November 2014
How It All Began
We’re celebrating our 20th year in business and have just treated ourselves to a new name, a new brand identity and this shiny new website.
Our company, previously known as Gill Orde in Catering, is now called The Orde Food Company and we’ve got big plans for the future, starting with moves to expand our highly-regarded event catering services from the Scottish Borders into the Scottish central belt and the North of England.
We’re a family business and, as our new name suggests, we’re all about good food, whether its served at a major event for hundreds of people, a company lunch or a private, family occasion.
Our Mum, Gill began the business after she married our Dad, Michael and moved to the Scottish Borders. Born and raised in South Africa, Mum fell in love with cooking and entertaining at our grandparents’ house in sunny Johannesburg (we’re still proud of our Mum’s South African roots which feature in our new corporate colours). Mum moved to the UK in the late 1960s, studied at the Cordon Bleu in London and then started work at Town and Country Catering in Edinburgh. Her first job involved an all-nighter with a 6am finish at a ball for 400 guests!
It was working at a restaurant in Edinburgh’s Rose Street Lane that she first encountered our Dad, drenching his jacket with a soda syphon when someone spilt red wine on it. He became a regular visitor after that and they married in 1979. I was born the following year, with my younger brother Christian soon following. Our family lived in Kelso where Mum started catering for dinners, events and weddings from our kitchen table. Soon every room in the house was being used for event preparation, our Dad had joined the business to look after the finances and it was time to move the cooking from the home into the dedicated premises that are still our headquarters today.
It has always been a family affair, with both Christian and I enlisted to help with events from an early age. We both went our separate ways for a while with me working in the arts industry and Christian working for a leading restaurant chain in New Zealand, but we soon found ourselves back in Scotland, working for the family business where it all began. We’ve brought with us new ideas but maintain the same passion for catering that seems to be in the blood. Mum always tells us how she loves it when she works for the second generation of her long-standing clients and she’s especially proud that the second generation of her own family is now at the helm of The Orde Food Company. She knows that she has passed on the professionalism, commitment and passion that are needed to be a success and, like us, is looking forward to seeing what the next 20 years hold for our family company.
Justin Orde
Managing Director
The Orde Food Company
