Catering for Past and Present

Consumerism at museums and historic houses is big business. No visit is complete without souvenir pencils for the children and a pot of heritage jam for granny. Ye olde gifte shoppes are well established – indeed, the Duchess of Devonshire's successful and cleverly packaged shop at Chatsworth won a prize earlier this year for its marketing enterprise.

Surprisingly, though, the heritage industry has been slow to look for the profit in visitors' need for tea and buns, or something more substantial, after their quick fix of sanitised history. In the UK, there is no doubt that the National Trust has laid the marker for cultured catering. Its recipes are wholesome, if sometimes stodgy, and draw on regional and traditional specialisms.

A newer entrant to the field is Justin de Blank, who within four years has acquired the contracts for the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Museum of Mankind and the Photographic Museum at Bradford, bringing his turnover in the restaurant business to some 5 million pounds. Speaking at a recent conference on heritage catering, de Blank's comments provided some food for thought.