A year ago, Nathalie Bellon-Szabo celebrated her partnership with the Paris 2024 Olympics. At the helm of Sodexo Live!, the most glamorous subsidiary of the collective catering and services group run by her older sister Sophie, she will feed the athletes in the Olympic Village and will provide catering for the general public at some fifteen competition venues. “For five weeks, we are going to mobilize 2,000 people just for the village, but the project is generating incredible enthusiasm among our 40,000 employees”rejoices the CEO of Sodexo Live!
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For five weeks, we will mobilize 2,000 people
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After the air hole caused by the health crisis, the good news follows one another for the leader, who has just entered the 2023 vintage of Who’s Who. This week, the company announces to the JDD having won the tender for the catering of the next four editions of Roland-Garros. Provider of the event for thirty-five years, Sodexo Live! picked up new services along the way. Its teams will delight all audiences, with a restaurant entrusted to chef Akrame Benallal, a lounge bar, a food court from the Regions of France, a dozen sales counters and four large grocery stores. For the players, they will run three restaurants, with an adapted nutrition offer. “We will also go a step further in the greening of menus, zero plastic, the durability of containers, and above all the recruitment of 15% of employees from social integration and 6% of people with disabilities”details the leader.
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On the offensive on “hospitality packages”
Above all, in 2023, Sodexo Live! will be set up year-round in the sports arena to welcome between 6,000 and 8,000 guests in the VIP bistronomic restaurant Le Carré-Roland-Garros, with chef Yves Camdeborde. In addition to catering for a hundred seminars. That’s not all. The operator strengthened its collaboration by winning the contract to market hospitality programs at Roland-Garros and the Rolex Paris Masters last July. “This contract is emblematic of the relationships we seek to develop with our partners, by adding higher-margin hospitality packages to catering”sums up Nathalie Bellon-Szabo, who hopes to take her share of a global market that is still little outsourced and estimated at 76 billion dollars.
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We will also go a step further in the greening of menus
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For Roland-Garros, Sodexo Live! has joined forces with the agencies Quaterback and Factory Sport & Entertainment, historical partners of the French Tennis Federation (FFT). The objective: to market 75% of hospitality packages for VIP customers outside of sales made by the FFT. The trio will offer exclusive experiences in venues managed by Sodexo Live!, ranging from dinner at Jules Verne or Madame Brasserie on the Eiffel Tower to meals aboard the Yachts de Paris or the Bateaux Parisiens on the Seine. Depending on the days, sessions and services requested, these tickets will be invoiced between 370 and 2,250 euros. “We already provide this type of service for the Rugby World Cup and the Australian Tournament”recalls the leader, who aims to attack the American market.
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A portfolio of 500 sites to be better valued
Fourth operator worldwide in the events sector, Sodexo Live! – which accounts for 10% of the turnover of its parent company, Sodexo – hopes to return to its pre-Covid performance. The group has recovered 90% of its 2019 turnover (1.7 billion euros) and is banking on a sales target of 2.6 to 2.8 billion euros by 2030. projecting into the future, Nathalie Bellon-Szabo relies on a global study by the Harris agency. “She confirmed us in our choicesshe asks. With a dominant presence in the United States, followed by France, the United Kingdom, and more marginally in Spain, Japan and China, we are in the right countries on the events market. »
It remains to better promote its portfolio of 500 sites, including some 170 lounges in 80 airports, the restaurants of the Petit Palais museums in Paris and the Prado in Madrid, those of Lenôtre at the Pré Catelan, stadiums and arenas, conference centers and conventions and major sporting events, from the Tour de France to the Super Bowl on the other side of the Atlantic.
Competing for a new « Royal Warrant »
In the United Kingdom, its third largest market after the United States and France, Sodexo Live! holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II for its Heritage Portfolio catering brand. She is one of some 900 happy few who can wear the precious label of official supplier to the crown. For two years, Heritage Portfolio will be able to continue to take advantage of it, hoping to obtain a new approval from King Charles III.
