Olivia Lane O’Brien – Fresh Food Advisor

Olivia began her career in food training as a chef at Ealing College in London in the late 1980’s and spent some years there gaining the experience of many different styles of the food business.

Over the years Olivia has worked as a full-time chef in both restaurants and hotels. She then progressed to working in various aspects of the retail food business before finally becoming self employed as a food consultant and trainer.

Olivia’s work has many aspects but she is mainly focused on small food businesses and helping them to run a more efficient and profitable business. Olivia also carries out commercial oven training across the country for a number of catering equipment suppliers. This gets her behind the counter and into the kitchen and enables her to see first-hand what’s happening and more importantly what’s working and what’s not!

Product Offering

Offer A: For stores with an existing food business. I can provide assistance in the below areas.

• Deli Layout, range and freshness
• Equipment efficiency (getting the best out of your existing equipment and ideas/suggestions)
• Food Preparation
• Wastage
• Portion control
• Food safety, paperwork and HACCP
• Staff coaching and development
• New ideas and trends
• Profitability and margin

Offer B: For stores that are considering starting up a fresh food offer:

• Consultation on the area, size and location of the deli within the store
• Storage and refrigeration of products
• Deli layout, equipment and flow
• Type of food offer and how to execute
• Staffing, recruitment and rosters
• Suppliers – best quality and pricing, support to the retailer
• Food safety set up and initial training

Offer C: On the Job Training for Staff

Training of staff in a fresh food environment from my point of view is on the job training behind the counter. This is pretty much built in to the criteria set out above in the first instance as the job progresses, there is ongoing monitoring.

Additional Services:

I also over the years have visited retailers to conduct the below:

• Review of the fresh food offer
• Re-training of staff
• Updating the food offer as required thereby always keeping the offer fresh and up to date.