The Academy of Food and Wine is a not for profit Social Enterprise, membership organisation and is the Professional body for Front of House Service Personnel focusing on improving the quality of personnel and the image of Front of House Service as a meaningful career choice.

The Academy was formed some 20 years ago, in 1988 and evolved out of the old Guild of Sommeliers with a new mission to develop the level of service skills in both food and wine service in the UK. Since then the Academy has become nationally recognised as the Industry’s leading voice for raising standards and the delivery of food and wine service skills. With the growth and change in food and wine service, the role of training and its importance, is constantly in need of being redefined.

The Academy’s approach is to work closely with all the key stakeholders in the market and utilise their skills and experience where necessary for the benefit of the industry as a whole, rather than constantly trying to re-invent the wheel and duplicating effort.  We at the Academy certainly do not believe in Ego Trips!

We have formed our UK Guild of Wine Service under the Presidency of Gerard Basset, MW, MS (and most other qualifications you can think of)!  His committee is made up of the great and good of Sommellerie and they all play a key role in developing and setting new standards of wine service training.  A parallel UK Guild of Restaurant Service has also been formed more recently under the Presidency of Silvano Giraldin of Le Gavroche. These committees work as part of the Academy structure ensuring that our training programmes and events are “fit for purpose” and answer the needs of Industry.

To improve the quality of newcomers into the Industry and with the Olympics in 2012 very much in mind we have more recently developed a new introductory course – The “Licence to Work in Hospitality Service”. This programme will become part of People1st’s Sector Skills Strategy.
This entry level qualification is a 30 hour programme covering Food Service; Wine Service; Customer Care; Health & Safety, Basic Food Hygiene and interpersonal skills (appearance, interview skills etc.) and will be initially delivered and examined by top Colleges of Vocational Excellence across the country.

Successful candidates will receive no fewer than 3 certificates! A basic Food Hygiene Certificate, a further certificate endorsed by the Academy with the Institute of Hospitality and People1st and finally a jointly badged Academy/People1st electronic Skills Passport to set the successful candidate on their way to a fulfilling career in Front of House Service Skills.

Each successful candidate will also be guaranteed an interview for a job from key employers in the Industry who have signed up to the Academy’s “ACE” programme – Academy Centres of training Excellence, thus creating a constant stream of  personnel with the appropriate basic certificate of training, or Licence to Work, for quality service.

Other Academy personnel development programmes are our celebrated series of Skills Build Seminars, Tutorials and product Master Classes, all aimed at employers who wish to improve their staff knowledge by allowing them to attend these development programmes which will also be acknowledged in their personal Skills Passports.

These programmes are ideal vehicles for brand owners to present their products in front of the people who will actually be using and selling them.

So all the aforementioned are ways in how we are improving the quality of personnel within the service industry - but what about the image of Food and Wine Service and how to attract and retain people and convince them that Front of House Service is a worthwhile career?

To this end the Academy has developed and runs an ever growing series of high profile competitions and events, positioning key service personnel into the role models to which others can aspire.

Examples of these are the Academy of Food and Wine Sommelier of the Year Competition, The Restaurant Manager of the Year Award, the Sommeliers’ annual dinner and the Restaurant Managers’ annual dinner - all of which acknowledge quality performance with key industry high profilers participating.

We also run the Wine Quiz and our own Annual Academy Awards which are in the main Wine Travel Bursaries and we are currently developing a Hospitality Risings Stars Award for 2nd year CoVE students who will receive a years student membership of the Academy gratis and the winners will also receive a trophy, scholarship and work experience together with a guaranteed job interview.

The Academy also has a website and publishes an e-zine called Table Service which is packed full of Industry news and information and a web-based magazine called Front of House (www.frontofhouse.net) – both of which keep us closely in touch with our members.

The Academy only comprises three full time staff so we are as they say “Lean and Mean” and we are funded primarily by membership fees (we currently have over 1,000 members and rising); charitable donations (primarily for training development work) and most importantly of all by many Industry benefactors.

If the Academy did not exist there would be NO organisation dedicated to improving quality Front of House service.  So we need MORE support from benefactors so we can continue our work such as the development of new training; lobbying the powers to be to recognise and support front of house training on an equal scale to that of cooking; running bite sized training such as our Advantage master classes, skill builds and tutorials and devising and running exciting competitions and events.

As we always say “training is an investment not a cost”. Or to put it another way: “What is the cost to your business of not training your service staff”. Therefore we would argue it is in every employer and employees interest to support the Academy. After all, our success is also your success!

I do hope you will support our much needed work. Click here if you like to find out more about becoming a member (link to Membership form and DD form)