Now, as a member of Arena, there are at least six events and activities to choose from each year, and at each one, you are guaranteed interesting, enlightening and potentially lucrative encounters with some of the hospitality industry’s brightest and best.

Since its inception, there have been some 55,000 attendees at Arena events, and membership at any one time is around the 2,000 mark.     

Perhaps one of the reasons for Arena’s enduring appeal, and its ability to attract some of the biggest names in the sector, is its co-operative nature. This has never been a commercial venture, it has always been a not-for-profit organisation, existing solely to foster relationships between senior decision makers. Any operating profit has been donated to the industry charities Hospitality Action and Springboard.

Over the last 25 years, Arena’s profile and reputation has grown beyond the vision of the original founders. The roll call of VIP speakers at Arena events includes Sir Rocco Forte, Prue Leith, Lord Coe, Guy Hands, Allan Leighton, William Baxter, James Horler and several dozen other captains of industry.

Today’s high flyers must just have been starting out on their careers when, at a meeting of the Industrial Market Research Association (IMRA) in 1982, John Winyard of P&G proposed setting up the Catering industry Group (CIG). IMRA set up these special interest groups to cater for the needs of researchers who investigated specific markets. 

A committee meeting was held in early 1983 at the offices of the Electricity Association. Companies represented included 3M, the Electricity Association, Hotel & Catering Training Council, Huddersfield Poly, Procter & Gamble, RHM, Whitbread, and Peter Backman from Marketpower. 

 At that meeting it was decided that in order to help researchers, CIG needed to set out a handbook of research methodologies for the catering market.

Committee members congratulated themselves on reaching agreement and were just about to leave the meeting, when chairman John Winyard asked how they intended telling the world about this initiative. They decided to hold an evening meeting in London to explain what was on offer. A line-up of speakers, to discuss trends in the market and how to research them, included Peter Backman, Simon Davis of Sutcliffe Catering and a speaker from the Henley Centre. The meeting was held at the Honourable Artillery Company.

Although only 30 people were invited to that inaugural meeting, 80 people turned up, paying £10 at the door. Additional space was hastily arranged and committee members were told to hold back on the food to make it go round.

The evening was a great success, the committee were congratulated and attendees were insistent that another meeting be held. Analysis of the feedback from attendees revealed that while no-one was interested in researching the catering market, all wanted to meet others in the industry – and so, for the next 10 years, on a roughly twice-yearly basis, CIG became a forum for networking in the foodservice market.

At the beginning, the meetings attracted around 50 people, but towards the end of the 1980s, numbers at the evening events started to fall and there were moves to wind up the organisation.

However, Peter Backman felt there was something worth salvaging. He was elected chairman and invited PR guru and industry personality Naomi Arnold to join the committee. Naomi was keen to inject much-needed change and the committee was subsequently strengthened by bringing in the likes of Stewart Thompson of Single Service, Bob Cotton of Gardner Merchant, Ian Neill of Rank Restaurants and Bob Adams of Wimpy.

The newly resurgent committee decided on a more energetic marketing programme, a new name, and independence from IMRA. In order to fund the necessary working capital the influential members on the committee asked their contacts in selected supply companies for £200 each as a fighting fund. Within three weeks the kitty boasted £2,000.

The committee decided to call the group the Catering Forum and a new logo was designed. But just as it was about to be launched it came to light that Lord Forte had brought together a number of companies interesting in lobbying the government under the umbrella title – the Hospitality Forum. It seemed foolhardy to launch when there was likely to be confusion with a much better funded body.

The search for a new name was constrained by the fact that the new logo had been agreed – and there was no budget left for a redesign. Catering Arena was decided on, partly because it took up no more space in the logo than Catering Forum.

A lunch event at the Café Royal was arranged to launch the new-look group with Barry Skipper, chief executive of Booker, as guest speaker. An impressive 140 people turned up.

Over the next few years Naomi Arnold brought the networking body to life with four or five lunches a year. Early speakers included Paul Judge, who had masterminded the buyout of Premier Foods, Ken Bates, owner of Chelsea FC, and Paul Preston of McDonalds. The number of members grew.

The committee itself was boosted with the arrival of people like Andy Kemp of Universe Foods, Jill Finney of Booker Foodservice, Andrew Guy of City Centre Restaurants, and Phil Hooper of Gardner Merchant. They were instrumental in pushing for a redesigned logo, the new slogan - “Bringing the World of Hospitality together” - and a new, rather a shortened, name. Catering Arena became Arena in 1994.

The next year, at the suggestion of Bob Cotton, a new, prestigious evening lecture was launched, hosted by one of London’s iconic hotels. The inaugural Savoy Lecture was given by Francis McKay of Compass, to be followed by David Michels. Sir Michael Angus, Michael Grade, Michael Winner and many other illustrious speakers have followed.

Arena events were held in a variety of locations – on board a Thames cruiser, at the Chelsea Flower Show – and with new partners. Arena was delighted to become an initial partner of Richmond Events’ floating conference, named the Catering Forum.

Naomi stood down in 2002, and the secretaryship was handed on to a new generation of networkers. The following year Peter Backman stood down as Chairman to be followed by Andy Kemp, of 3663 First for Foodservice and then Mat Baker, of Premier Foods.

In 2008, Arena’s silver anniversary year, it is satisfying to look back over a quarter of a century of high profile speakers, prestigious venues, challenging ideas and, the purpose behind it all, successful networking opportunities. There is no way of counting the number of encounters engineered, relationships fostered and new ventures forged, but they must run into the tens of thousands. 

With companies keen to work more in partnership with complementary businesses, Arena is probably even more useful and relevant today than it was back in 1983. The organisation has remained current by reinventing itself over the years and, looking ahead to the next 25, you can be sure that it will continue to do so.