, surrounded by plenty of food sources to be able to live comfortably. Recently we harvested our own countryside honey for the first time and it was fascinating to watch the inner workings of the hives, learn more about bees, their culture and environment. We can’t wait to see what happens over the course of this coming year and watch our hives thrive.