The exterior of Harrods on a cloudy day
The exterior of Harrods on a cloudy day

Final year UWL culinary students visit Harrods food hall and kitchens

Intro

A group of 19 final year BSc Culinary Arts Management students from the University of West London’s London Geller College of Hospitality and Tourism visited high-end London department store Harrods’ food hall on Friday 11 November, touring the busy sales floor and production kitchens. Members of the Harrods team gave them the chance to taste products including chocolates, breads and pastries, as well as answering their questions during the visit.

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BSc Future Food and Culinary Management Course Leader Ben Christopherson, who also previously worked at Harrods as a pastry chef, said,

UWL has close links with Harrods as the Head Pastry Chef Alistair Birt is an alumnus. Alistair himself did the same course as the students on the visit — he really values education and seeing his success is obviously inspiring for our students.”

Ben adds that while the scale of Harrods’ in-house production operation is very impressive, what is most remarkable is the high quality of what they are producing:

It was clearly an extremely busy time for the team, and we were very grateful that they made time to speak to us and answer our questions.”

The student group were very engaged and impressed to see Harrods’ production kitchen working at full tilt in the run up to the festive season.

Upstairs on the shop floor, everything is very elegant with cakes on display in beautiful glass cabinets. And downstairs in the kitchen, people are working away and really know their individual roles — it was kind of magical to see the team in action,”

observed final year student Ella Rowe.

Another final year student, Kayjah Thomas, added,

It was really inspiring to see how our degree and the skills we have learnt could lead us to work in such a high quality establishment. I learned a lot about the variety, skill level and complexity of the products they sell, including desserts, cakes and petit fours — I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

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