Robyn Jones: Entrepreneur who founded one of UK's most successful catering firms in her spare bedroom

Jones turned Charlton House (now CH&Co) from a spare-bedroom venture into a multi-million pound business

Jones in 2001: when she had started out 20 years earlier, banana boxes were her filing cabinets and a telephone directory her customer database (John Voos)

Robyn Jones was one of the most motivating female leaders in today’s hospitality industry, succeeding in the face of adversity. Not only did she establish a new company in a male-dominated business during the recession of the early 1990s, but she also had to deal with being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis soon after.

With determination and enthusiasm, Jones turned Charlton House (now CH&Co) from a spare-bedroom venture into a multi-million pound business with more than 140 contracts and an array of clients including Sony, Gatwick Airport, Fuller’s Brewery, the Law Society and the Foreign Office, also managing the Garden Café at Buckingham Palace. One of the UK’s largest independent food service companies, it employed almost 2,000 people and achieved a turnover of around £111m in 2014.

A former employee, David James, Director of Food Services at Bartlett Mitchell, recalled, “Robyn was single-minded and detail-driven... Her tenacity and attention to detail led to the success of one of the largest independent catering companies of the last 50 years.” Self-deprecating, receptive and a supportive boss, Jones said her secret, apart from hard work, was having a good team. Last year the firm won a contract with Historic Royal Palaces to provide catering at the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace.

“Her biggest contribution to our industry was her pioneering zeal,” said James. “Setting up a company using an enterprise allowance led by a woman was both new and brave back in the ’90s… This was uncharted territory and she prepared the way for other entrepreneurs.”

In an increasingly competitive industry, earlier this year CH&Co merged with the HCM Group (Host Catermasters Group), with Jones’ husband Tim becoming chairman of the new company. The combined business has a turnover approaching £200m and a team of 4,500 providing services to over 400 operations.

Born in Sutton Coldfield in 1961, Robyn Anne Lardge was the youngest of three daughters born to Patricia, a maths teacher, wand David, a former engineer and later a tramway museum employee. Inspired by her mother, Jones gained a passion for cooking from an early age, something she passed on to her children, Tabitha and Blake. She recalled, “I thought mum loved the food I cooked but I realised later that it wasn’t the food she loved, it was the fact that I cleaned the kitchen so well afterwards.”

After Edgbaston High School for Girls and later St Helena Grammar School, Chesterfield, due to her father’s change of job, she progressed to Buxton High Peak College, now part of Derby University, completing an OND in Hotel and Catering Management just as the recession of the mid-1980s took hold. During her studies, she worked in a variety of roles in hospitality but jobs were scarce. Her first job was as a schools dinner lady in Cambridge.

Jones gained invaluable experience working for a number of catering companies in jobs ranging from bottle washer to chef, manager and business development manager with companies such as Grandmet (Compass) Catering, Gardner Merchant and Gazeway Catering, as well as a stint with the Potato Marketing Board as a catering advisory officer.

In 1991 she was made redundant and at a low ebb, but with encouragement from Tim, whom she had been introduced to by her sister, and married in 1986, she sank her redundancy money into setting up a business with him.

Using the name Charlton House – the name of the last building in which she had worked before redundancy – bought a computer, a second-hand diesel Peugeot 205 and enrolled on an Excel training course, She also applied for an Enterprise Allowance, which brought in £50 a week. Her husband’s income as a chartered accountant also helped.

Jones cleared a spare bedroom and set up an office, using banana boxes for filing, an old wallpaper pasting table as her desk and a telephone directory for her customer database to start cold-calling. Driven by targets, she recalled thinking, “You can’t have a drink until you’ve got an appointment, you can’t have lunch until you’ve got to the next stage” – and after countless cold calls, within three months she had secured her first client, the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

By the end of its first year of trading, the company had a turnover of £350,000 and landed a contract with Sony, which remains to this day. Initially, she had planned to secure only three contracts, but soon realised that boredom would set in. Other contracts followed, including a number of Network Rail sites, and running the staff restaurant at Bupa.

Within two years, the company won the Booker Prize for Excellence as Best Young Business and Best Caterer, while Jones was earning a reputation as a tough and uncompromising businesswoman. She became in demand as a guest speaker, her advice simple: have the right attitude, work hard and the rewards will follow. She was forthright about women and their role within the sector and those wanting to establish their own businesses. “Although wrongly pigeon-holed, we have a natural attention to detail and tenacity. I think nobody in business has got it easy as a woman. You have a lot more hurdles and I have baggage, my life is riddled with guilt about my husband and kids. Women face a lot of pressures that are different to those faced by men.”

Jones won numerous awards including, in 2006, a Catey – a hospitality “Oscar” – and she was named the Credit Suisse Most Outstanding Woman in Business. Involved in a number of charities, she was a trustee of The PM Trust, which promotes the well-being of young people working in the catering industry in London, and a patron of the Association of Catering Excellence. In 2011 she was appointed OBE and in 2013 the company was given a Royal Warrant.

In her free time Jones enjoyed swimming and cooking, as well as the challenges of restoration and refurbishment, carried out with her husband on their property in Tuscany and their Wyfold home. Despite being diagnosed with lung cancer four months ago, Jones remained actively involved in many aspects of the company and the wider industry.

Robyn Anne Lardge, businesswoman: born Sutton Coldfield 20 August 1961; OBE 2011; married 1986 Tim Jones (one daughter, one son); died Wyfold, Berkshire 21 September 2015.